u/Temporary_Coast_7425

Hey, I’m looking for someone to edit some short-form content/Reels for me.

I recently filmed a barbershop project and, to be honest, the footage is kind of all over the place, so I’m looking for someone creative who can make something really good out of it.

I’m looking to get a couple of videos made, but I’d like to start with one first and see what kind of editing style you come up with.

If you’re interested, send me some examples of your work and let me know how much you’d charge for one video (30-45 seconds).

If it goes well, there could definitely be more videos after that.

The whole “one prompt → finished professional video ad” pitch makes for a great demo.

In practice, it usually gives me a video I can’t actually use.

I’ve spent a lot of time making ads for ecommerce products and testing different AI video platforms. Almost every all-in-one tool makes the same promise:

Describe your product, press generate and receive a complete ad.

Technically, you do get a video.

But the hook is weak. The pacing feels random. The character changes halfway through. The product suddenly looks different. One shot is great, the next three are unusable, and regenerating the video removes the one part you actually liked.

That doesn’t feel like creative automation.

It feels like creative roulette.

I think a lot of these platforms are trying too hard to remove the human from the process, even though the human is still responsible for the decisions that make an ad work.

What’s the angle?

Why should anyone care?

What needs to happen in the first three seconds?

Which product benefit should actually be demonstrated?

Those decisions are the ad.

AI is great for removing repetitive work. It can research the product, develop concepts, write scripts, improve prompts, create consistent assets and generate individual shots.

But putting every creative decision behind one loading screen usually produces something that looks impressive without being particularly useful.

The best results I’ve gotten have come from working one stage at a time:

Concept and script first.

Then lock in the characters, product and locations.

Then generate each shot individually.

If the opening is weak, replace the opening. If the product looks wrong in one scene, regenerate that scene. You shouldn’t have to throw away an entire video because one part failed.

It also makes testing more useful.

Instead of generating ten completely different ads and guessing why one performed better, you can keep the main idea the same and change one variable at a time.

Different hook. Different opening shot. Different person.

Same product, offer and core message.

Now you’re actually testing something instead of generating the same bad ad twenty times with different people standing in different rooms.

I understand why one-prompt generation is appealing. Typing one sentence and receiving a complete video a few minutes later is genuinely impressive technology.

I just don’t think “complete” means “campaign-ready.”

Some of the most cinematic AI videos I’ve generated were also the worst ads. They had dramatic lighting, beautiful locations and complicated camera movements, but no clear reason for someone to buy the product.

The simpler ones usually worked better:

One obvious problem.

One clear benefit.

A direct demonstration.

A simple comparison.

Nothing revolutionary. They were just easy to understand.

I don’t think the best AI video platform will be the one that removes the most human involvement.

It’ll be the one that removes the repetitive work while giving creators control over the decisions that matter.

For context, I’m involved in building and testing a tool around this type of workflow, so I’m obviously not neutral. I’m not naming or linking it because I’m more interested in whether this argument is actually right.

For people regularly creating AI ads: are any of you getting repeatable, campaign-ready results from one prompt?

Not one lucky generation selected from fifty attempts. Something you can reliably use.

Or are you still building everything scene by scene and fixing the weak parts manually?

First, the numbers so this doesn’t turn into another “look at my Shopify dashboard” post:

Gross sales: just over $7,200
Ad spend: $2,900
Product and fulfilment: approximately $2,150
Shopify, apps, fees and refunds: around $800
Estimated net profit: roughly $1,350

This also isn’t a victory lap. $7k is tiny compared to what some people here are doing. It was just enough to prove that the store could actually sell something and show me where most of my time was going.

I thought building the store would be the hard part. It wasn’t.

Once I had the product and supplier figured out, Shopify handled most of the boring stuff the storefront, checkout, orders, customer emails and analytics. I spent time rewriting the product page and messing around with the offer, but none of that felt impossible.
The part that kept kicking my ass was distribution and ads.

Everyone says “test more creatives” like creatives grow on trees. But if you’re starting with no useful footage, your options are basically to use the same supplier clips as everyone else or find creators, ship them the product, write briefs, wait for the videos, request changes and then edit everything together.

That takes a lot of time and money. Then usually Meta decides within a day that nobody cares about the first three seconds, and you have to start over.

So I started using AI for almost all of my early ad testing. At first, I was doing it completely wrong. I would basically ask it to “make me a good ad” and hope for the best. What came back was usually generic nonsense. Sometimes it looked impressive for five seconds, but there was no actual reason for someone to buy the product.

Things started making more sense when I stopped trying to generate one finished ad and started treating each version like a small test.

I would take one angle and try a few different openings or hooks around it. Same middle, same product and same offer. If the opening was weak, I changed the first few seconds. If the idea made sense but the person felt fake, I changed the person. If the product looked wrong in one shot, I regenerated that shot instead of throwing away the entire video.
That sounds obvious now but before that I had been changing the hook, script, person, setting, offer and CTA all at once. So each video took me days, and if something worked, I had no idea which change was actually responsible.

Some of the early generations were honestly awful. Hands looked weird, the product would randomly change size between shots, and labels moved around or turned into complete nonsense. Sometimes the product looked perfect in one frame and completely different two seconds later.

The funny part was that some of the most cinematic videos were also the least useful.
They had beautiful lighting and complicated camera movements, but they felt more like AI showcases than actual ads. I wouldn’t have stopped scrolling for them, so I couldn’t expect anyone else to.

The ads that actually worked were much simpler. Mostly creator style videos that looked like something you might genuinely see while scrolling reels or TikTok.

Over time the format that worked was a direct demonstration, one obvious problem, one clear product benefit and a simple comparison. Sometimes it was three reasons someone might want the product. Sometimes there was barely any dialogue at all.

Nothing revolutionary. They were just easy to understand.

Here’s one of the ads that came out of that process:

https://reddit.com/link/1v9jd2h/video/qs1a6aony2gh1/player

It isn’t some perfect cinematic production. That’s kind of the point. It explains the product quickly, looks natural in the feed and gives someone a reason to keep watching.

My biggest mistake was confusing volume with actual testing.

AI makes it easy to generate 20 versions of something. I’m also using a tool that helps direct and set up the ad for me, which makes the process faster. But that doesn’t mean I tested 20 different ideas. Sometimes I had just made the same bad ad 20 times with different people standing in different rooms.

The other mistake was accepting things that were “close enough.”

A slightly strange hand might not ruin every video. The product changing shape absolutely does. Even when people can’t explain exactly what looks wrong, they can still tell that something feels off.

AI didn’t find the product for me. It didn’t fix the offer, build the page or make Meta traffic cheaper. What it changed was the amount of time between having an idea and getting that idea in front of actual people.

I could think of an angle in the morning, make a few versions, test them and then change only the part that wasn’t working. I didn’t need to organize another shoot every time I wanted to try a different opening.

If you’re just starting out keep going and testing different things, something will eventually click. Most of what I made at the beginning didn’t work, but every failed version made the next decision a little clearer.

If anyone needs help I can share you a workspace or break down the angles, hooks and video I tested. Honestly, seeing all the failed versions is probably more useful than only seeing the final ad.

The store finished its first month a little above $7k in sales. Nothing life-changing, but enough to completely change how I think about producing ads for ecommerce.

If I’m missing some obvious sauce or there’s a better method I’m happy to learn too. Anyway, that's the full picture. Happy to answer stuff in the comments and help out! I’m happy to learn too.