How I AI - “Claude cuts my TikTok”: How this creator is scaling video with AI | Brooke Lacey

0:00No timeline, no project file, no editor. You figured out a way to use cloud code to encode editing. That really fits the form, which is short form content. The files in the computer, it doesn't upload anywhere. The only thing that's happening is the instructions are being pulled and it's doing all of the things. It's just running the computer. And not only that, but it's listening and goes, oh, I just heard you say, cut that out. And then it also was like.

0:27You repeated this a couple of times, and I took the one that was the best cadence. And I was like, what? And what just happened is Claude descended upon our videos and cut them. He just pulled up the raw video. There was a really well-clipped vertical short form video, perfect to TikTok cadence, and you did it with no hands. So literally, I do everything in the terminal. I like it better. It just has way more...

0:55access to everything. So let's say, okay, my dude, I'm ready to show the audience the magic. And look, no hands. This is probably the 15th or 16th time in the last six months that I literally like fell to the floor. What just happened?

1:16Welcome back to How I AI. I'm Claire Vo, product leader and AI obsessive here on a mission to help you build better with these new tools. Today we have Brooke Lacey and she is going to walk us through her clawed code for video editing flow.

1:31She has over 200,000 followers on TikTok, and she's figured out how to get Claude to edit her videos to be funny and have the right jump cuts, create scripts for new content, and generally understand her cadence, her vibe, and her style. Let's get to it. This episode is brought to you by Firecrawl, which gives your AI agents data from the web and beyond.

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2:17Firecrawl is building the library for super intelligence, bringing more of the world's knowledge into the tools you already use. Go to firecrawl.dev slash how I AI to get started. Brooke, thanks for joining How I AI. I'm so excited. I think that you know, but I would like your audience to know that I'm like the biggest fangirl. I really love what you do. And I'm just so excited to be here.

2:46Well, I love what what you do and we're going to talk about why I got you on this podcast, which is you have a clawed code video editing social empire building Stack that I I need to steal because before we got on we were talking about how a little while ago, I was like, on my way to being a big deal on TikTok, and then a girl gets tired, like a girl gets tired of all the short form. And I loved when I saw you posting about your system, about how Quad Code helps you produce not just like slop content, but actually really great high quality short form, which is its own special little art.

3:31dive us into what were you trying to solve? What were you trying to do? And how did you figure out that cloud was going to help you on the way? Let me just start this, like video, short form video and like, like little live stream stuff has not, I've been doing that for a long time, like before Facebook even had, you know, video stuff, I was on the news, like video content is not new for me. The short form was kind of a big deal when I got on TikTok like 2020 and The trick there is those jump cuts. They're very difficult. I do a lot of funny stuff. I was known for Ogling shortlist lumberjacks and like doing some funny stuff and then also, you know, teaching tech. But it's not funny unless you are jumped at the very exact moment. And let me tell you, that is tedious. I tried teaching video editors like how to do it and how I wanted it and it just never

4:28it never worked the way I needed it to. Like they got to be, you know, the facial expressions, this is actually how I talk in real life. And you got to like, you know, cut it correctly. So I've just always done it myself. And it would take hours out of my day just to make one video. Even though my videos on TikTok, you know, we were talking about earlier, if you go look at them, it's just my face, my entire TikTok feed.

4:55is my face. You're welcome for people just so you know. It's a rabbit hole but also you're welcome. And even though there's some videos that I'm like literally just sitting in my car no makeup on and have you know hundreds of thousands of views you still have to get it correct so that it even looks natural. So all that being said I had kind of stopped posting for the last year and was like, I'm obsessed with Twitter. I had a viral video, this women and web three panel video, which also goes with women in tech. Like it's the most absurd thing to be like, be on a panel to talk about being a woman in tech on a panel. And you're like, what? So that particular video was.

5:43About a minute and five seconds and my friends were like it's not funny So I cut it to about 55 seconds and had those jump cuts really precise and that's what was funny So and it was a two person so I do some videos are two person that takes forever That being said so now I'm doing all of this other I'm not doing like videos for other brands. I have my own products. I need to do my own videos because What do you know UGC content doesn't do as well as this face So I have to do all the videos for the app that I built That took off that I didn't even like realize is going to take off So I needed I needed long form to then be able to upload and cut up So I went outside. I thought for some reason being outside would be better light if it was not I probably did 25 to 30 minutes of just

6:42You know, I didn't it was just all the whole thing didn't cut it up didn't stop the video was just all of it And then I'd be like, ah, no cut that out meaning I was saying it to me and Then I came in it was like all right. Let's just fuck around to find out so I was like, okay I'm a new Mac user I used to just be a PC user. I'm like, I gotta make get this video up into Google and then you know download it and Thank God for airdrop. So I'm just like airdrop to the computer which I think is silly being a tech person, not having known like we should, you know, I should be a Mac person, but I just never was. So that was cool for me. And then it just was on the computer and I go into cloud code and was like, let's see what you got, my dude. And said, and it just loaded. Okay, so TLDR is that it just used the boring tools that are already on our computers.

7:38FFM peg whisper Python like it didn't upload the video anywhere It's just the files are in the computer if I could like get the gift of Zoolander I say it all the time like the files in the computer it doesn't upload anywhere the only thing that's happening is the instructions are being pulled and It's doing all of the things. It's just running the computer the files in the computer and all of a sudden it's like pop and then it opens the video and I'm like what and then not only that but it's listening and goes oh I just heard you say cut that out and then it also was like you repeated this a couple of times and I took the one that was the best cadence and I was like what what did you do?

8:31And I mean, sat back, this is probably the 15th or 16th time in the last six months that I literally like fell to the floor. Like I'm so dramatic anyway, but I was like, what just happened? Like what? And what just happened is Claude descended upon our videos and cut them. So let's show it because. Okay.

8:53I have been doing this a little bit, but I think you have a much better system than me. So I'm just going to sit here and learn it. So show us. And again, it's only going to be fun because of the way I'm talking about it, because it's really, really friggin boring. Like it's just boring. But of course, you and I think it's amazing and hopefully your audience too. But yeah. Yes. This is the How I AI Vibe. We will make your markdown and Python files feel like the most exciting thing. Your life is about to get so much better y'all. Okay. I love you.

9:23All right. Here we go. So how does it work? Okay. So literally I do everything in the terminal. I have for a long time. I like it better. It just has way more access to everything in my opinion. So let's say, okay, my dude, I'm ready to show the audience the magic. Go again.

9:51And did you pre-populate this with a skill or with a prompt? Oh. And look, no hands. Okay, so this one is like the non-edited. I'm so dumb. Sorry. Okay, this is what it's like to be a creator. Everyone at work talks about AI as if you're already supposed to know how to use it. And you just nod along, smile and nod, boys. Everyone at work talks about AI as if you're already supposed to know how to use it. It's an app I built called Jayla. The first three are free. It's Jayla.app. I'll see you in there. Wait. Quick pause. Okay, so for people that are listening not watching, she said, okay, my dude, let's go. I'm presuming that called some sort of skill on the back and maybe you can walk us through exactly how the prompt works.

10:40It just pulled up the raw video and then approximately four seconds later, there was a really well clipped vertical short form video with captions, with jump cuts, with a little zoom when you made a funny face. Perfect to TikTok cadence. And you did it with no hands. Okay, so let's look at what it did. You want to walk us through?

11:06Yeah. I said, walk us through what you're doing. You're live online, my guy. And it said one phone take, which is what I was telling you before, was actually the one that I showed you. Let's just see. This one right here, see my mouse. That was the rough cut. And I was in my co-workspace, which I love because you can get all kinds of different backgrounds. I liked this because it had this side wall that he could put.

11:35Well, I thought me. I thought, oh, I can put, you know, like graphics or whatever. And filmed it with my phone, airdropped it to the MacBook, got myself a new fancy MacBook. And then this is what happened. And so...

11:52He's telling us, one phone take, five minutes of me talking, went in on the left. Here's what the chain did in the 15 seconds it ran. Find the speech. So silence detection marks where she's talking. Word timing from whisper sharpens each edge because neither alone can place a cut cleanly. So the word timing from the tool whisper sharpens each edge. Like I was telling you earlier off camera.

12:21for your audience, it has to hit right after that word ends, right? We don't think about that when we're talking, like right there, the G that it talking, like the sound ends before you think it does. And then it tracked my face. So every frame, it's just like taking a picture every frame, just like film. So the crop follows her, follows me, and each cut gets a shot size.

12:51wide, mid and close because I was asking it to do all the video sizes. This is so smart. Yeah. Then place the cuts. So eight of them picked from its own TSV file. Each row is a start and end a shot size, which I could show you that file, but it's literally just cut, you know, it's just a folder or it's just a, yeah. It's got every row has a start and end a shot size, a label. That file is the whole edit. So the edit.

13:20In video editing, I didn't actually know this, but I was telling my friend, there's a thing called the edit is text. And that just means that you can type it out and it'll edit. Claude kept telling me that and I was like, okay, so the file is the whole edit. So drop in the app screens. I literally just said, go find the... By the way, my app is not called Jail anymore. It's called Zosha. I had to rename it.

13:46So you'll see the old name on there, but I went inside, find my branding info and graphics, put together a graphic to, and the app screen, take a screenshot, open up the simulator, take a screenshot of the app, and use that to put into this video. So 40 of the 441 frames.

14:14That's just blowing my mind. Carry a screen of the app at the moments the cut list says. So as I'm saying it, it pops up. Cards on the wall beside her. So her right edge is measured per cut off the rendered footage. So the cards sit in that real empty wall, sized to it. And then it does captions one word at a time. 57 words, white with a black outline, because I'm just like, hey, do.

14:42white with a black outline, each held until the next arrives. I didn't tell it to do that. He decided that those captions need, people don't realize that's how captions are generated is that the word has to stay there until the next sentence. So he knew not to go further than that. And then check sync. So 441 frames at 30 FPS, audio and video zero milliseconds apart.

15:11The finished 15 second vertical ad is playing on the right. No timeline, no project file, no editor, and because the whole edit is a text file, the same command makes the 30 and 60 and the landscape versions from the same take. Have you ever asked your favorite AI partner whether what you're building is good or safe or trustworthy? Did you believe what it told you?

15:35Oros connects your team to a network of over 7.6 million verified human experts. The specialists who bring the taste, judgment, and nuance your evals can't capture. So you can be sure that what you're building is actually good and good for people. Oros, the human network behind AI. Get started today at orosglobal.com slash how I AI. Okay, just I'm like, dear Claude, make a funny video. And it doesn't work because of exactly what you're talking about. I also just have to empathize as a TikTok girlie. Do you know how often I'm sitting in cat cut being like, cut it right, like right here, like right? Because I know what funny sounds like. But just a couple of things that I want people to know is you've actually really structured what a good short form edit looks like. Jump cuts between times.

16:31clip to words. I love this idea of three frames. I was like, just zoom in when it's funny. But I like this idea of like frame wide and close cuts, because if you all don't know, you got to do like this when you're on TikTok. And then the auto captions and what people don't understand is that can all run with existing tools and files on your computer really well. But I I have to imagine this took some zhuzhing to get right because I think I'm a smart cookie and I have not nailed it. So show us how you use your existing TikTok corpus to actually like learn how to do this. And I do, I gotta tell your audience watching, listening. I know I said it before, but video content is not new to me. So I'm not a video editor. It was just...

17:28by way of I had to do it because I was starting to do content and I realized how important social media content is even for old people. So I had to learn. This is not just something that I just like, oh, I picked up, you know, you do have to have some capacity just like, you know, being a developer just make this just makes you a better developer. So you do have to learn like the basics of video editing just so everyone knows that like I've been doing short form for a really long time. So I was able to orchestrate Claude.

17:58the way that I would actually do it, if that makes sense. So the thing with TikTok, first of all, on a technical level, is that their algorithm, their backend software, their backend, whatever, is so precise that you can't scrape it. You can't have an AI, even with their API. Just scraping it for data or like doing multiple downloads, doesn't like it. But if you're already logged in, which I'll show you this since I'm logged in, then I can go down here and say, okay, let's show them the TikTok corpus. I am logged in and use the video in the Google Drive like you did before so that you can read the comments.

18:55and use those comments to put together new content ideas based on what they said. So which one did it pull? I think it pulled this one. Yeah. So this was the first video I did after I created the app, the JLA app, which is a free app.

19:19to learn AI. At first, I was calling it the dual lingo of learning AI, but that's silly. But that's what I thought in my head. And so, again, it's a free app. And I was so excited that, like, I got it in the app store and all that. But what was great, and I'm going to... I've been in tech for 25 years, and I've never been this scared for people. An AI founder just told 40 million people on Twitter...

19:43Okay, so what I'm saying in the video is that Andre Carpathi quote that it was like, you know, he doesn't code anymore. He just like doesn't even know how to keep up. That was actually one of the times I thought to myself like, yeah, our nervous systems like don't know how to keep up with all this stuff. So, okay, I said to Claude, go and look at this particular video, which by the way, I had to download on my phone and upload to the Google Drive because He can't download it. Well, no one can download it from Chrome, but that way he could read it and see it. Okay. Yeah. So just to walk people through, if they're not watching, I think what is happening here is you went on your phone and you downloaded all your Tikitaki videos and you put them in Google Drive and you said, here are all my...

20:35TikTok videos in a Google Drive. That way, Cloud Code can access Google Drive and actually pulled on any one video. Then separately, you said, TikTok's open. Yep. Go look at TikTok and read the comments for this particular video. Yes. Pair it with the download of the video that's up in Google Drive. Yep. And then pull it together and say, based on how this did, the content in this video.

21:05And the comments. Yes. Give me new stuff. Correct. Is that right? This particular one has all these comments, right? Yep. And it says like, I wonder if hospitals are going to start using AI for the billing and coding. Okay, cool. Well, on the phone, you can reply with a video. And then, you know, it sounds like CEOs can be replaced by AI. AI will replace someone with no skill. I mean, it just goes on and on and on.

21:34The prompt that's happening with with Claude code is go and read those I have done this before so it's probably looking for The output that we had from before from a few months ago when I actually did this But he's got the post IDs Opening the pen posts with the most comments and scraping its comment thread and It does call Claude and Chrome sometimes I have to explain that no you need to do this headless but It doesn't really matter. It's getting the information somewhere. And then it will... The coolest thing for me was that as people can see, it's my facial expressions. You know, I talk with my hands. There's pauses. Everybody knows that that's how videos work. But to train an AI to understand that in the first part...

22:27of the video, I say, I've been in tech for 25 years and I've never been more scared for people. And that little laugh right there where I'm like scared for people. I had to tell Claude, did you hear the cadence in my voice? Because that is how a hook works for me. Is that I'm trying to get people's attention that way. Figure that out. And it did. He did.

22:53just to kind of like repeat for people in addition to downloading these videos and so they can be referenced and combined with comments to come out videos. You actually taught Claude to under, you know, people ask me all the time like, how do I get Claude to write emails like me? This is like that on max mode. It's like, how do you get Claude to encode my charming self live?

23:22into something that it can help me replicate. How do I do hooks? How do I do my cadence? What are my jokes like? Where do I do cuts? How do I tell a story? How do I create a peek in a story? All that kind of stuff. And then it's using all that knowledge, not only to make your cuts better, but also give you scripts. Correct, which I just brought up on the screen. And this was, not to get into the whole story, but there's a style of video that I do.

23:51WTF even is. And I was doing it for some complex like blockchain terminology, because that's already complex, just like the words that are in that industry. And so it made sense where I was doing the two persons. So I would film one and then film the other side so that I'm talking to myself, but the two people are talking to each other. And what the one person would say like WTF even is.

24:21Blockchain or Ethereum or whatever and then the other person's like gives this long complex well It's the you know ledger that blah blah blah blah very complex and then the other person is me With the facial expressions like what like what are you talking about? That is not something you can script and but But the words back and forth need to be a certain way for it to be absurdity and then the like complexity, like it has to go back and forth. So I still haven't really trained Claude in like that particular piece, but we're getting there. And obviously it can't, I mean, obviously my facial expressions are my facial expressions. But I truly believe that like we're going to be reality dealers at some point because people are going to know that there's no way that you can create an avatar of Brooke Lacey with the facial expressions. Maybe you can in the future. I mean.

25:20Please, please like and subscribe to my create your digital avatar with Gemini episode where I created very hilarious. Yes. Tradwife AI versions of myself and do videos. I love them so much. I never say never, but. No, you're right. You're right. All right. It's doing way back. Let's just see. Okay. Video creation is not new to you. You figured out a way to use cloud code to encode editing.

25:47that really fits the form, which is short form, comment, content. You had to do a little human loop in terms of downloading your full TikTok corpus to a cloud location, which was Google Drive. But once you had that, you were able to do two things. You were able to kind of like learn your style.

26:04But then you also use that like style analysis to do a couple things. One, mine comments for new content. Two, create scripts for that new content. And then three, refine your editing, your cloud editor to make that short form content better. And now how often are you posting?

26:27Okay, so don't be mad, but I don't really have to post that often to still have a really good engaged audience I did the work I put in the work for quite a few years and a lot of my content still gets kind of reposted so I don't have to post very often because I think once you have done the work over a number of years and you do get to the hundreds of thousands of followers. Your stuff just kind of keeps getting regurgitated and I would say like once a week I'm posting. What I think the next step for me because I'm really good live is that I'm going to do more live streaming and I just don't think there's a lot of people in this space.

27:12doing that for this particular thing, like what we're talking about. And then going through and like showing how our apps were kind of DevRel stuff, but live. And so, yeah, I don't have to post that often. And right now I'm building videos for ads right now. Like I'm going to try to do some, figure out if TikTok ads work for my products. We'll see. Just kind of throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. But that's the video work I'm doing right now.

27:42And I think I'm telling Claude, hey, this is an ad. And it's like, oh, okay, let's figure this out in terms of it's not the same as the other stuff you were doing. It's more of a, you know, however ads work. I don't even know.

27:56You don't even know. I don't, because I just do this. That's just Claude's business. Brooke, I love this as a creator who does long form that needs to get back in short form, but just doesn't have the hours to do editing. I'm going to go steal all of this. And you will see Chief Product Officer on TikTok. Rise the ranks yet again. We will get there. Let's do a couple lightning round questions and get you out of here. The first question is, despite our charming faces, you and I are...

28:26We're elders on the TikTok. I'm happily in my fifties. Just turn 50. And I'm happily on my way. So look at us two gals. I would like to make a plea for more experienced technologists to share their knowledge on these new platforms. Pretty please. We need that combination of like...

28:51Wysand experience and yellow energy, especially in AI. But you said something to me really interesting ahead of the show about being like a generation or two or three back from this moment and how you kind of like what your experience has been kind of going headfirst into AI and what that feels like.

29:10Yeah, oh, I love this and I wish we had hours and hours and maybe you'll have me back Or maybe I'll just talk about a live stream and you know people can come and listen to me ramble But I'm a very proud Gen Xer. It's a small but mighty generation Whenever my 21 year old son calls me a boomer like I've disowned him. I'm not a boomer and I think Gen X had this really incredible time period where we lived in our formative years, high school and college. So yes, my lovely millennial friends, you also grew up sort of like we did with like, you know, no cell phones and the plastic phone on the wall that like, you know, had a cord. And I feel like we were just so lucky that we got to see it go so quickly. And to tell you a really quick story, when I got into college, it was 1994 that I started.

30:05college. I had already fallen in love with computers with Windows 3.1. and got into this computer science 101 class. And I remember the professor, it was one of those big auditorium classes, because it was 101, it was intro to computer science. And this teacher, this professor was like jumping around the stage and was like, just wait, it's all gonna happen so fast, it's gonna happen so fast, and it's just gonna go crazy. And we're all like, man, chill, like what? And he was right. I mean, he was going nuts, and it was the next like two or three years.

30:39that everything just exploded. And we got to see it. We got to like really experience it and watch from the very, very beginning as high school and college age where we were like actually starting our careers. And it was just such an incredible time to be alive. So the year 2000, I worked on the Y2K bug. And a lot of people don't really know what that was, but it was kind of funny, changing, you know, two numbers to four. And everybody thought, you know, planes were going to fall from the sky. And our toasters were going to attack us. Right. Everyone's worried about AI. Well, back then we were worried about toasters. So you can imagine how different it is for me now with AI. But, um, yeah, I of course don't have quick answers. You can just take from that what you will. But I love being of this generation that is

31:37I appreciate what technology does. And yes, there needs to be more people my age and older telling their stories about, you know, back in the day, you remember watching that movie where the women were actually computers. I can't remember the name of the movie, but they're called computers because they were there sitting there computing. And there's just so many stories of like, you know, the tapes that had to be used, the big reels that, you know, hard drives that you couldn't drop because that was where it was. I don't know. There's so many cool stories. So, like, old people, listen up.

32:14And if you want a great episode, go back to one of our early Hawaii episodes with John Blackman, 91-year-old vibe coder. That's right. Some things. And so, you know, I had the same experience as you, which is I have seen technology shift after technology shift. So this one happened. I was like, I see it. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. It is going to change my life like these previous ones have. And so jump on in. Water's warm. Yeah. Yeah.

32:43Okay, last question. You're so lovely. And I like that Claude is a boy for you. That's very nice. When he is a disappointment, when he's not doing what you want, how do you prompt him? Okay, so also a very long story, but I will keep it concise. The grok bot person wrote an article the other day about their P-stack. I can't remember the name. It's like, um, banana something or coconut. I don't remember her name, but, um, and I... Sorry. This is me all the time. Um, it was, it was Petunia or something. Um, and I ran it against my OS. So what I built a while ago with my dear Claude is this...

33:38lane operating system that is very complex. I do have an open source of it, but it is fairly complex. And it has memory lanes. It has like write restrictions and different things because I have multiple products within the company. And then the OS lane has its own memory. So the way that I prompt when it screws up is like, go back.

34:06to the way that we started, understand those instructions, and then do it again. And there's status MD files, there's project pieces that every time I'm in that session, it should be following those, but then also the global, it's this entire operating system just for my business and my life. And there's always something to go reference. So it's kind of nice where I'm like, no, you did that, that doesn't sound right.

34:35Go back and figure out where you messed up or where you didn't read. Why didn't you read that? Oh you okay now you figured out why you didn't read it correctly on the session hook now go back and tell The main operating system spine that you messed up so that it can make the change globally I love it. I love it Brooke. This has been I don't know if the audience can tell we're having a good time. We're having a good time today. This has been a good one Where can we find you and how can we be helpful? I am Brooke Jay Lacy on every platform. I've been around a long time. TikTok is definitely my biggest audience. There's a lot of funny stuff that hopefully makes you laugh. It all started in 2020 when everyone was home for COVID and I just started making people laugh. I am a lot more on Twitter and I have a really cool app called Zosha that I built and it's just the...

35:29It's just learning AI and you're kind of doing it on your phone and it's free. So that would be awesome if you did that and really just Reach out like I have DMs are open, you know, I I love talking to people and I've got lots of stories So you can find me everywhere Brooke Jay Lacey And this has been such a pleasure. And I do travel quite a bit. So I'll be in San Francisco. I'll be in New York. I'm kind of all over the place. So I'm always up for a coffee. Amazing. Well, thank you for joining HiAA. Thank you for having me. Thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed the show, please like and subscribe here on YouTube. Or even better, leave us a comment with your thoughts. You can also find this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

36:19Please consider leaving us a rating and review which will help others find the show. You can see all our episodes and learn more about the show at howiaipod.com. See you next time.