You will be able to line up the first frame, on-screen text and spoken words so the hook works with the sound on or off.
Plan your hook so the opening picture, the text on screen and your first spoken line all say the same thing. If they do, the hook works whether the viewer has the sound on or off.
Try scrolling your feed with the sound off, as you would on a crowded train. Some videos still make sense, because the picture and the on-screen text explain them. Others become a person talking silently above a vague caption, and you move on to the next one.
The hook you wrote in lesson 3.2 has to work in both situations. With sound on, the viewer hears your first line. With sound off, they see only the first frame and read the text on it. Ideally the picture, the text and the spoken line all say the same thing.
A lot of viewing happens on mute: on public transport, in offices, and late at night next to a sleeping partner. Platforms built captioning tools and text overlays into their apps because of this. Nobody outside the platforms knows exactly how much viewing is muted, and the share varies by platform and audience. Plan as if a large share of your viewers will never hear you.
So the on-screen hook, the hook written on the first frame, must carry the hook by itself. Say your spoken line is "The reason your blouse gaps isn't your size" and the text on screen reads "New arrivals". A muted viewer gets no reason to stay. Put the hook itself on screen, in the first frame, in words a viewer can read in a moment.
The on-screen hook doesn't have to match your spoken line word for word. It is often shorter, but it means the same thing. Farah's spoken hook was "The reason your blouse gaps at the buttons isn't your size, it's the cut." Her on-screen text was "It's not your size."
The first frame is the picture a viewer sees before they have decided anything. Many videos waste it on the creator settling into the shot, adjusting the phone or taking a breath before speaking.
Open with something already happening. Movement or something unexpected holds the viewer's eye while their brain catches up. A video can open on hands already piping icing, on Farah's blouse already gapping as she sits down, or on Priya already holding up a worksheet with one answer circled in red.
One habit makes this easier. Start recording a second or two before the action, then trim the start in editing so the video opens mid-movement. Lesson 5.3, "Edit for pace: cut the start, the pauses and the end", shows you how to make the trim.
On-screen text has two jobs. It has to be readable at a glance, and it has to be visible.
Readable means short. A viewer who is deciding whether to stay will not read a paragraph. A few words in a plain, large font with strong contrast against the background work better than a full sentence in a decorative script. To test it, ask whether you would need to pause the video to read the text. If you would, it is too long.
Visible means the text sits where the app will not cover it. Short-video apps lay their own elements over your video: like, comment and share buttons down one side, the account name and post caption along the bottom, and sometimes a search bar or menu at the top. Any text in those areas is partly hidden. Keep your hook text in the middle area of the screen, away from the edges. Most editing apps, and the platforms' own editors, show guide lines or a preview to help with this. The exact layout changes between apps and with updates, so check a preview on your own phone before you post.
The most common mistake at this stage is a hook where each part says something different. Take a video whose picture shows a finished cake, whose text says "Party season is here", and whose spoken line is "So many of you have asked about delivery." Each part may be fine on its own. Together, they leave the viewer unable to tell what the video is about, so the viewer understands none of it.
When the three parts line up, they reinforce each other. Mei Ling made a video about transporting cakes. It opened with a cake box on the back seat of a car and the on-screen text "Will it melt in the car?", while her voice explained how to get a cream cake home in a hot car without it melting. With the sound on or off, a parent knew straight away what the video would give them.
To test your own hook, describe each of the three parts (picture, on-screen text, spoken line) in a few words. If all three descriptions are about the same thing, the hook works. If they cover two or three different things, choose one and change the others to match it.
You don't need to film anything yet. Work through these on paper:
Take your strongest hook from lesson 3.2. Sketch the first frame on paper, or describe it in one line: what is in the shot and what is already moving. Write the on-screen text exactly as it will appear. Write the first spoken line. Read the three side by side and check that they say one thing.
That is your activity: sketch the first frame, the on-screen text and the first spoken line for your best hook, and check that all three say the same thing.
Sketch the first frame, on-screen text and first spoken line for your best hook, then check that all three say the same thing.
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