---
title: "How to add a breaking news banner with Claude (tested prompt and script)"
description: "A red \"BREAKING NEWS\" tag and a white \"SERUM SELLS OUT IN 48 HOURS\" bar slide in from the left above a navy ticker scrolling the latest updates. Install one skill and ask Claude Code, or run the Python script we tested yourself."
url: https://www.recharm.com/effects/breaking-news-banner
---

# How to add a breaking news banner with Claude

A red "BREAKING NEWS" tag and a white "SERUM SELLS OUT IN 48 HOURS" bar slide in from the left above a navy ticker scrolling the latest updates.

Made by the script on this page, from our own test clip.

## Get this effect

1. ### Switch to Code in your [Claude Desktop App](https://claude.com/download)

2. ### Install the skill (once)

   ```
   Install the Recharm video effects skill: download https://recharm-growth-staging.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/website/downloads/recharm-video-effects.zip and unzip it into ~/.claude/skills
   ```

3. ### Ask for the effect

   ```
   Add a breaking news banner to input.mp4
   Label: BREAKING NEWS
   Headline: SERUM SELLS OUT IN 48 HOURS
   Ticker: DERMATOLOGISTS REACT  •  RESTOCK DROPS FRIDAY  •  
   ```

## Several videos, several effects, one ask

Put your clips in the folder, mention them with @, and ask for everything at once. Claude runs one tested script after another on each clip, then joins them.

Add a breaking news banner to **@clip1.mp4**, put a sale badge on **@clip2.mp4**, give **@clip3.mp4** a VHS look, then join all three with crossfades.

## Settings you can change

Ask Claude to change any of these, or edit them at the top of the script.

| Setting    | Default                                         | What it does                                        |
| ---------- | ----------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------- |
| `LABEL`    | `BREAKING NEWS`                                 | Text on the red tag.                                |
| `HEADLINE` | `SERUM SELLS OUT IN 48 HOURS`                   | Text on the white bar.                              |
| `TICKER`   | `DERMATOLOGISTS REACT • RESTOCK DROPS FRIDAY •` | Text that scrolls along the bottom strip, repeated. |
| `START`    | `0.5`                                           | Second the banner starts sliding in.                |
| `SLIDE`    | `0.4`                                           | Seconds each part takes to slide in.                |
| `Y`        | `0.70`                                          | Top of the red tag, as a share of the frame height. |
| `RED`      | `(215, 25, 35)`                                 | Tag color.                                          |
| `NAVY`     | `(18, 22, 48)`                                  | Ticker strip color.                                 |
| `SPEED`    | `0.25`                                          | Ticker scroll speed, in frame widths per second.    |

## Without the skill

Don’t want to install the skill? Paste this prompt into Claude Code and Claude writes the script itself.

```
Add a breaking news banner to input.mp4 (540x960). Stack three parts on the left, starting 70% down the frame and 2% in from the left edge: a red (215, 25, 35) tag 5.5% of the frame height tall reading "BREAKING NEWS" in white bold (text 5.8% of the frame width high, 2.5% of the width of padding each side); directly under it a white bar 96% of the frame width and 8.5% of the height tall with "SERUM SELLS OUT IN 48 HOURS" in near-black (15, 15, 20) bold, left-aligned with 3% padding and as large as fits up to 7% of the width; and directly under that a full-width navy (18, 22, 48) ticker strip 4% of the height tall with "DERMATOLOGISTS REACT  •  RESTOCK DROPS FRIDAY  •  " repeated in white bold (3.8% of the width), scrolling left at 135 pixels a second with the first letter at the strip's left edge at 0.5 seconds. Nothing shows before 0.5 seconds. The tag slides in from off the left edge from 0.5 to 0.9 seconds, the white bar from 0.65 to 1.05 seconds, and the ticker strip slides in from the right edge from 0.8 to 1.2 seconds, each easing out (fast, then gentle as it lands). The banner stays to the end. Use Python with Pillow to draw it and ffmpeg to put it on the video (don't rely on ffmpeg's drawtext filter), keep the audio, and save it as output.mp4.
```

## Run it without Claude

This is the exact script we tested. Save it as `breaking-news-banner.py` and run:

```
python3 breaking-news-banner.py input.mp4 output.mp4
```

```
#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""Breaking news banner: a red BREAKING NEWS label and a white headline bar slide in from the left above a scrolling ticker.

Usage: python3 breaking-news-banner.py input.mp4 output.mp4
Needs ffmpeg and Pillow (pip install pillow).
"""
import json
import math
import subprocess
import sys
from pathlib import Path

from PIL import Image, ImageDraw, ImageFont

LABEL = "BREAKING NEWS"
HEADLINE = "SERUM SELLS OUT IN 48 HOURS"
TICKER = "DERMATOLOGISTS REACT  •  RESTOCK DROPS FRIDAY  •  "
START = 0.5              # second the banner starts sliding in
SLIDE = 0.4              # seconds each part takes to slide in
Y = 0.70                 # top of the red label (0 = top, 1 = bottom)
RED = (215, 25, 35)      # label color
NAVY = (18, 22, 48)      # ticker strip color
SPEED = 0.25             # ticker scroll, in frame widths per second
FONTS = ["/System/Library/Fonts/Supplemental/Arial Bold.ttf",     # macOS
         "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf",  # Linux
         "C:/Windows/Fonts/arialbd.ttf"]                          # Windows
FONT_FILE = next((f for f in FONTS if Path(f).exists()), None) or sys.exit("No bold font found: add one to FONTS")

def label():
    font = ImageFont.truetype(FONT_FILE, round(w * 0.058))
    pad = round(w * 0.025)
    img = Image.new("RGBA", (round(font.getlength(LABEL)) + 2 * pad, round(h * 0.055)), RED)
    ImageDraw.Draw(img).text((pad, img.height / 2), LABEL, font=font, anchor="lm", fill="white")
    return img

def headline():
    width = round(w * 0.96)
    size = round(w * 0.07)
    while ImageFont.truetype(FONT_FILE, size).getlength(HEADLINE) > width - w * 0.06:
        size -= 1
    img = Image.new("RGBA", (width, round(h * 0.085)), "white")
    ImageDraw.Draw(img).text((round(w * 0.03), img.height / 2), HEADLINE,
                             font=ImageFont.truetype(FONT_FILE, size), anchor="lm", fill=(15, 15, 20))
    return img

def ticker_strip():
    """The ticker text repeated to twice the frame width, so it can scroll round without a gap."""
    font = ImageFont.truetype(FONT_FILE, round(w * 0.038))
    loop = round(font.getlength(TICKER))
    img = Image.new("RGBA", (loop * (math.ceil(w / loop) + 1), round(h * 0.04)), NAVY)
    draw = ImageDraw.Draw(img)
    for i in range(img.width // loop):
        draw.text((i * loop, img.height / 2), TICKER, font=font, anchor="lm", fill="white")
    return img, loop

def slide(t, start):
    """0 before start, easing to 1 over SLIDE seconds: fast at first, gentle as it lands."""
    p = min(max((t - start) / SLIDE, 0), 1)
    return 1 - (1 - p) ** 3

def overlay(t):
    img = Image.new("RGBA", (w, h))
    if t < START:
        return img
    top = round(h * Y)
    margin = round(w * 0.02)
    p = slide(t, START + 0.15)
    img.paste(bar, (round(-bar.width + (bar.width + margin) * p), top + tag.height))
    p = slide(t, START)
    img.paste(tag, (round(-tag.width + (tag.width + margin) * p), top))
    scroll = round((t - START) * SPEED * w) % loop
    strip = ticker.crop((scroll, 0, scroll + w, ticker.height))
    img.paste(strip, (round(w * (1 - slide(t, START + 0.3))), top + tag.height + bar.height))
    return img

def probe(path):
    info = json.loads(subprocess.check_output(["ffprobe", "-v", "error", "-select_streams", "v:0", "-show_entries",
                                               "stream=width,height,r_frame_rate:format=duration", "-of", "json", path]))
    s = info["streams"][0]
    num, den = s["r_frame_rate"].split("/")
    return s["width"], s["height"], s["r_frame_rate"], float(num) / float(den), float(info["format"]["duration"])

def render(src, out):
    """Draw overlay(t) on every frame of src and save to out, keeping the audio."""
    ff = subprocess.Popen(["ffmpeg", "-y", "-v", "error", "-i", src,
                           "-f", "rawvideo", "-pix_fmt", "rgba", "-s", f"{w}x{h}", "-r", rate, "-i", "-",
                           "-filter_complex", "[0:v][1:v]overlay=shortest=1,format=yuv420p[v]",
                           "-map", "[v]", "-map", "0:a?", "-c:v", "libx264", "-crf", "18", "-c:a", "copy", out],
                          stdin=subprocess.PIPE)
    for i in range(math.ceil(duration * fps)):
        ff.stdin.write(overlay(i / fps).tobytes())
    ff.stdin.close()
    if ff.wait():
        sys.exit("ffmpeg failed")

src, out = sys.argv[1:3]
w, h, rate, fps, duration = probe(src)
tag, bar = label(), headline()
ticker, loop = ticker_strip()
render(src, out)
```

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