Transcripts
1. Introduction: There's a lot of content
out there right now, but somehow a lot of
it feels the same. You can tell immediately when something was just
handed off to AI. It's flat, it feels generic, and there's no real
connection there. The thing is, we want the speed and productivity
benefits that AI offers. But how do you get that without sounding like everyone
else? My name is Robert. I've been creating content
for the last few years, and I am still figuring out
how to use these tools in a way that helps me but without killing
the original spark. Along the way, I have found
some things that work well. I have come up with a system that has made a
real difference in the results when using AI as a script
development partner, not as a replacement
for my own thinking. I'll walk you through the
process I use in chat TBT to go from a messy idea to
a well structured draft, including how I build
context around my style, how I use dictation to
capture row foughs quickly, and how I shape that material
into something usable. Even though I'll be
using ChatGPT here, the method can carry over
to any AI tool you prefer. This class is for video
creators who want a script writing process that feels faster but still personal. If you want AI to help you
write without flattening everything that makes your work yours, this class is for you.
2. Overview & Class Project: Hello and welcome to this class. In this lesson, I
want to give you an overview of the
framework I use whenever I am
writing content for YouTube or online
video platforms. I want to say this
from the very start. I believe this is the
foundation for everything else, and it will guide all the
decisions that follow. Something I have been
noticing more and more, and it was already
happening before AI became this accessible is that the personal element in online content
is getting thinner. Can feel it. Social media is full of videos that
could have been written by anyone for anyone about anything and could not
make a difference. AI seems to have just
accelerated this. So the question I keep
coming back to is, how can we still
keep our vision? How can we still keep our unique voice shining
through the content we produce, even with the help of AI? These same principles can apply to so many different areas. I covered pieces of this in
other skills or courses. I have one on creative writing and another one
dictation and prompting. But for content creation and specifically
for video scripts, I think it deserves its own conversation
because in the end, this is a fantastic way to connect with others
that share your ideas, interests, or perspectives
about something. This is how we reach people,
and because of that, I think that the
personal element is something that can
really make a difference, both for your audience and for your own journey
in content creation. That's what this class
is really about. This in practical terms, my take on this is that AI works best when it has
something real to work with. When you give it, your thinking, your perspective,
your experience, and your actual ideas. So it's not just providing
a topic or a keyword, asking for something that's
trending and letting AI remix something from
its training data. No, I'm not saying that all
of those elements are bad, and you can definitely
incorporate them in the process. But the main thing here is you. I want you to look at the AIS, something that will help you structure and shape what
you bring to the table, not to think for you. Everything else,
how you deliver it, how you use a teleprompter, how you edit or the use of
graphics and thumbnails, all of that will
improve over time. But if you're starting
from the ground place, none of that matters. I believe the foundation
has to be yours. By the time you
finish this course, I'll have shown you
the full process of developing a script using
AI as an assistant. Your project is
actually quite simple. You just have to do it. Come up with a
script of your own. What I would love for you to share in the project
section here in Skillshare is
either your outline or a link to the finished video. The outline works perfectly. Sharing a full script
may be a lot of and the actual topic
is not so important. It's just that I
would love to know that going through the process
has been useful to you. The thing is that seeing
what other students come up with is always encouraging for other people
taking the class, and you never know who
you might be inspiring. Making and posting the actual
video is not a requirement, but if you go through the
whole production process and want to share it, please do. So here's your first exercise, and you can start with this
right now. Gather your voice. If you have already made
videos, written scripts, or even just written down ideas, go find that material. Even the messy stuff.
We'll be using it in the next class to set
up your AI system. And if you don't
have anything yet, now is a good time to start. Sit down and write something. It doesn't have to be polished. As long as it reads like
you and it captures the way you think or how you
explain things to a friend, that's a great starting point.
3. Teaching the AI Your Voice: Welcome back. In
the last lesson, I ask you to gather
some material, previous scripts or
anything that represents your voice and thinking.
Now we're going to use it. This is a one time setup,
and once it's done, you will have something
you can bring into any AI tool you work with. The idea is stop hoping the AI figures out what you
sound like and instead, make it clear yourself. We want to avoid
cookie cutter content, but at the same time, we want to speed up the
parts of the process where AI can really support
you as an assistant. And to do that, we will
need a few things. The first one is style guide. This is basically a document that will capture your voice. I will do is I will
go to ChatGPT. You can go to any other AI
app. It doesn't matter. Now, this will depend on
the app you are using, but if you have access
to a thinking model, I suggest you activate it to get more detailed results. I
will prompt it like this. Analyze the grating
samples below and create a style guide that captures
how I write and communicate. Document my natural
tone and voice, my structure preferences,
the words and phrases I use, and my transition patterns. For each element, include the concrete example from my grating and then
show a counterexample, something that clearly
doesn't sound like me. The contrast should make
it obvious what to avoid. Write it in third person and give me the result
as a Mardon file. Now, take the
material you gather in the last lesson and
paste it in there. If you have it as files like
I do, you can drag them. What you will get back is a style guide written
from your own work. I asked for it in Mardon because my no taking app can read and edit these files
without issues, but you could also ask
for a PDF if you prefer. The second thing you need is what I call perspective prompts. This one is a list of questions
the AI will use later to draw out your thinking
whenever you start a new video. I will once again
prompt AI in this way. Based on the same
writing samples, create a list of questions
that will help me develop new content that feels consistent with my
voice and style. These should be questions
that dig into my perspective, my opinions, and my
specific take on a topic. The goal is for
these questions to help me get more out
of my own thinking, not fill in generic content. Again, write them in third
person and give them to me as a markdown file with a
title Perspective Prompts. Once again, I am grabbing the result and I am saving
it as a separate file. Third thing you will need
whenever you sit down to develop new scripts is a
couple of writing examples. We will be using
those in lesson four. You already got the ones
you used to develop your style guide and
perspective prompts, so you could reuse them. However, if you have
something different, it will also be a
great opportunity to provide a new
perspective for the AI. Now, your exercise
for this lesson is to generate both
of these documents. Use your material, run those prompts and
save what you get. If you see the results and
you feel like something is off or you want to improve
them, go ahead and do. Can still refine
these over time as you use them and become more
familiar with the process. The important thing is to have a starting point
that's actually yours. I'll see you in the next lesson.
4. Raw Input, Rich Output: Welcome back. At this point, you've got your style guide, your perspective prompts, and your writing
examples all set up. That's a solid foundation, but here's the thing. The
style can be right. It can even sound like you, but the substance
can still feel flat. So if you want the
result to feel personal, you have to give it
more personal material. This is like we were cooking something, following a recipe. By now, we already have a
lot of the ingredients, but we are still
missing the main one. The thing that makes
the piece yours. What do you actually
think about this topic? What do you want
to say about it? What have you noticed,
questioned, tested, or experienced that someone else might not bring
to it in the same? This may sound obvious
to some of you, but if you plan to share
content regularly, I suggest keeping a folder or a node where
you collect ideas. As you go throughout your day, when you come across
something interesting that connects to one of those
ideas, add it in there. After a while, you start
to feel when one of those topics has enough shape
to turn into something. For me, that is usually
the moment when I make time to dictate everything,
I can think about it. I really like to speak
my ideas out first, not because typing is bad. I love typing, and I use it
a lot once I am editing. But dictation captures a
different kind of thinking. It feels less
filtered, less edited. You can let your thoughts
come out as they are. So what I do is very simple. I pick the topic,
and then I just start speaking whatever
comes to my mind. I say what I think the idea is, why it matters to me, what
angle I want to take, what doubts I have, what
examples come to mind, even the parts I'm not
fully sure about yet. I am not trying to
sound smart here. I'm just trying to get
everything out of my head. The good thing is that, A, I can usually understand
that kind of rowing, but much better
than people expect. So you do not need to
clean it up at this point. Personally, I use Super
whisper a lot for this. It is an EA dictation
app that is amazing, especially because it
includes unlimited AI. I have other skills
classes where I go into more detail
on how I use it. But here, this is not really
about this specific app. You also do not need
the dictation to be cleaned up or
processed by AI. Anything that
transforms your voice into text will work fine. If you have never tried this, I really encourage you
to give it a shot. And if for some reason you don't like it and prefer to
type all of this out, it's totally okay as well. The main point is capturing your thinking in
its most raw form. One thing I really
like a lot about these dictation or
transcription tools is that you do not always have to sit in front of your
computer to do this. Many of them let you
dictate directly, but something like Super Whisper also lets you dictate
on your phone directly into a note or upload audio files and
transcribe them later. So a lot of the time, I will go for a walk,
record something, and then transcribe it when I walking is helpful to
loosen up your thinking, and when your mind is relaxed, ideas start to come
out more naturally. So for this lesson,
that is your exercise. Pick one idea you want to
make content about and dictate or type a rough stream
of consciousness about it. You do not have to go out
for a walk to do this. That is just something
that works for me. What you need to exercise is simply getting ideas
out of your head. Not try to turn it
into a script yet. If it ends up looking like a huge wad of text,
that is perfect. Also, do not worry too much
about length at this stage. If you do not have that much
to say yet, that is okay. The AI can still help you. Here, you are just looking
for something real, a personal point of view. And when you have that,
even if it is rough, the output will be
so much better. In the next lesson,
we are going to take that messy text and run
it through the system, so the AI can help us turn it into something
more structured.
5. The Workflow: From Chaos to Draft: Now that we have all
the raw material, the next step is putting it
into an actual workflow. This we all those
separate pieces, stop being separate documents
and start working together. I'll show you this once
again with ChatGPT, but the same idea works
in other tools, too. ChatGPT and Cloud both have a project feature that
simplifies the whole process, but any AI app that lets you attach documents
or create a workspace with files and instructions
can do something other third party app I
personally use for this is Alter. It's worth looking into if
you are more of a power user, since it gives you
the same setup in a more advanced,
customizable way. But for now, let's stick with the most user
friendly approach. So we've got four things the Style Guide, the
perspective proms, a few examples of your grading, and for each new project, your raw stream
of consciousness. Let's go to ChatGPT. The feature we want is project projects are self contained. This means they keep their
own memory and files. So your script workflow, stays separate from everything
else you do in ChatGPT. I'll create a project
called YouTube Scripts. I'll click the gear, set it to have its own memory,
and hit Create. Then I go to sources
and as my style guide, perspective prompts
and writing examples. Now I will open project setting. There's one extra piece that I haven't covered yet,
custom instructions. The style guide and
perspective prompts are already doing most
of the work here. This instruction will
just tell the AI what role it's playing and
what process to follow. I will share a template
in the class resources, and you can use era Cities or
tweak it for your workflow. The process outlined in this text is very
straightforward. The AI reads your raw notes, uses the style guide and perspective prompts
to ask you questions, builds an outline based on
your notes and answers, and once you approve it, turns everything into a draft
that follows your voice. So paste the instructions here. Once setup is done,
click on chats. Each new conversation in this project can
be a new script. I'll paste my raw stream of consciousness for the
topic I want to work on. The AI reads it along with all the context and comes
back with questions. Getting the AI to
ask you questions is one of the most useful
things you can do, not just for scripts, but
for almost any project. When I get these questions, I answer the same way that
I got the original material out by dictating without
worrying about being organized. Use that chance to think through different perspectives or
make my goal more clear. My reply usually looks like
another big wall of text. After that, the AI
gives me an outline, and this is usually the moment where I noticed the big change. Up until now, it's just been
row thoughts, but suddenly, I can see sections, order
and structural glance. I give a quick review, move things around if needed. If you're on HGPT, you can do this in
the Canvas feature. Once the outline feels right, I ask for the draft. At that point, I already have something I can
actually work with. So for this lesson, set
up your app of choice, give the AI your raw material, let it ask questions, review the outline,
then get the draft. This is not the
final product yet. In the next lesson, I want
to give you some tips to grab this draft and
personalize it even more.
6. Make It Yours: All right, guys, welcome back. By now, you have the
whole system in place. You already took your ideas, gave the AI the
essential context, developed everything by
answering questions. You approved the outline
and got a draft. I would say for 90% of
people creating content, that might already be enough. You could stop there and still end up with something usable. But this is the part where I really encourage
you not to stop. For me, the real grading
starts after the draft. The whole process is really
just a way to get to this point without staring at a blank page and
struggling to begin. I usually do is copy
that draft into a note, then open a second
blank note next to it. And from there, I
go paragraph by paragraph rewriting
things in my own words. Sometimes I type,
sometimes I dictate. Sometimes I keep a
paragraph almost as it is, and sometimes I rewrite the whole thing because I
realize the idea is right, but the wording still
does not feel like. If you are editing within HAGPT, you can select sentences or paragraphs and ask
specific edits on that. But most of the time I prefer doing it in
another text editor. It helps me treat the draft as reference while I
write my own version. One thing I must mention
is that after I am done, I still may go back and ask for a grammar check
on the entire thing, especially because English
is not my first language, but I try not to get stuck
in an endless revision loop. With AI, you can always
ask for one more pass, but at some point, that
stops being helpful. Now, if you are
going to speak this on camera or read it
from a teleprompter, this last regretting
step that I'm sharing with you helps you
internalize the material. You get familiar with the flow, the ideas, and the wording. A lot of times I read
it out loud so I can feel the rhythm and see if it matches what I'm
trying to communicate. Everyone has a different
way of speaking to camera, but for me, this makes
delivery much easier. The last thing I want
to tell you before we close is that this system
should keep evolving. Every time the AI
gives you something that feels off or too generic, take that as a chance
to improve everything. You can go back and update
your instructions add a node to your style guide or an example of what not to do. The more clearly you show the AI what fits
and what does not, the better the results
get over time. That is really the bigger
idea behind this whole class. AI can help you shape
the messy parts, organize your thinking and
get to a draft faster, but it still cannot replace your judgment or the way you
naturally connect ideas. Be great if you go to the
project section and submit an outline or share a link to a video you completed by
following this method. And if you found
this class useful, I would really appreciate
it if you leave a review. It helps more people
find a class, and it also helps me
know what kinds of topics are worth expanding
into more classes. If you have questions,
you can leave them in the discussion section or
alongside your project, and I will do my best to help. If you want to keep
exploring this idea of writing with AI while
preserving your own voice, I also have other classes
around dictation and related workflows that connect really well with everything
we covered here. Thank you so much for watching. I hope this gives
you a way to use AI without losing your own voice in the process. See you
on the next one.
Robert J. P. Oberg, Creative • Filmmaker • Photographer
