Free Video Effect
Checklist Effect: A Glass To-Do Card That Ticks Off As You Talk
A frosted glass to-do card slides in at the top and ticks off each step the moment you say it.
Claude Code · Opus 5.59:16Easy
- Run the setup once
- Paste the prompt, fill in the [brackets]
- Approve the preview, get your MP4
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The prompt
effects/checklist.py: add a "Checklist" effect between [START S] and [END S].
- Put a dark, frosted-glass rounded card in the top 30% of the screen (it blurs the background,
#111 at 70% opacity + a 1 px white border at 10%).
- Card header: top left, small spaced capitals "● [TITLE, e.g. WHAT YOU NEED TO DO]",
top right a "[n] / [total]" counter.
- Items:
1. [ITEM 1] → checked when "[TRIGGER WORD 1]" is spoken
2. [ITEM 2] → "[TRIGGER WORD 2]"
3. [ITEM 3] → "[TRIGGER WORD 3]"
- Items whose turn hasn't come yet show only as a gray line (a skeleton).
When an item's turn comes, its text opens from left to right.
- The moment of checking: the empty circle turns into a filled yellow-green (#C8F04A) circle and a ✓ is drawn inside it
(stroke animation, 250 ms), the card bounces slightly (scale 1.02) and the counter goes up.
- The card slides in from the top and slides back up 1 s after the last item.Fill in the brackets
| Placeholder | What to put there | Example |
|---|---|---|
[START S] / [END S] | Where the effect starts and ends, in seconds from the start of input.mp4. | 3.0 / 11.5 |
[TITLE, e.g. WHAT YOU NEED TO DO] | The small header in the card's top-left corner, shown in letter-spaced capitals. | YOUR TO-DO |
[n] / [total] | The counter in the top-right corner. Leave it as written: Claude shows how many items are ticked out of the total and updates it on every tick. | 2 / 3 |
[ITEM 1] – [ITEM 3] | The text of each line on the card. Keep each one short enough to fit on a single line. | Pick one topic |
[TRIGGER WORD 1] – [TRIGGER WORD 3] | The spoken word that ticks each item. Claude finds its exact time in words.json. | topic |
About Checklist
Checklist is a talking-head video effect that slides a dark, frosted glass card into the top 30% of the frame and ticks off each item the moment you say its trigger word, while a counter climbs. Run the one-time setup, then paste the prompt below into Claude Code with Opus 5.5; Claude times every tick to your own words.
Use it when: You walk through steps out loud, as in 'there are three things you need to do'.
What the Checklist effect does
The Checklist effect turns a spoken list of steps into a card that keeps score while you talk. A dark, rounded panel of frosted glass slides down from the top edge and settles across the top 30% of the frame. Its header carries a small, letter-spaced title on the left, such as ”● YOUR TO-DO”, and a counter on the right.
Steps you have not reached yet appear only as grey placeholder lines. When an item’s turn comes, its text unrolls from left to right. When you say its trigger word, the empty circle beside it fills with yellow-green, a check mark draws itself in 250 ms, the card gives a small bounce and the counter goes up by one. A second after the last tick, the card slides back up and out of the frame.
When it works and when it hurts
It suits videos where the steps are the structure: “three things to fix before you post”, “the settings I change on every new phone”. The card shows viewers where they are in the list, and the counter tells them how much is left.
It works against you when the items are long or the order is loose. A full sentence on each line competes with your captions for the same few seconds of attention. If you jump back to step one halfway through, the ticks stop matching what you say, so settle the order before you record. Tight framing is the other risk: the card owns the top of the frame, and a shot with little headroom puts it on your forehead.
How Claude builds it
The timing comes from setup. words.json holds every word you said with its start and end time, so Claude looks up each trigger word, ties the tick to that frame, and then schedules the slide-in, the text reveals and the exit around those anchors.
The card itself is a small piece of web design. The setup’s helper module can render HTML and CSS to transparent PNGs with Playwright, which suits a card like this: one image per state, plus the frames of the check-mark stroke. The frosted look cannot come from the browser alone, though, because the browser never sees your video. So the Python script blurs the strip of each video frame that sits behind the card, lays the 70% #111 fill over it, and puts the card graphic on top. ffmpeg collects the frames into a new MP4 and carries your original audio across.
Make it yours
Start with the words on the card. A title that matches your series, such as “TODAY’S FIXES” or “BEFORE YOU POST”, reads as part of your format rather than a generic overlay. Swap the yellow-green #C8F04A for your brand colour, keeping it bright against the dark glass. If three steps is too few, add a fourth and a fifth in the same pattern; if the card starts to crowd your face, shorten the text before you shrink the font. Whether the bounce should be bigger or the stroke slower than 250 ms is a matter of taste, so change one value, watch it, then decide.
Questions
Does the Checklist need the person mask?
No. The card sits on top of the video rather than behind you, so it only uses the word timestamps from setup. That also makes it one of the quicker effects to render, because there is no per-frame layering of your body over a graphic.
Can I use more than three items?
Yes. Add more lines in the same pattern, each with its own trigger word, and the counter total follows. Watch the card height: every extra line makes it taller, and on a vertical frame a tall card starts to reach your face. Shorter wording helps more than a smaller font.
What if I never say the exact trigger word?
Claude can only tick on a word that is actually in words.json. If your wording drifted from the plan, open words.json, find the word you did say at that step and use it. You can also give a time in seconds instead of a word for any item.
Can I change the tick colour?
Yes. #C8F04A is the yellow-green from the original prompt. Replace it with your accent colour, but keep it bright against the dark card so the filled circle reads at a glance. If you use the shared style block from the setup page, ask Claude to take the colour from there.
Step by step
Run the setup once
Open the folder that holds input.mp4 in Claude Code, choose Opus 5.5 and paste the setup prompt. For this effect the output that matters is words.json, the word-by-word transcript with timestamps.
Choose items and trigger words
Write the three short lines the card will show. For each, pick a word you actually say when you reach that step, and check it is spelled the same way in words.json.
Paste and fill in the prompt
Copy the Checklist prompt, fill in your start and end seconds, the card title, the three items and their trigger words, and send it.
Watch and adjust
Watch the render. If a tick lands early or late, tell Claude which word it should line up with. For a faster first look, ask for a 540×960 preview before the full-size render.
You need: Setup prompt (run once) · Word timestamps · 3 items with trigger words
Tips
- Pick trigger words you say clearly and only once in that section. A word you repeat, like 'first', or one the transcript misheard, makes the tick land on the wrong moment.
- Keep each item to a few words. Three short lines sit comfortably on the card; long sentences wrap and crowd it. That is a layout judgement, so check it on a phone.
- The card owns the top 30% of the frame. Record with some headroom, or ask Claude to make the card shorter if it reaches your forehead.
- Need more steps? Add [ITEM 4] and [TRIGGER WORD 4] in the same pattern and ask Claude to update the counter total.
If it goes wrong
An item ticks before or after you say the step.
The trigger word is spelled differently in words.json or appears more than once. Find the exact occurrence in words.json and give Claude its timestamp, or a neighbouring word to anchor to.
The card looks like a flat grey band instead of frosted glass.
The blur behind the card is too weak to show through the 70% fill. Ask Claude to blur the video behind the card more strongly and leave the fill opacity as it is.
The card covers your hair or forehead.
Ask Claude to reduce the card's height or tighten its padding so your face stays clear, then re-render only the effect range.
What it does not do
- Tick timing depends on the transcript. If faster-whisper mishears a trigger word, or you swallow it, the tick has nothing reliable to lock onto until you correct the word or give a time.
- The frosted look is a blur of whatever sits behind the card. Over a plain wall it reads as a dark band rather than glass; it shows more over a busy background.
- The card is fixed to the frame, not to you. If you lean forward or stand up into the top 30%, the card will cover you.
- On-screen text is small on a phone, and each line is only on screen for a few seconds. Long item text is hard to read in that time.
Sources
- backdrop-filter — MDN Web Docs. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- faster-whisper — GitHub — SYSTRAN. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- Screenshots — Playwright for Python. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- Claude Code overview — Anthropic. Accessed October 21, 2026.
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