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Install the skill (once)
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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/skillsAsk for the effect
Add a headline bar to input.mp4 Text: POV: you finally found a serum that works
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 headline bar 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 |
|---|---|---|
TEXT | POV: you finally found a serum that works | The headline. |
SIZE | 0.06 | Text height as a share of the frame width. |
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Don’t want to install the skill? Paste this prompt into Claude Code and Claude writes the script itself.
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Add a headline bar to input.mp4: a solid black band across the top of the frame with "POV: you finally found a serum that works" in white bold, centered and wrapped to fit, on screen the whole time. 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 headline-bar.py and run:
python3 headline-bar.py input.mp4 output.mp4Show the script
#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""Headline bar: a solid black band across the top of the frame with a white headline in it, on screen the whole time.
Usage: python3 headline-bar.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
TEXT = "POV: you finally found a serum that works"
SIZE = 0.06 # text height as a share of the frame width
PAD = 0.04 # space around the text, as a share of the frame width
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 wrap(text, font, width):
lines, line = [], ""
for word in text.split():
trial = f"{line} {word}".strip()
if font.getlength(trial) <= width or not line:
line = trial
else:
lines.append(line)
line = word
return lines + [line]
def bar():
font = ImageFont.truetype(FONT_FILE, round(w * SIZE))
pad = round(w * PAD)
lines = wrap(TEXT, font, w - 2 * pad)
step = round(font.size * 1.25)
img = Image.new("RGBA", (w, 2 * pad + step * len(lines)), "black")
draw = ImageDraw.Draw(img)
for i, line in enumerate(lines):
draw.text((w / 2, pad + step * i + step / 2), line, font=font, anchor="mm", fill="white")
return img
def overlay(t):
return banner
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)
banner = Image.new("RGBA", (w, h))
banner.paste(bar(), (0, 0))
render(src, out)





