# Video Storytelling

Design and build the visual layer of a long-form talking-head video as one persistent...

- Repository: https://github.com/nateherkai/herk-edit-kit (2482 stars)
- Category: Design
- License: see repository
- Last updated: 2026-10-14
- Runs scripts: yes, review before use

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add nateherkai/herk-edit-kit --skill video-storytelling -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add nateherkai/herk-edit-kit --skill video-storytelling -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add nateherkai/herk-edit-kit --skill video-storytelling -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add nateherkai/herk-edit-kit --skill video-storytelling -g -a gemini-cli -y`

## Description

Design and build the visual layer of a long-form talking-head video as one persistent world the camera moves through, instead of a sequence of separate graphics. Use when asked to edit a video, add motion graphics, design the visuals for a script, plan an edit, or fix an edit judged confusing, text-heavy, hard to follow, or "clearly made by an AI". Covers the persistent world, camera grammar, the spotlight rule, spatial open loops, ornament and token discipline, transcript timing, and the verification gates.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Video storytelling

How to build the visual layer of a long-form video so a viewer is still oriented
at minute nine. Applies to any talking-head video with a script: a news take, a
single-topic deep dive, a comparison, a tutorial, a listicle.

The failure this replaces is scene-thinking. A new graphic every few seconds
makes the viewer restart comprehension every few seconds, and no individual
graphic is at fault, which is why the feedback comes back as the vague
"confusing" or "too much going on" rather than as a specific defect.

For a neutral practice beat sheet, read `docs/STORYTELLING-WORKBOOK.md` at the
repository root. The reusable design system is in this skill's
`reference/design-system.md`; the worked open-loop geometry is in
`reference/patterns/wall-of-slots/`. Private source videos are not required.

This is not `hyperframes-video-beats`. That skill places overlay cards on top of
a talking head. This one designs the thing the video is *about*.

## 1 · The four principles

### One persistent world

The video lives in a single space, and it never resets. Everything the viewer has
already seen still exists where they left it, and new material is added to it
rather than replacing it. An element, once drawn, is never redrawn, moved, or
relabelled.

Everything else in this skill depends on that. The camera has nowhere to go if
the space keeps changing, a spotlight means nothing if there is nothing else on
screen, and an open loop cannot stay open in a world that resets.

The world also has to be worth staying in, so decide the spatial grammar before
building anything and hold it for the whole runtime. In the reference build:
left to right is toward the outcome, up is toward a human and is the only warm
thing on screen, down is into a system of record. A viewer who learns that in the
first two minutes reads the rest of the video for free.

The rest: https://github.com/nateherkai/herk-edit-kit/blob/HEAD/.agents/skills/video-storytelling/SKILL.md