promo-video

name	promo-video
description	This skill should be used when the user asks to "make a sale video", "create a promo video", "build a discount/percentage-off reveal", "animate a was→now price with a strike-through", "do a Black Friday / flash-sale / clearance video", "make a promo-code reveal with a countdown", or "batch a promo template across many products". Covers the offer-announcement arc — discount reveal, price strike-through, promo code, urgency, product shot, CTA — and product+offer data → many videos.
version	0.1.0

Sale Promo Video

Make a punchy 6–15s sale spot that announces ONE offer and makes a viewer act now: the discount lands, the price drops from was→now with a strike-through, the promo code and deadline read clean, the CTA closes. This is the offer announcement — not a feature ad, not a testimonial. Energy, accurate numbers, urgency.

When to use

• Discount / percentage-off reveals ("40% OFF", "$20 off").
• was→now price drops with an animated strike-through.
• Black Friday / flash sale / clearance / launch-week / seasonal spots.
• Promo-code reveals with a deadline or countdown.
• One promo template rendered across many products/offers (price table → N videos).

For performance-ad variants use ad-creative-video; for customer quotes use testimonial-video. Stay on the offer.

The arc

A sale spot is short and ordered. Each beat does one job; never stack two.

Beat	Job	Budget (of 10s)
Hook	Brand + occasion ("BLACK FRIDAY") snaps in	0–1.5s
Discount reveal	The big number lands ("40% OFF")	1.5–4s
was→now	Old price strikes through, new price counts down	4–7s
Product	One hero shot, the thing on offer	(under price, 4–8s)
Code + urgency	Promo code + deadline, held still	7–9s
CTA	"SHOP NOW" + URL, clean hold	9–10s

Scale tighter for 6s (cut the product beat) or looser for 15s (let each beat breathe). Never lengthen the hook.

Two non-negotiable rules

1. The number is the message — keep it exact. Prices and percentages must be computed, never typed twice. Derive now and the % off from was and the discount so they can't disagree. A promo video that shows the wrong price is worse than no video. Round currency to cents, format with Intl.NumberFormat, and use tabular-nums so digits don't jitter mid-count.
2. One offer, one focus per frame. A single discount, a single code, a single CTA. Competing offers kill the urgency. If there are two deals, make two videos.

The signature move: was→now with a strike-through

Three things animate together and must stay in sync: the strike-through line draws across the old price, the new price counts down to its final value, and a micro-overshoot punctuates the landing. Drive all three from useCurrentFrame() — never a CSS transition or a JS timer — so a server render never desyncs.

import { useCurrentFrame, interpolate, spring, useVideoConfig } from "remotion";

const usd = new Intl.NumberFormat("en-US", { style: "currency", currency: "USD" });

export const PriceDrop = ({ was = 79.0, now = 47.4, startAt = 30 }) => {
  const frame = useCurrentFrame();
  const { fps } = useVideoConfig();
  const f = frame - startAt;

  // 1. strike-through line draws L→R over ~0.4s
  const strike = interpolate(f, [0, 12], [0, 100], { extrapolateLeft: "clamp", extrapolateRight: "clamp" });
  // 2. new price counts from `was` down to `now`, eased
  const t = spring({ frame: f - 8, fps, config: { damping: 18, mass: 0.6 } });
  const shown = was + (now - was) * t;
  // 3. landing pop on the final value
  const pop = interpolate(t, [0.9, ], [, ], { : , :  });

   (
    
  );
};

Order matters: strike the old price first, then drop the new one. Striking and counting at the same instant reads as a glitch. See references/promo-components.md for the full composition (discount badge, code reveal, countdown, CTA) wired to props.

Discount reveal & promo code

The percentage is the loudest element on screen — bigger than the brand, bigger than the product. Compute it; don't type it.

const pct = Math.round((1 - now / was) * 100);   // 79 → 47.4  ⇒  40
const off = was - now;                            // for "$X off" framing

Choose the framing by price: percentage for higher-priced items ("40% OFF" beats "$32 off"), a flat amount for low-priced items ("$5 off" beats "8% off"). Reveal the code as a tappable-looking chip (mono font, dashed border, light background) and hold it still — a moving code can't be read or screenshotted. Codes that encode urgency convert better: FLASH40, TODAY20, LASTCHANCE.

Urgency that's honest

Urgency lifts conversion only when it's real. Show a concrete deadline ("Ends Sun 11:59pm") or a live-looking countdown — never a fake timer. Viewers need ~2s to read a time-sensitive offer, so hold the deadline beat; don't flash it. Keep the countdown on its own line near the code, not racing the price.

// frame → mm:ss remaining, derived from a deadline prop (deterministic per frame)
const remaining = Math.max(0, deadlineSec - frame / fps);
const mm = String(Math.floor(remaining / 60)).padStart(2, "0");
const ss = String(Math.floor(remaining % 60)).padStart(2, "0");

Motion language: energetic, not chaotic

Sale spots earn their punch from snappy, consistent motion: fast spring entrances (damping ~12, overshoot), hard cuts on accents, one accent color for savings (a hot red/green) reused everywhere. Keep ONE enter curve across all beats so speed reads as confidence. Avoid drift/parallax that softens urgency. Land the discount reveal on the strongest audio beat if scored.

Template × data — many products, one template

The payoff of code-driven promos: a price/offer table renders a video per product, with prices guaranteed accurate because they come from the data, not a designer retyping. Make the offer an input prop; hardcode nothing.

// one composition, different offer → different video
export const Promo = ({ offer }) => { /* reads offer.was/now/code/deadline/img — no constants */ };

# render the promo for every offer row in /offers
for f in offers/*.json; do
  npx remotion render Promo "out/$(basename "$f" .json).mp4" --props="$f"
done

Validate each row before render (now < was, code present, image exists) so a bad row fails loud instead of shipping a wrong price. Keep colors/fonts/CTA in one theme object so 200 promos stay brand-locked and only the numbers change. See references/promo-components.md for the offer schema, validation, and batch script.

Output checklist

• now and % off are computed from was — never typed twice; rounded and Intl.NumberFormat-formatted with tabular-nums.
• Strike draws first, new price drops second; both pure functions of useCurrentFrame().
• One offer, one code, one CTA per video; discount is the loudest element.
• Urgency is a real deadline/countdown, held ≥2s, not a fake flashing timer.
• One enter curve and one savings accent color across all beats.
• Offer is an input prop; each data row is validated (now < was) before batch render.

Deliver & verify (rendered stills → MP4)

Packaged helper (scripts/): tile your stills with scripts/contact-sheet.sh sheet.png f-hook.png f-mid.png f-end.png, then assert the encode with scripts/probe-mp4.sh out.mp4 [WxH] [fps]. See scripts/README.md.

This is heavy-tier: the deliverable is an MP4, not a live page. A promo carries exact money — the verify pass is mostly are the numbers right and is the product image actually there.

Output contract:

• A Remotion project with the composition registered (<Composition> + zod schema + defaultProps); discount reveal, strike-through, count-down and CTA all pure functions of useCurrentFrame() (no CSS transitions, timers, Date.now()).
• Product image loaded via staticFile(), gated with delayRender/continueRender so the hero shot (and brand font) is present before the frame renders — now/% off computed from was, never typed twice.
• Deliverable = the rendered out/*.mp4 plus the project (re-render per offer row).

Verify loop — render stills → inspect → encode. Cheap PNGs first, video only once the numbers and image are right.

# Frame-exact stills WITH THE OFFER PROPS YOU'LL SHIP, not defaultProps
npx remotion still Promo out/f-discount.png --frame=60  --props=offer.json   # "40% OFF" big number landed
npx remotion still Promo out/f-price.png    --frame=120 --props=offer.json   # was struck through, now settled
npx remotion still Promo out/f-cta.png      --frame=270 --props=offer.json   # code + deadline + CTA end-card
# end frame = durationInFrames - 1 (npx remotion compositions reads it)

Inspect each PNG for fidelity (exact was/now/% off; was→now strike-through drawn over the old price; promo code spelled right; product image is the right one) AND artifacts (image blank/not loaded, digits jittering or wrong, price overflow/off-canvas, strike on the wrong line, CTA/code outside the title-safe area, wrong aspect/letterboxing).

# Only after stills are clean:
npx remotion render Promo out/promo.mp4 --props=offer.json
npx remotion render Promo out/promo.gif --props=offer.json --codec=gif   # README first-screen proof

Batch (one template, many products): when rendering the price table → N videos, verify ONE representative offer's props via stills before batch-rendering the catalog — a wrong price or blank image caught once beats shipping it N times.

Before you finish:

1. Stills render cleanly at discount / price / CTA — no errors, product image actually loaded (not blank).
2. was/now/% off are exact (computed from was); strike-through over the old price, new price settled, code/deadline correct.
3. All motion frame-driven — no CSS transitions / timers / Date.now() / Math.random().
4. The shipped offer props render correctly, not just defaultProps.
5. Full MP4 encoded and plays; (optional) GIF rendered for the README.

Reference files

• references/promo-components.md — a complete runnable Remotion promo composition driven by an offer prop: discount badge, was→now strike-through + count-down, promo-code chip, live countdown, and CTA end-card — plus the offer schema, per-row validation, the theme object, and the template×data batch render script for N products.