Hook Video Maker
The hook is the part of a short video that decides everything after it. It is a craft with its own rules and, until now, no tool of its own. Hook Mode renders the opener itself: a 3 to 5 second dramatic clip you cut onto anything or the cold open that runs before your chat story. Seven styles. Twenty cinematic openers. One job: stop the scroll.
Hook Mode on every plan, free included. Cinematic Intros on Creator+.
Every short-form platform has quietly published the same finding: the dropoff decision happens in the first seconds, before the content has a chance to be good. The hook is not decoration. It is the part of the video that carries every other part.
The working rule of the creator economy, not a ChatAnimate metric: hold the first three seconds and the algorithm reads it as a video worth serving.
Hook Mode
Pick Hook in the mode selector and the video is the opener: no messages, just a short dramatic intro clip. Export it, drop it onto any footage in your editor and cut your cold open in seconds instead of keyframes. Or let it open a longer ChatAnimate export.
Hook Intro
Already have the conversation? The Hook Intro button in the editor header opens any chat story with a dramatic intro before the first message plays. Pick the style family, play, export. The hook and the story render as one video.
Every hook style family is a different way to earn the next second. The twenty Cinematic Intros openers (Creator+) overlay on top for layered openings when the video needs a premium first impression.
The clean open. Text on the frame, nothing in the way.
Letterbox, slow push, the movie-trailer register.
The maximal cut: motion, light, everything moving.
Title-card gravity. Credits energy before the story.
Sharp grids and type. The tech-launch register.
Oversized type that punches first and explains later.
The adventurous register: maps, distance, a world opening.
Start inside the story, not before it. No greetings, no channel intros, no "hey guys". The first frame is already happening.
One line that tells the viewer what they stand to lose or learn. Specific beats dramatic: "my landlord texted at 2am" outearns "you will not believe this".
The feed is a rhythm. A hook is a syncopation: an unexpected visual, a wrong-order reveal, a sound that arrives before its picture.
The hook signs a contract: watch to the end and you get the thing. The content must actually pay it or the algorithm remembers on the next video.
Images, GIFs, video, audio and cinematic cards between any two messages.
Every message a full-screen scene that holds until the narration finishes.
An incoming call: the ring, the accept, the timer. Nothing opens harder.
Chroma green and transparent exports for layering hooks onto your footage.
The first seconds of a short video, engineered to stop the scroll. A hook opens cold, names the stakes and promises a payoff, so the viewer stays past the moment they would usually swipe. On TikTok and Reels the three second mark is the line almost every dropoff decision crosses.
A short intro-only clip: no messages, just the opener. Typically 3 to 5 seconds of dramatic intro that you edit together with other video in post-production or use as the opening of a longer ChatAnimate export.
Yes. The Hook Intro button opens any conversation with a dramatic intro before the first message plays. Pick a style family: basic, cinematic, spectacular, movie, modern, bold or explore.
Cinematic Intros is a separate button in the editor header with 20 futuristic opener styles that overlay before the first message. It unlocks on Creator+ and combines with Hook Intro for layered openings.
Short enough to not become the video: 3 to 5 seconds is the working range for short-form openers. The hook states the promise, the content pays it.
Hook Mode and the Hook Intro button are available on every plan, including free. Cinematic Intros unlocks on Creator+.
Three seconds. Then everything else.