Read an opening closely
What a close read of an opening reports, what it compares against, and why it gives no score.
Read the hook
In Studio, Read the hook reads the opening of a cut closely. The opening is the first 3 seconds unless the project’s hook window is set longer: 5, 10, 15, 30 seconds.
What it reports
Each finding is a fact about that opening with the time range it happened in, so you can scrub there and check it.
| Finding | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| When you start speaking | How long the opening runs before the first word. |
| Your voice against the picture | Whether you start talking before or after the picture first changes, and by how much. |
| Pace | How many words a minute you speak across the opening. |
| The edge of the opening | Whether it cuts off part-way through a line, and where that line ends. |
| Words on screen | Any text written on the picture, quoted exactly, from when it appears to the last moment it is still seen. |
| Changes in the picture | Where the picture cuts or the framing changes. |
What it compares against
Your own earlier openings that have been read, and nothing else: no outside benchmark and no rule of thumb about hooks. Each comparison prints its count, for example “9 of your 12 other read hooks open with a question”, so you can see how much it rests on. Until a second opening has been read there is nothing to compare against.
Why there is no score
There is no score, and none is planned. Whether an opening works depends on its audience, and the same measure can point in opposite directions from one niche to the next. A score out of a hundred cannot be checked; a fact with a timestamp can.