reaction_video_format v1.0.0

name: "reaction_video_format" description: "Plan, record, and edit a reaction video that survives the legal and platform side: the fair-use commentary zone, genuine reaction craft, editing to the original clip's rhythm, credit discipline, and the pre-upload claim/strike checklist. Triggers on 'reaction video', 'react video format', 'commentary video', 'fair use reaction', 'react to a trailer/song/movie'."

Reaction Video Format

Purpose

Build a reaction video where the reaction is the commentary, not the wrapper around someone else's content. The legal line is transformation, and the platform line is the same idea wearing a different uniform: does the viewer's experience center on you and your take, or on the source clip playing with a face cam in the corner? This skill walks an agent through planning, recording, editing, crediting, and pre-upload checks so the finished video reads as commentary under fair use and clears YouTube's reused content review. It covers planning, craft, editing, and upload checks. It is not legal advice; the law section summarizes the statute and one real court decision so the creator can judge their own risk.

Workflow

1. Define the source and the job

Write down, before touching a camera:

• The source: title, creator/channel name, and link. You will credit it verbally and in the description (Step 5). Never build on a source you cannot name.
• The job: one question your video answers that the source never asked. "What does a vocal coach hear in this chorus?" "Where does this argument actually fall apart?" "Can I beat this boss blindfolded first try?" The job is what makes the video transformative rather than a reupload. If you cannot name a job, you have a reupload with a webcam. Stop.
• The angle you bring: expertise (coach, lawyer, editor, speedrunner), context (history the source assumes), or structured entertainment (a scoring rubric, a prediction you test live). Angle decides what you say over the clip, which is the whole video.

2. Build the beat plan (script the pauses before you record)

Watch the source once, quietly, and mark it up. Every reaction video is built from inserts: a short stretch of source footage, then your pause, then your talk, then resume. Plan every insert before recording.

• Insert length: no uninterrupted stretch of source footage longer than 30 seconds. Pause, react, continue. Long untouched runs are what read as redistribution.
• Commentary carries the majority of the runtime. Your voice, your framing, and your edit should dominate total minutes, not the source audio. Silence over the source is the weakest possible position: if the original plays for a stretch, your narration should be in it.
• Talk over, not just after. For every insert, script your first sentence before you record: the observation you will land the moment the pause hits. Two or three planned talk-over beats per insert kills the dead pattern of watching, laughing, and saying nothing for 90 seconds. Plan the opener, improvise the rest.
• Cut to the clip's rhythm, not against it. Mark the source's own turning points (the drop, the reveal, the punchline, the bad argument) and put your pauses one beat after them, while the viewer still feels the moment. Pausing mid-thought or pausing late every time is how reactions start feeling like commentary about the wrong thing.

Write the beat plan as a table: timestamp, what happens in the source, your talk-over point, your first line. See references/beat_sheet_template.md.

3. Record a genuine reaction

Authenticity is the only thing this format sells, and faking it is the fastest way to kill a channel.

• Watch the source once for beats, then record fresh. Do not record while pre-watching the actual reaction you plan to keep. First-time reactions read; rehearsed ones don't. The beat plan tells you where to pause; your reaction to what happens stays real.
• Don't force it. A flat honest reaction ("I didn't feel that at all") beats performed hype. Viewers pattern-match forced emotion instantly, and one faked reaction puts every later video under suspicion.
• Layout: record the source and your face cam as separate tracks at full resolution. Picture-in-picture layout depends on the platform (see references for the ffmpeg recipe), but always composite from separate sources so you can re-cut. Face cam is the lower third or side third; the source never fills the whole frame except on your own full-screen analysis segments.
• Audio hygiene: voice on a close mic, source audio at a level you can talk over without shouting. In editing you will duck the source under your voice. If you cannot hear yourself cleanly while the source plays, the mix is wrong.

4. Edit so the transformation is visible

The edit is documentary evidence. Every cut, caption, and zoom is visible proof that you made something new out of the source.

• Visible work on every insert: crop or reframe, zoom to the detail you are talking about, on-screen text naming the point, cuts between your pause segments. An uncut source stretch with a talking head in the corner is the exact thing both courts and platform reviewers weigh against you.
• Your segments in full screen. Analysis, scoring, verdicts, and B-roll of your own footage go full frame with the source gone. This visibly proves the video has an existence apart from the clip.
• Replace the source's music bed. Never run the original score or sound design under your narration; Content ID matches audio first, and a new mix is its own transformation signal. Use your own music or silence.
• Chapters/timestamps in the description for every insert ("4:12 - the claim about the mixer"). This doubles as a fair-use signal (structured commentary) and as retention structure.
• Thumbnail: do not build the thumbnail purely from the source's poster art or title card. Your face, your framing, your title. The thumbnail is the first impression of what the video is.

5. Credit discipline

Crediting is not what makes the use fair, but skipping it reads as bad faith and torches goodwill with the creator.

• Say it out loud, in the video: the creator's name or channel and the video title, early ("This is from [Name]'s video, [Title]").
• Put it in the description, above the fold: title, creator, link to the original. Do not bury it under the "more" cutoff or in a link pile.
• Send viewers to the source: link the original and say why they should watch it. A reaction that drives viewers away from the original is a substitution; one that drives them toward it is commentary.
• Copy-paste description blocks and thumbnail/credit checklists: references/credit_block.md.

6. Pre-upload legal and platform check

Run the checklist before upload, not after the claim lands:

1. Four-factor self-test: (a) Purpose: is my use criticism, commentary, or review, and does it add a new meaning the original didn't have? (b) Nature: factual/news sources allow broader use than highly expressive works like music and film. (c) Amount: did I use only the portions needed to make my points, with no insert running long? (d) Market effect: does my video substitute for watching the original, or send viewers toward it? One bad answer means re-edit, not publish.
2. Platform rules: YouTube's reused content policy judges the channel, not just the video: uploads that repurpose others' content without significant original commentary, substantive editing, or educational/entertainment value lose monetization channel-wide, even with the original creator's permission. Reaction videos with real commentary sit on the allowed list; moments stitched together with little narrative sit on the blocked list. The July 2025 "inauthentic content" update explicitly left this untouched.
3. Know the two failure modes: a Content ID claim usually just routes or shares the video's ad revenue; a strike threatens the channel (three active strikes and the channel is terminated). Wrongful claims and strikes can be disputed through YouTube's process when the use is genuine commentary or criticism. A strike is a real cost even when you are right, so weigh it before building on an aggressive rights-holder's content.
4. Keep your evidence: export and keep the project file or an edit decision list. If a dispute lands, the edit history is how you show a human reviewer what you actually did.

For the longer legal summary (statute, the Hosseinzadeh v. Klein decision, policy citations): references/fair_use_and_platform_rules.md.

Output Contract

Every run of this skill produces, at minimum:

1. The job statement (one sentence: what question the video answers that the source didn't ask).
2. A beat sheet with every insert: source timestamp range (each under 30s uninterrupted), the turning point, and the scripted first line of talk-over. Use references/beat_sheet_template.md.
3. An edit decision list: what happens to every insert (crop/zoom/caption/cut) plus which segments are full-screen analysis and where the source's music gets replaced.
4. A credit block: the exact spoken credit line and the description text from references/credit_block.md.
5. The pre-upload verdict: the four-factor self-test answers, the platform fit (why this clears reused content), and a go/no-go with what would change the answer.

Operating Rules

1. Never invent fair-use numbers as law. There is no official percentage rule; 30 seconds is a working standard from creator guidance, and the skill frames it that way.
2. The "job" comes first and is non-negotiable. No beat sheet gets built for a video that is just the source with a face cam.
3. Genuine reaction or nothing. Never direct the creator to fake, exaggerate, or re-perform a reaction they already had.
4. Never present the skill's legal summary as legal advice. It summarizes the statute and one real court decision; hard cases need a lawyer.
5. Credit is mandatory and above the fold, in speech and in the description, every video, every platform.
6. If the pre-upload check fails, the verdict is no-go with the re-edit required. Never sign off on a video that substitutes for the original.
7. Verify platform policy wording via a current search before building a channel strategy on this; policies shift, and this skill's summary is dated in its references.