Record a product demo that works in an ad

Some formats open with a hook — a creator saying it, or words over a clip — and then show the product itself. That second part is yours to film. Nothing generated can stand in for it: a video model asked to draw an app draws a plausible fake, and a product shown wrong is worse than one not shown.

The good news is that the bar is low. A demo for a short ad is not a tutorial. It is the one moment where someone gets what the thing does, filmed plainly, and over before anyone is bored.

One action, start to finish, in ten to fifteen seconds. Open the app and do the thing. Pour it, squeeze it, put it on. Type the question and show the answer. Pick the single moment a friend would lean in at, and film only that.

End on the payoff: the result on screen, the finished thing, the reaction. The last second is what people remember, so do not end mid-action.

Use real data and the real product. A test account full of "Lorem ipsum", a placeholder photo or a label turned away all read as fake on a phone screen, and viewers are quicker at spotting that than you would think.

1. Turn on Do Not Disturb so no banner lands over the screen.
2. Close other apps, and turn off any high-dynamic-range or "smart" brightness setting — it makes recordings pulse.
3. Start the screen recorder (on iPhone: Control Centre → Screen Recording; on Android: Quick Settings → Screen record) before opening the app, so the recording begins on the home screen.
4. Open the app with one tap, go straight to the feature, do the action, stop on the result.
5. Do three takes. Keep the one with no hesitation.

A screen recording is already 9:16, so it needs nothing else.

Film the screen with your phone, held upright, rather than recording the desktop: a real hand on a real keyboard reads as a person using it, and a flat desktop capture reads as a slide.

• Prop the phone on something steady, a little off to one side so the screen is not a mirror.
• Zoom the browser to 125–150% so the words survive being shrunk to a phone.
• Close every other tab, hide the bookmarks bar, and clear the desktop.
• Light the room, not the screen. Daylight from a window behind you washes the screen out; from the side is right.
• Move the cursor slowly and pause for a beat on each screen that matters.

• One light source, daylight if you can, and the product filling the frame.
• Hands in shot. A product used reads as real; a product rotating on its own reads as a render.
• Show the before and the after if the product has one: the stain, the stain gone.
• Keep the camera still or move it slowly and once. Shaky handheld footage is the fastest way to lose a viewer.

On the project's Assemble step, under Your demo video, upload the file (a video or a screenshot) and pick where it plays:

• After the hook — the creator says the hook to camera, then your demo plays whole. Right for a Speaking Hook & Demo.
• Behind the creator — your demo fills the frame and the creator talks small in the corner for the whole ad. Right for a Talking Head Green Screen, and for a Notes list (upload a screenshot of it).

For the text-over-clip formats, the maker has the same slot: the words play over the clip, then your demo.

A demo longer than twenty seconds is cut at twenty in the "after" layout. Shorter is better.

• Under 15 seconds, one action, ends on the result.
• Upright, 9:16, or at least not a wide landscape clip (a landscape recording is shown fitted on a blurred copy of itself; it works, but it is small).
• Real data, real product, no placeholder anything.
• No music under it. The ad has its own bed; a demo with a song on it fights the voice.

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