4 AI Video Ad Skills I Use to Go From Idea to Finished Ad

Originally posted on Higgsfield.AI

Four Claude skills now handle my whole AI video ad workflow, from the first question about a product to a finished 15-second ad. Each one does a single job well, and together they stop the two things that waste the most time and credits: vague prompts and final renders nobody approved.

Every skill follows the same rule. It interviews you before writing anything, shows you a preview, and only treats something as final once you say so. Here's what each one does and how I use them.

1. Product Ad Campaign: the Project Manager

This skill runs a full campaign: one product, one location, three vertical campaign photos and one finished 9:16 video ad. Its main job is to keep the product recognizable from the first image to the last frame.

How it works:

1. The brief interview. Four rounds of questions cover the product, audience, look and deliverables. It pushes back on weak answers, so "everyone" is never accepted as an audience.
2. References. The product, creator and location each get their own reference image, with its role named out loud.
3. Four preview gates. References, then the photo plan, then a video draft, then a final review. Nothing skips ahead.
4. One video route. Either a creator-style UGC ad or a cinematic commercial, never both at once.

What I like most: it picks the right image model for each job (Nano Banana Pro for products, Soul Cinema for people, Seedream 5.0 Pro for locations). Before any final render it also makes a cheap 480p draft with Seedance 2.5 Draft. When a draft works, you click "Generate in 1080p" on it and get the same take at full quality.

Use it when: you need a complete ad package for a product or client.

2. UGC Video Creator: Real-Looking Creator Ads

This skill writes handheld, creator-style product videos that look like a real person filmed them on a phone. It keeps the character, product and location as separate references, so the person, the product and the place each stay true to their source.

What makes it work:

• A 5-block prompt: technical rules, character, timestamped beats, an optional call to action, and a style footer.
• Realism rules: natural blinking, unretouched skin, believable phone image quality, and a rule that the recording phone never appears in its own shot.
• A hook library for the first 2 seconds: product reveal, jump into frame, bag point-of-view shot, walking remark and more.
• Honest speech rules: about 4 to 6 short lines per 15 seconds, one stressed word per line, and no made-up product claims.

Before anything is final you get a storyboard table, the exact script, the draft prompt, the settings and the risks to watch for.

Use it when: you want a TikTok- or Reels-style ad with someone talking about a product.

3. Scene Camera Director: the Cinematographer

This skill turns a scene idea into a shot-by-shot plan where framing, angle, movement and timing are each spelled out. Its core rule is that shot size, camera angle and camera movement are three separate choices, and each one gets stated.

What you get:

• Shot sizes picked by what the viewer must read: extreme wide for scale, medium for dialogue, close-up for reactions, with a ready-to-paste prompt line for each.
• Camera angles and moves with a clear reason and an end point, so the camera never drifts away from the important moment.
• A shot list table: shot number, timing, size, angle, camera, action and dialogue.
• A repair process for failed takes. Name the moment that failed, find the instruction behind it, and change only that.

Use it when: a video needs more than one view, or a take keeps coming back with the wrong framing.

4. Seedance Scene Prompter: the Scene Writer

This skill writes one production-ready video prompt for Seedance 2.5, and it also works for Higgsfield, Sora, Veo and Kling. It has two modes.

• Writer mode: you bring a scene, a script excerpt or a broken prompt. It builds a structured prompt with six sections: scene context, references, shots, camera law, grade and audio, and constraints.
• Cinematic random mode: you bring only a mood, like "neon noir" or "dreamy." It rolls format, lens, camera height, movement and grade fresh every time, so the same idea gives a different film on each run.

Habits that save credits:

• Use counts instead of bans, like "Count of visible characters: twelve" rather than "no extra characters."
• Give speeds as numbers, like "dolly forward at 0.3 m/s" instead of "slow push."
• Tie camera moves to physical events, not to spoken words.
• Test with cheap 480p drafts first, then upgrade the winner.

Use it when: you're directing a scene of your own, like a short film, a mascot animation or a brand moment.

How They Work Together: a Real Example

I recently used all four skills to make a 15-second lead-generation ad for a Christmas light installer in Orange County. Here's how the work moved between them.

1. Product Ad Campaign ran the brief: a cinematic before-and-after ad for Facebook and Instagram, aimed at busy homeowners, with "Book your install today" as the call to action.
2. Real photos replaced AI houses. The client's own install photos became the references. One of them was edited to remove the lights, which created a matching "before" image.
3. Scene Camera Director and Seedance Scene Prompter wrote the shots: the dark house, the lights switching on in a wave, quick cuts to two more installs, and a final pull back.
4. The first draft got diagnosed, not rerolled. It looked great but felt slow and never mentioned booking. The fix was to light the house by the 1-second mark, cut every 1 to 2 seconds, crop tighter on the homes, and add on-screen text ending on a Book Now card.

The result was one 15-second ad, ready to upload, built from real work and with a clear next step for the viewer.

Tips for Getting Started

• Answer the interview questions properly. The skills are only as good as the brief, and five minutes of answers saves hours of rerolls.
• Real photos beat generated ones for service businesses. Viewers trust actual work.
• Always draft at 480p first. Upgrade only the take that already works.
• Hook in the first second. If nothing happens by then, people scroll.
• Add text in editing, not in the AI prompt. Video models garble lettering, so put your call to action and service areas in CapCut or Meta's editor.
• Change one thing at a time. When a take misses, name the exact moment that failed and fix only that.

The Takeaway

Four focused skills, each gated by a preview, turn "make me an ad" into a repeatable process instead of a credit-burning guessing game.

What product are you turning into your next ad?