Motion graphics with Claude

What motion graphics are, and where you already see them

Motion graphics are graphics and words that move: text, shapes and colour set in motion. You've probably seen some today:

• Opening titles of films and TV shows
• Adverts, news graphics, social posts and websites
• Explainer videos, where a hard topic is made simple with moving pictures
• Moving captions on social videos. Many people watch with the sound off, so the words on screen carry the message
• The name strip at the bottom of the screen when someone speaks, called a lower third
• Slide animations, where something appears or moves across a slide
• Lyric videos, where the words themselves move. That's called kinetic typography

So you already know what good motion looks like. This guide helps you put it into words.

What happens when I send the prompt

Claude doesn't film anything. Claude reads words and pictures, and it writes words. So a clip from Claude is built, not filmed: Claude writes the instructions that draw each picture, one after another. From my side, it goes like this:

1. I describe the clip. What's in it, how long, what shape, what it looks like. The clearer my words, the closer the first version lands. Without a look named, Claude can fall back on a safe, generic style.
2. Claude plans the beats and the sound. In my clips, Claude first made one plan of what happens when: every beat, what changes on screen and which sound lands with it. Picture and sound were both timed from that plan.
3. Claude writes the files that draw it. For the quiet premium clip, that meant a glowing dot that bursts into a swarm and lands as a word, shapes morphing into each other, a bouncing ball, a rippling grid of dots and a flight into depth. Nothing was filmed or photographed.
4. One step turns it into a video file. Claude names that step in its reply. It joins the picture and the sound into one file, and it's run unchanged.

The sound is made from scratch too. In the quiet premium clip, Claude wrote every sound: the kick drum, the ticks, the hum, the whooshes, the deep hit and the bell. Its notes say no music or sound file came from anywhere else. Claude can't hear the result, so listening is my job.

Where you can try it

Claude Code (what I used for every clip in the post). Claude writes its files straight into a folder on your computer, says which free tools to install and names the one step that makes the video file. Claude Code comes with the Pro plan and up, not the Free plan. Set-up is in "Try this".

The Claude app (web and desktop). In a chat, Claude can build visuals you can click and interact with. It's still a test feature, not on the phone apps, and the quality varies. The app's list of files Claude can make has no video in it, so a clip from the app means recording your screen while it plays (on a Mac, Shift-Command-5; that's my suggestion, not a documented feature).

One honest line before the fun part: Claude can't replace your taste or imagination. You bring the idea and the judgement. Claude does the building.

Five ideas that make motion feel good

The first four come from animation principles first worked out at the Walt Disney studios in the 1930s. The fifth, about sound, comes from TV broadcasting. You don't need to memorise them. Knowing their names makes it easier to tell Claude what you want.

1. Timing: give each moment the right amount of time

How fast something moves changes what it means, and a heavy thing takes longer to start and stop than a light one. Too much time and people drift off; too little and they miss it. Aim for fast enough that nobody waits, slow enough to follow. Words need reading time too: one TV subtitle guide allows up to 20 characters a second for adults. A rough guide, not a rule for clips.

Try saying: "Hold each word long enough to read it twice."

Source: the timing principle (G10); screen-motion guidelines (G15); a TV subtitle style guide (G21).

2. Easing: start gently, land gently

Movement looks better when it speeds up and slows down instead of moving at one even speed. Even speed looks robotic; easing feels natural. Animators call it slow in, slow out.

Try saying: "Every move starts gently and lands gently. Nothing moves at one even speed."

Source: slow in and slow out (G11); keyframes (G1); screen-motion guidelines (G15).

3. Wind-up and settle

Real things don't start or stop dead, and motion that copies that feels alive.

• Wind-up (anticipation): a small move before the main one tells people what's coming.
• Settle (follow-through): things keep moving a moment after the main stop.
• Overshoot: a moving thing goes slightly past its spot, then settles back.
• Overlap: the next move starts before the last one fully ends. Things arriving one after another like this is called a stagger.

My prompt asked for "bouncy movement that squashes, stretches and overshoots". In the quiet premium clip, a ball hops onto a thin floor and bounces, with "squash" and "stretch" popping up under each landing.

Try saying: "Each word dips slightly before it jumps in, overshoots a little and settles."

Source: anticipation and follow-through (G12, G13); overshoot and settle (G16).

4. One thing at a time

Show one idea at a time, or people can end up looking at the wrong thing. The eye goes to whatever moves when everything else is still. Motion needs a reason to be there; too much can distract people or even make them feel unwell. Anthropic's design advice for web pages Claude builds says something similar: one well-planned entrance beats lots of small effects.

Try saying: "One thing moves at a time. Everything else holds still until its turn."

Source: staging (G14); a motion guideline for apps (G17); Claude's frontend design article (C8).

5. Sound that lands with the movement

People notice when sound and picture are out of step, even by a fraction of a second, and early sound is noticed sooner than late sound. A sound effect's job is to point at something happening on screen: a click as a letter lands, a whoosh as a scene changes. Many people watch with the sound off, so keep the key words on screen.

Try saying: "Make every sound from the same plan as the picture, so each one lands on its moment."

Source: a broadcasting standard on sound and picture timing (G19); a sound design article (G20); an audio guideline for apps (G18).

How I describe the clip I want

A clear prompt has six parts. They're my summary of Claude's own prompting advice, and every part starts on a new line.

• Role and task: what you want made, and who Claude should be while making it.
• Audience: who it's for and where they'll watch it.
• Context: why it's being made, and the look: colours, fonts, texture. Think of Claude as a brilliant new colleague who doesn't know your situation yet. Without a look named, Claude can fall back on a safe default.
• Rules: the length, the shape and what happens, beat by beat. Say what to do, not only what to avoid, and pair each "no" with what you want instead.
• Examples: a moment you want to see, or a style you've seen before. If you want Claude to go beyond the basics, say so.
• What done looks like: what the finished result has to include. For a clip: the length, the shape, sound or no sound, and the form it comes in.

See it: Bad prompt → Good prompt → Great prompt

The same task three times: a 15-second showreel that shows off what movement can do. The bad and good prompts weren't run; they show what's missing. The great prompt is the one behind the post.

Has: the task. Missing: a role, who it's for, the look, what happens, an example and what done looks like. Claude has to guess all of it.

Much closer. It still leaves the beat, the sound, what stays off screen, how high to aim and the form of the result up to Claude.

Great prompt (the prompt behind the post, word for word, as it ran)

Four of the five ideas are in there: something changes on every beat (timing), bouncy movement that squashes, stretches and overshoots (wind-up and settle), one small shape alone before anything else moves (one thing at a time), and every sound from the same plan as the picture (sound that lands).

The done line is written for Claude Code, where Claude saves files in a folder. In the app, a done line such as "one page that plays as soon as it opens" fits better. That's my suggestion; I haven't tested it in the app yet.

How to make a clip with Claude, step by step

This is the loop I'd follow for any clip like these. Each step says what you do and what to say to Claude.

1. Ask. Make a new empty folder, open Claude Code in it, paste the prompt and send it. One clip per folder, so nothing from an earlier clip gets mixed in.

What to say: the prompt, and nothing else.

2. Read what comes back. Claude's reply says what to install and the one step that makes the video file. Read it before you run anything:

• Are the installs free tools you recognise? Does anything install for the whole computer, not only inside the clip folder?
• Did Claude change anything from what you asked? In the quiet premium run, its reply listed two "deliberate departures" from my prompt, such as leaving the kick drum out of the silence so the silence is real.
• Did it say what it couldn't check? The same reply said it hadn't seen the clip run yet. So watch the clip yourself before you trust it.

What to say if something's unclear: "What does this install, and where does it download from?" or "Can that go inside this folder instead of the whole computer?"

3. Run the one step. Run the step exactly as Claude wrote it. For the quiet premium clip it was one short line, and it took about two and a half minutes on my Mac, including setting up its own helpers and downloading two free fonts into the folder.

What to say if it stops with an error: paste the message into the same chat: "This came up when I ran the step. What's wrong?" Claude Code's own guide suggests the same: paste the error message, and it looks for the cause and fixes it. With the clips in the post, when a run stopped I ran the prompt again in a fresh chat instead, so I haven't needed this reply myself.

A tip if you use Claude Code: let Claude run its own step and look at the result before it hands the clip over. Claude Code can run commands on your computer, asking you first or with its built-in check, depending on the mode. What to say: "Run the step yourself, look at a few stills from the video, and fix anything that's off before you hand it over." In one of my broadcast runs, set up this way, Claude made the video, looked at its own stills and fixed what it found. My first broadcast run, where Claude couldn't run anything, stopped after half a second on a mistake in its own instructions.

4. Judge the clip. Watch it the way people will see it: at full speed, with the sound on, ideally on your phone. What to check:

• Is the first frame finished, not blank?
• Can you read every word in time?
• Does any word get cut off at the edge, or sit on top of another word, while it's still?
• Does each sound land with its move?

A tiny glitch you only see when you pause doesn't matter to me. Something a viewer would notice at full speed does.

5. Ask again. Two ways, depending on what you want:

• To fix one thing, reply in the same chat and name the moment. Specific feedback works better than "make it better". What to say: "The closing line types out too fast. Hold it for two more beats." You can also add a screenshot of the moment; Claude reads images.
• For a whole new take, paste the same prompt into a fresh chat in a new empty folder. The same prompt can come back different. That's slide 03 of the post.

6. Change three lines for a new look. Keep the other six lines word for word and swap line 3 (the look), the beat speed in line 4 (and, at some speeds, the card length; see the next section) and line 6 (the sound). That's how I made the prompts for slides 04 to 06. The next section shows why.

Behind the scenes, I had Claude Code do the routine part for the clips in the post: it started each run in its own folder, read every file, ran the one step unchanged and checked the clips. It asked me before anything installed for the whole Mac, and I watched every clip and chose what to use. You don't need that: one chat and one prompt is enough.

A new look: change the look, the beat and the sound

My prompt has nine lines. Three of them make a look its own: line 3 describes the picture, line 4 sets how fast the beat goes, and line 6 lists the sounds. For the four looks in the post, I kept the other six lines word for word and changed those three.

Why three lines, not one: the look line is where your taste goes in. Without a look named, Claude can fall back on a safe, generic style. But if only the look changes, every clip keeps the same beat and the same sounds, and they start to sound alike. So each look gets its own pace and its own sounds, picked to match the picture: slow and hand-made for the notebook, fast and electronic for the broadcast, bouncy for the bold one. Sound that fits what's on screen points people at what's happening.

One safety note I followed: the bold look swaps full-screen colours on every beat, so I kept it under three beats a second. Fast flashing can trigger seizures, and the usual guideline is no more than three flashes in any one second. Even so, parts of three clips flashed faster than that by my own count (the tunnel in the notebook and bold clips, the fast run in the broadcast one), so the post leaves those parts out (see the honest notes). Watch for it in yours. For the notebook and bold looks, line 4 asks for "a closing card of about two seconds", so the card can start on a beat at their pace.

Quiet premium (the main prompt, slides 01 to 03)

• Beat (in line 4): "two beats a second"

  Make every sound yourself, from one plan of what happens when, the same plan that times the picture: a kick drum on every beat, light ticks in between, a warm hum underneath, a whoosh into each chapter, the short silence before the closing card, then a deep hit and a bell as SHOWREEL locks.

What came back: a near-black screen with faint drifting dust, warm white words and one orange accent, a glowing dot that bursts into a swarm and lands as a word, and the closing line typed in an italic serif.

Late-night broadcast (slide 04)

• Beat (in line 4): "three beats a second"

  Make every sound yourself, from one plan of what happens when, the same plan that times the picture: a low electronic pulse on every beat, quick glitchy blips like flickering data in between, a dark drone underneath that stops only for the silence, a rising buzz into each chapter, the short silence before the closing card, then a deep falling boom and a bright electric zap as SHOWREEL locks.

What came back: a dark navy screen with film grain and glow, thin white corner brackets and small typewriter-style corner words, with everything drawn as glowing neon tubes in electric blue, ice white and hot orange. Big neon MOTION opens with a turning orange 3D shape in a ring of sparks, KINETIC lands one letter at a time from a blur, a shape morphs from circle to star, an orange ball bounces on a springing floor, orange waves ripple through a dot grid, and the camera flies over a floor of turning 3D shapes under a big DEPTH. The sound is faster and electronic: a low pulse three times a second, quick glitchy blips in between, a dark drone underneath and a rising buzz into each chapter. Slide 04 shows its first 10.7 seconds (see the honest notes).

Notebook (slide 05)

• Beat (in line 4): "three beats every two seconds"

  Make every sound yourself, from one plan of what happens when, the same plan that times the picture: a dry wooden tap on every beat, quick pencil scratches in between, a soft rustle of paper underneath, a page flip into each chapter, the short silence before the closing card, then a firm thump like a book snapping shut and one soft plucked string as SHOWREEL locks.

What came back: light grey squared paper, heavy black marker capitals, and notes in blue and red pen that write themselves on beside each move, often with a little hand-drawn arrow. A ball bounces with "squash" and "stretch" written beside it, a swirling swarm lands as MOVE, a shape morphs beside a hand-drawn slow-in, slow-out graph, a ball bounces three times with "follow through" and "overshoot", and a splat ripples across a grid of dots. The sound is slower and hand-made: a dry wooden tap on every beat, pencil scratches as each note is written, a soft paper rustle and a page flip into each chapter. Slide 05 shows its first 8.7 seconds (see the honest notes).

Bold and flat (slide 06)

• Beat (in line 4): "five beats every two seconds"

  Make every sound yourself, from one plan of what happens when, the same plan that times the picture: a big punchy clap on every beat, a bouncy bass line underneath that jumps with the shapes, a rubber-band boing on every squash and overshoot, a quick zip into each chapter, the short silence before the closing card, then a heavy thud and a crashing cymbal as SHOWREEL locks.

What came back: flat terracotta, cream and near-black blocks swapping on every beat, heavy capitals, a dot that bursts into a swarm and lands as MOVE, SLIDE flying in from a blur, a disc morphing through a square, triangle and star, a ball bouncing under BOUNCE, and a full-screen dot grid with rings rippling through it. The sound is brisk and bouncy: a big clap on every beat, a bass line that jumps with the shapes, rubber-band boings on the squashes and a quick zip into each chapter. Slide 06 shows its first 8.4 seconds (see the honest notes).

Same prompt, fresh chat

For slide 03, the quiet premium prompt ran again, word for word, in a fresh chat and a new empty folder.

What came back was a different reel from 2 seconds on:

• Its own letters. Claude drew both typefaces itself, rounded capitals and a flowing italic, instead of downloading fonts.
• Its own words. Every chapter gets a big word in the middle of the screen (MOVE, morph, BOUNCE, ripple, DEPTH), where the first clip used small labels in the corner. The fast run is SPIN, drift, SNAP, swarm, FLOW and land, where the first clip had spin, SCATTER, snap, orbit and GATHER.
• Its own pictures and timing. A huge white-and-orange DEPTH that the camera flies through, and SHOWREEL rolling like slot-machine reels in the silence. From the second chapter on, its chapters change half a second earlier than the first clip's.

They look alike only where the prompt asks for the same thing: the orange dot alone for the first 2 seconds, and the closing card with SHOWREEL and "words in, motion out".

So if a first run isn't quite right, the same prompt in a fresh chat can give you a different take. To change the look on purpose, change the look, the beat and the sound lines.

Where each look could fit

The clips in the post are showreels. Here's where I'd try each look next. I haven't run these uses; changing the words on screen means changing the rules lines too, so each one is a new prompt.

• Quiet premium, a teaser for something new. Adverts are a classic home for motion graphics. I'd ask for the name, one short line and "coming soon", and nothing I haven't checked on screen. Dim details can fade on a phone; in my clip the rippling grid is very faint.
• Late-night broadcast, a weekly recap. News graphics already use motion. I'd write out the few words I want on screen in full. Small corner words can come out too small for a phone; if so, say so.
• Notebook, explaining an idea. Explainers use movement to make a hard topic simple. I'd ask for each part to appear only when I get to it, a short note naming it, and the finished picture holding still at the end.
• Bold and flat, an intro for your videos. Opening titles are one of the classic uses. I'd ask for my title in place of SHOWREEL and keep the key words on screen for people watching with the sound off.

Pick the shape for where it'll be posted: tall (9:16) fills a phone screen, 4:5 is a tall feed post and 16:9 is widescreen. Platform sizes change, so check before you post.

When it looks off: what I say

The first version is a starting point. Name the moment and what you want instead. Or start fresh: the same prompt in a new chat can come back different. These replies come from motion design basics and Claude's prompting advice; I haven't tested each one on a clip yet.

Words you'll meet

• Motion graphics: graphics and words that move.
• Showreel: a short clip that shows off what a designer can do. (My own plain definition.)
• Keyframe: a marker for where something should be at a given moment; the movement in between is filled in for you.
• Easing (slow in, slow out): starting and stopping gently.
• Timing: how long each movement takes.
• Anticipation: a small wind-up before the main move.
• Overshoot (and settle): going a little past the spot, then settling back.
• Follow-through: parts that keep moving a moment after the main stop.
• Stagger: things arriving one after another instead of all at once.
• Kinetic typography: words that move, as in lyric videos.
• Beat: a steady pulse, like the tick of a clock. My prompt asks for two a second. (My own plain definition.)
• Look line: the line of the prompt that describes the look. (My own name for it.)
• Sound line: the line of the prompt that lists the sounds. (My own name for it.)
• Aspect ratio: the shape of the frame: 9:16 tall, 1:1 square, 16:9 wide.

Try this: the Clip Kit

Every prompt from the post, ready to copy, plus the set-up, step by step.

What you need

• Claude Code, which comes with the Pro plan and up, not the Free plan.
• The model I used: Opus 5.5, available on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise as of 1 October 2026. Model names change fast; any current Claude model can be tried with the same prompts. I haven't compared them.
• An empty folder for each clip.
• Some patience: for the clips in the post, Claude's part took about 20 to 45 minutes each, then the video step from under 20 seconds to about two and a half minutes.

The set-up, step by step

1. Install Claude Code. Open the terminal, paste the line for your computer from Claude Code's set-up page and press Return (Enter on Windows). The terminal is the plain text window where you type to your computer. On a Mac it's the app called Terminal: press Command and Space, type Terminal and press Return. On Windows it's the app called PowerShell.

   curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

   irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

   When it finishes, open a new terminal window and type claude --version. A version number means it worked. If it says claude isn't found, Claude Code's terminal guide shows the fix: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/terminal-guide. Rather not install it in the terminal? The Claude desktop app includes Claude Code in its Code tab; download it from https://claude.com/download. If Claude doesn't run the one step for you, step 6 still uses the terminal. These steps are from Claude Code's set-up page, checked on 2 October 2026. Claude Code was already on my Mac, so I didn't run them myself.

2. Sign in. The first time you open Claude Code, it asks you to sign in with your Claude account.
3. Open it in a new empty folder. New to the terminal? The desktop app is the easiest way: open the Code tab, choose Local, click Select folder and pick your new folder. In the terminal, go into the folder by typing cd, a space and the folder's location, then type claude.
4. Paste one prompt from below, exactly as it is, and send it.
5. Let Claude write the files. In the terminal, recent versions of Claude Code start in auto mode, where a built-in check reviews most commands instead of asking you each time, so Claude may install the tools and make the video for you. That works too. If it asks before running or installing something, read what it wants to do, and ask if you're unsure. In my runs, Claude only wrote the files, and the one step was run afterwards, unchanged. To work that way, switch to the mode called accept edits: Claude writes files in your folder without asking, and asks before running most other things. In the terminal, press Shift and Tab together until the bottom line says "accept edits on"; from auto mode that takes two presses. In the desktop app, the mode menu next to the send button shows your mode; pick Accept edits there.
6. Run the step yourself (if Claude didn't). Type the install line and the one step from Claude's reply into the terminal, opened in your clip folder.
   • On a Mac, install lines can start with "brew". That's Homebrew, a free installer for tools on a Mac; a new Mac doesn't have it. Homebrew's own page, brew.sh, has the one line that installs it; paste it into Terminal, and it explains what it will do and pauses before it does it. When it finishes, run the lines it lists under Next steps, then open a new Terminal window. On my Mac, Homebrew, Python and ffmpeg were already installed, so I haven't run these steps on a fresh Mac.
   • If your computer says it can't find a tool, paste the message into the same chat and ask how to install it.
7. Watch it on your phone with the sound on, then reply with what to change (see the fixes table).

Each run writes its own set-up, so yours will name its own step. For reference, here's what Claude wrote for my quiet premium clip. The first line installs two free tools on a Mac: Python, which runs Claude's instructions, and ffmpeg, which joins picture and sound. The second line is the one step; it sets up its own helpers and downloads two free fonts into the clip folder.

These are the lines Claude's notes listed. Python and ffmpeg were already on my Mac, so I haven't tested the first line on a fresh Mac.

If Claude stops at the files and doesn't name a step, reply: "Tell me what to install and the one step that makes the video file." In my runs, every reply named its step, so I haven't needed this one.

The prompts, word for word

Each prompt is copied character for character from the file Claude was given. All four share six lines word for word; lines 3 (look), 4 (beat) and 6 (sound) change.

Quiet premium (the main prompt: slides 01 to 03; slide 08 names its parts)

Late-night broadcast (slide 04)

Notebook (slide 05)

Bold and flat (slide 06)

Your own look line

Swap each part in brackets for your own, then put the line in place of line 3:

• [FEEL]: two or three words for the mood, such as "warm and handmade" or "loud and sporty".
• [COLOURS]: two or three colours by name, with one as the accent.
• [LETTERS]: a font name you like, or a description such as "round, friendly letters".
• [ONE SPECIAL THING]: the detail that makes the look its own, such as "paper cut-outs with soft shadows".

Then give it a beat and a sound to match. In line 4, change "two beats a second": slower for calm, faster for energy (if your look swaps full-screen colours on every beat, stay under three a second). In line 6, swap the sounds for ones that fit the picture, in a similar order: one on every beat, one in between, one underneath, one into each chapter, the silence, then two for the closing card.

More look lines to try. None of these has been run as it is:

The prompt builder

A side tool, below: it walks you through the six parts and puts them together, every part on its own line. Tap one of the four looks to load its prompt from the post, word for word, then change any part to make it yours.

Honest notes

Where this comes from

Accessed 1 October 2026 unless a date is given. Claude facts come from Claude's own documentation only. General design and animation knowledge comes from the general sources below.

Claude docs

1. C1 Claude Opus 5.5 model overview, Claude Platform docs: what Claude reads and writes. https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/models/opus-5-5/overview
2. C2 Custom visuals in chat and Cowork, Claude Help Center (updated 22 Apr 2026): visuals built with web-page building blocks; a test feature; web and desktop only; quality varies. https://support.claude.com/en/articles/13979539-custom-visuals-in-chat-and-cowork
3. C3 What are artifacts and how do I use them, Claude Help Center: what artifacts are; the Settings > Capabilities setting. https://support.claude.com/en/articles/17153992-what-are-artifacts-and-how-do-i-use-them
4. C4 Create and edit files with Claude, Claude Help Center (updated 6 Aug 2026): the file types Claude can make. https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12111783-create-and-edit-files-with-claude
5. C5 Prompting best practices, Claude Platform docs: animations from current models, asking explicitly, giving Claude a role, context, saying what to do. https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/prompt-engineering/claude-prompting-best-practices
6. C6 Prompting Claude Opus 5.5, Claude Platform docs: default styles without design direction. https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/prompt-engineering/prompting-claude-opus-5-5
7. C7 Claude for creative work, Anthropic (28 Apr 2026): Claude Code writes animation steps; Claude can't replace taste or imagination. https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-for-creative-work
8. C8 Improving frontend design through skills, Claude blog (12 Nov 2025, before the 5.5 models): one well-planned entrance with staggered reveals; the generic default look. https://claude.com/blog/improving-frontend-design-through-skills
9. C9 Harness design for long-running apps, Anthropic Engineering (24 Mar 2026): "Claude can't actually hear". https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/harness-design-long-running-apps
10. C10 Claude 101: Your first conversation with Claude, and Getting better results, Anthropic Academy: the parts of a prompt, audience, format and length, examples, first drafts as starting points, specific feedback. https://academy.claude.com/courses/claude-101/your-first-conversation-with-claude and https://academy.claude.com/courses/claude-101/getting-better-results
11. C11 Claude 101: Creating with artifacts, Anthropic Academy: keep talking in the same chat to change an artifact. https://academy.claude.com/courses/claude-101/creating-with-artifacts
12. C12 Best practices for prompt engineering, Claude blog (10 Nov 2025): state what the output should include. https://claude.com/blog/best-practices-for-prompt-engineering
13. C13 Upload files to Claude, Claude Help Center (updated 23 Jul 2026): image types accepted; no video types listed. https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8241126-upload-files-to-claude
14. C14 Plans: Claude Opus page (re-opened 1 Oct 2026), pricing page, Use Claude Code with your Pro or Max plan (updated 19 Aug 2026), What is the Pro plan. https://www.anthropic.com/claude/opus · https://claude.com/pricing · https://support.claude.com/en/articles/11145838-use-claude-code-with-your-pro-or-max-plan · https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8325606-what-is-the-pro-plan
15. C15 Claude Code permission modes (accessed 30 Sep 2026, re-opened 2 Oct 2026): the starting mode, accept edits, switching with Shift and Tab. https://code.claude.com/docs/en/permission-modes
16. C16 Claude Code quickstart (re-opened 2 Oct 2026): starting it in a folder; signing in on first use; what the starting mode does. https://code.claude.com/docs/en/quickstart
17. C17 Claude Code CLI reference (accessed 1 Oct 2026): limiting which tools Claude can use, starting with no custom instructions, skills, hooks, add-ons or memory loaded, and not saving the session. https://code.claude.com/docs/en/cli-reference
18. C18 Claude Code set-up (accessed 2 Oct 2026): the install lines for Mac and Windows, checking it worked, the desktop app. https://code.claude.com/docs/en/setup
19. C19 Claude Code desktop quickstart and desktop app (accessed 2 Oct 2026): the Code tab, choosing a folder, the mode menu. https://code.claude.com/docs/en/desktop-quickstart · https://code.claude.com/docs/en/desktop
20. C21 Claude Code terminal guide (accessed 2 Oct 2026): opening Terminal and PowerShell; what to do if claude isn't found. https://code.claude.com/docs/en/terminal-guide
21. C20 Claude Code overview (accessed 2 Oct 2026): paste an error message and Claude Code looks for the cause and fixes it. https://code.claude.com/docs/en/overview

General design and animation sources

1. G1 Adobe, "Keyframing" (beginner guide): keyframes; even speed looks robotic, easing feels natural. https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/video/discover/keyframing.html
2. G2 Adobe, "Motion graphics": definition and where they're used. https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/animation/discover/motion-graphics.html
3. G3 Adobe, "Explainer video". https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/video/discover/explainer-video.html
4. G4 Adobe Research, "Content-aware video captioning in Adobe Express" (17 Jan 2024): silent watching and moving captions. https://research.adobe.com/news/content-aware-video-captioning-in-adobe-express/
5. G5 Adobe, "Lower third graphics". https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/video/discover/lower-third-graphics.html
6. G6 Adobe, "How to make a lyric video": kinetic typography. https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/video/discover/how-to-make-a-lyric-video.html
7. G7 Adobe, "Common video aspect ratios". https://www.adobe.com/in/products/firefly/discover/common-video-aspect-ratios.html
8. G8 Microsoft Support, "Animate text or objects": slide animations. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/animate-text-or-objects-305a1c94-83b1-4778-8df5-fcf7a9b7b7c6
9. G9 ACM SIGGRAPH Education, principles of traditional animation, after John Lasseter, "Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation", Computer Graphics 21:4, July 1987. The page notes that many of the principles were developed at the Walt Disney studios in the 1930s. https://education.siggraph.org/static/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/principles/prin_trad_anim.htm
10. G10 SIGGRAPH Education, Timing. https://education.siggraph.org/static/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/principles/timing.htm
11. G11 SIGGRAPH Education, Slow in and slow out. https://education.siggraph.org/static/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/principles/slow_in_and_out.htm
12. G12 SIGGRAPH Education, Anticipation. https://education.siggraph.org/static/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/principles/anticipation.htm
13. G13 SIGGRAPH Education, Follow through and overlapping action. https://education.siggraph.org/static/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/principles/follow_through.htm
14. G14 SIGGRAPH Education, Staging. https://education.siggraph.org/static/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/principles/staging.htm
15. G15 Google, Material Design guidelines (version 1, legacy), "Duration and easing". About app screens; the ideas carry over. https://m1.material.io/motion/duration-easing.html
16. G16 LinkedIn Learning, "21 Foundations of Animation: Overshoot and settle" (public course description). https://www.linkedin.com/learning/21-foundations-of-animation/overshoot-and-settle
17. G17 Apple Human Interface Guidelines, "Motion": don't add motion for its own sake. https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/motion
18. G18 Apple Human Interface Guidelines, "Playing audio": don't rely on sound alone. https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/playing-audio
19. G19 ITU-R Recommendation BT.1359-1 (1998), relative timing of sound and vision for broadcasting. Viewers in tests noticed sound and picture out of step at about 45 thousandths of a second with sound early and 125 with sound late (on average). Based on TV lip-sync tests; applied to motion by analogy. https://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-r/rec/bt/R-REC-BT.1359-1-199811-I!!PDF-E.pdf
20. G20 Noble Desktop, "The role of sound design in motion design" (19 Apr 2026): a sound effect points at what's happening on screen. https://blog.nobledesktop.com/the-role-of-sound-design-in-motion-design
21. G21 Netflix, "English (USA) Timed Text Style Guide": up to 20 characters a second for adult programmes, 17 for children's. Subtitles, not motion text; a rough guide only. https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/217350977-English-USA-Timed-Text-Style-Guide
22. G22 W3C, WCAG 2.1, "Three flashes or below threshold" and "Animation from interactions". https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/three-flashes-or-below-threshold.html · https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/animation-from-interactions.html
23. G23 Apple Support, "Take a screenshot or screen recording on Mac" and "Record the screen on your iPhone or iPad". On a Mac, "Record Selected Window" needs macOS Tahoe 26 or later. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102618 · https://support.apple.com/en-us/102653
24. G24 google/fonts on GitHub, which holds "the binary font files served by Google Fonts". The runs downloaded Poppins, Inter and Instrument Serif from its ofl folder (SIL Open Font License), each with its licence file. https://github.com/google/fonts
25. G25 Homebrew, brew.sh (accessed 2 Oct 2026): the line that installs Homebrew; it explains what it will do and pauses first; after it finishes, the commands under Next steps. https://brew.sh · https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh