How to recreate a viral video without copying it
Keep how it’s built, change what it says. What you can borrow from a video that works, what has to be yours, and why copying the words backfires.
The short answer
Borrow the structure. Write the words.
A video that works has two parts you can pull apart. One is how it is built: the kind of hook, the order of the beats, the pacing, the shots. The other is what it says: the script, the on-screen text, the subject and the claims. The first is a format, the kind of thing creators have always reused and built on. The second belongs to the person who made it.
What to keep
- The hook type. A price anchor, a bold claim, a question, a before and after. Keep the kind of opening, not the sentence.
- The beat order. If the original goes hook, demonstration, reveal, call to action, yours can too.
- The pacing. How long each shot runs and where the cuts land.
- The format. A product demo, a day in the life, a list, open-make-result.
- The shot types. Talking to camera, close-ups of hands, a top-down shot of the finished thing.
- How text is used. A big line during the hook, short labels on the product shots.
What to change
- Every word. What you say and every line of on-screen text, written for your audience in your voice.
- The subject and the product. Yours.
- The facts. Prices, numbers and results have to be true for you.
- The place and the people. Your counter, your kitchen, your hands, your face.
Why copying the words is a problem
- They aren’t yours. The script, the footage and the music are the creator’s work. As a general rule, copyright protects how something is expressed, the actual words and pictures, rather than the idea or the format behind them. This isn’t legal advice, but it is why reusing a structure is common practice and lifting a script is not.
- They rarely fit. Lines written for someone else’s product, audience and story sound borrowed in your mouth. People who saw the original will notice; people who didn’t will still feel something is off.
- The claims may not be true for you. A number that was true for them is a promise you would have to keep.
Side by side: one structure, two videos
RemakeFlow’s own demo shows the idea. The original is a café’s video: three shots of coffee being made, with “Stop paying $6 for coffee” on screen. The remake is for a small maker of handmade skin cream.
Theirs
Yours
| Beat | Length | The café’s video | The skin cream version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hook | Opening text | “Stop paying $6 for coffee” | “Stop paying $40 for skin care” |
| Open | About 3 s | Close-up of espresso pouring into a cup | Fingers scooping cream from a jar. Line: “I was spending $40 on face cream.” |
| Make | About 4 s | Milk poured into the coffee | Hands filling a small jar from a handmade bowl. Line: “So I started making my own.” |
| Result | About 3 s | The finished latte on a saucer | The finished jar on linen. Line: “Same glow, half the price.” |
What stayed the same: a price-anchor hook in big text, three beats that go open, make, result, shots of roughly three, four and three seconds, close-ups of hands and product, and an ending on the finished thing.
What changed: the subject, the product, the story (a personal switch instead of a café offer), every line, and the number, which is the maker’s own.
The hook is the one place where the wording looks close, and it is worth being honest about why. “Stop paying [price] for [thing]” is a short, generic frame, part of the format in the same way “Here’s what ten dollars gets you” is. What goes inside it has to be your own claim, and true. If the original opened with a specific, memorable sentence rather than a frame like this, write a new one.
How to write your own lines for a borrowed structure
- Say what each beat does, in plain words. Not what it says. For the demo: the open names an expensive habit, the make shows the alternative, the result lands the payoff.
- Fill each beat with something true from your own work. The maker’s open became “I was spending $40 on face cream”, a line from the maker’s own story rather than the café’s.
- Read it aloud against the shot length. If a line takes longer to say than the scene runs, shorten the line, not the scene.
- Write the on-screen text last. It should sum up the beat in a few words, in your words.
A quick check before you post
- Would the original creator recognise any of your sentences as theirs?
- Is every number and claim true for you?
- Does the video show your product, your place or your face?
- Would it make sense to someone who has never seen the original?
No, yes, yes and yes: you have made a remake, not a copy. To see how to map the structure in the first place, read how to break a Reel into shots.