The template library: how it works

Four formats, one file each. They cover most of what a brand will actually commission from a UGC creator:

These are not scripts. They are briefs that produce scripts — the four required elements from Section 1, pre-loaded with the structure the format expects, so you're filling in specifics rather than remembering the shape.

1Every template has the same anatomy

Once you've read one you've read all four. The parts are always in this order:

1. What the format is, and when it's the wrong one. Formats are not interchangeable and the commonest mistake is shooting a demo when the brand briefed a testimonial.

2. The beats. The structural spine, with rough proportions. Beats are not seconds — a beat is a job the piece has to do, and adjacent beats can share a shot.

3. The brief. In a fenced block, ready to copy. Everything in [SQUARE BRACKETS] is yours to replace. Everything else stays.

4. What to reject. The specific ways this format goes wrong, which differ more than you'd expect.

5. An illustration. What the shape looks like when it works.

2The two slots that do the most work

Every brief in the library has these, and they are the ones people leave empty.

[BRAND VOICE] — paste the relevant section of your completed Form BV-01 (Module 3). At minimum the off-limits words. This is what stops the output sounding like everything else; Section 1 explains why at length.

[AUDIENCE] — one person, in a situation. Not a demographic. "A renter in their late twenties standing in a kitchen they can't renovate" rather than "25–34, urban."

If you only fill in two things, fill in those two.

3How to adapt rather than restart

The templates get you to a first shortlist. They are not meant to survive unchanged.

• Add constraints, don't remove them. Every constraint you strip makes the output more generic. If something feels over-specified, that's usually the part doing the work.
• Move the beats before you change the words. Most format problems are ordering problems. Try the result before the process; try the objection before the proof.
• When a brand's brief conflicts with the template, the brand wins. Then note what they wanted in Form BV-01 under deliverable specifics, so the next job for them starts correct.
• Keep your edits. Once a template has been adapted for a client twice, it has become that client's template. Module 5 is where that turns into a Skill rather than a file you copy.

4Duration guidance, and how much to trust it

Each file gives a typical length range. Treat these as what brands tend to brief, not as rules — they vary by platform, by market, by campaign, and they move. Where a brand specifies, the brand's number wins every time.

The ranges are here because "how long should this be" is the second question every beginner asks, and "it depends" is a true answer that helps nobody.