FloristMark · business unit

Lesson Editor & Cut Spec

Convert Abe's taste into a written standard someone else can execute — the Replace-Me doctrine applied to one small job.

$20/video + $10 clean pass Max $30 · in the $500/mo production line 3-camera MEVO · 15–20 min Detail → README.md

Why $20 is the right number here

The setup removes what's normally expensive

Normally expensive	Here
Multicam sync — the single most time-consuming step	MEVO aligns all three feeds to one playhead. Three files, same start. No sync work at all
Lighting rescue and colour matching	The floral studio is well lit. Consistent, every time
Multi-mic audio, crosstalk, levels	One speaker, one microphone. AI scrubbing handles it
Creative structure decisions	Locked template. Cooking-show format, identical every lesson
Length	15–20 minutes, sometimes shorter

Strip those out and what remains is cut selection, cleanup and export. $20 is defensible for that. No premium is owed for pushing a button on an AI workflow that does 99% of the work.

But one thing is not mechanical

And it is the whole job

Automatic multicam switching keys off which microphone is active. That is what it was built for — two or more people talking, cut to whoever is speaking.

This recording has one speaker on one microphone. That signal does not exist. The auto-switcher has nothing to switch on. So every cut in every lesson is a human judgment about what is visually interesting — her hands, the material, the wide, the detail.

That is taste. It is the only variable between a $20 edit and a good one, and it is the only thing worth QA'ing. Which is why the spec below exists.

The one manual pass

Do this once, before commissioning anything

Abe cuts one lesson himself in DaVinci Resolve. Not to become an editor — to answer five questions the spec then encodes permanently.

How many cuts does an 18-minute lesson actually want? Count them.
What is each camera angle for — which one carries which kind of moment?
What motivates a cut — what is happening on screen at the instant it feels right?
Where does a cut feel wrong? What was she doing at that moment?
How long is the longest hold that still works on a single angle?

This is the highest-value hour on FloristMark production — because it is the hour that stops you being in the loop for every lesson afterward. A standard written once survives the handoff. Taste applied lesson by lesson does not.

The cut spec

fill = pending Abe's manual pass

4.1 · The three angles and their jobs

Wide

Orientation and rhythm

Openings, transitions between steps, showing the whole arrangement, closings.

Medium

The default

Most of the lesson. She is working and talking, both visible.

Proof and payoff

Hands doing the technique, the stem going in, texture, the reveal moment.

4.2 · Cut cadence

Rule	Standard
Target cuts per minute	fill · likely 2–4
Longest permitted hold on one angle	fill · likely 20–30s
Minimum shot length	fill · likely 2s
Opening	Wide, held, until the goal is stated
Closing	Close on the finished piece, then wide

Minimum shot length exists so a cut never lands faster than the eye can follow.

4.3 · What motivates a cut — the only four reasons

Action change

She picks something up, puts something down, changes tool.

Material change

A new flower, foliage or component enters the arrangement.

Step transition

One part of the arrangement is finished, the next begins.

Emphasis

She says something the close-up proves.

If a cut is not one of these four, it is wrong. This is the entire QA standard — and the reason a rejection can always be written as a rule number rather than a matter of opinion.

4.4 · Never cut

On a static hold — nothing is changing, so the cut has no reason and reads as nervous
Mid-sentence, unless the new angle shows what the sentence is about
To an angle where her hands are out of frame during handwork
More than fill times inside 10 seconds

4.5 · Cleanup — mechanical, no judgment

Step	Standard
Audio	AI voice isolation / noise removal. Levels consistent lesson to lesson
Dead air	Trim silences over fill · likely 2s, keep natural breathing
Colour	Match the three angles to each other. No grading beyond that
Titles	Per template, unchanged
Export	Per template preset, unchanged

4.6 · Definition of done

Every cut is one of the four motivations in 4.3
No hold exceeds the maximum in 4.2
Hands are in frame during every handwork moment
Audio is level and clean end to end
Exported to the template preset with no manual settings changed

Pay and the rejection standard

Pay

Base per lesson	$20
Clean-pass bonus	+$10
Maximum per lesson	$30

Why a bonus and not a higher flat rate: at a flat $30 the QA burden sits on Abe's evening. At $20 + $10 it sits on the editor's incentive. Same money, opposite calendar.

Rejection process

Reject with the section number from the spec — nothing else counts as a reason
One revision included at no extra cost; the clean-pass bonus is forfeited
Two rejections on the same rule across different lessons = the spec is unclear. Fix the spec, do not re-reject

The bonus is paid when the edit passes QA on first submission against section 4.6 — and only against 4.6. Not against vague taste, not against "I would have done it differently." If a rejection cannot be written as a numbered rule, the spec is wrong and gets updated instead of the editor getting a rejection.

Volume, budget and who directs this

Monthly budget

Lessons per month assumption	8
At $20 base	$160
At $30 with clean pass	$240
Short-form clips · 20 at $10–20	$200–400
Budgeted in FloristMark overhead	$500/mo

This sits in overhead rather than being a per-batch approval, so it never becomes a decision that lands on Abe's desk.

Who directs it

Once the Creative & Conversion Lead — FloristMark is hired (gate: 672 subscribers), that person orders lesson edits and clip packs, applies the cut spec, and runs QA. Abe is out of the loop entirely.

Until then it is Abe — which is exactly why the spec should be written before the first pack is commissioned rather than after.

Escalates to Abe: anything that would ask the creator to record differently. That simplicity is what keeps this job at $20. Requests that complicate it go through Abe, never directly to her.

What Abe supplies

Item	Status
The lesson template	✅ Exists. The creator uses it. Same structure every lesson
Section 4 filled in from one manual pass	⬜ The only blocker
DaVinci Resolve project template and export preset	⬜ Comes out of the same manual pass
Access to raw MEVO files	⬜
A sample finished lesson as the reference	⬜ Produced by the manual pass

Your first 90 days: the escalation log

A duty of the role, not a performance measure

You keep a running log of every question you escalated to Abe — what you asked, and what the decision rights table said about it. You bring it to the weekly review.

If you escalate something the table already assigns to you, Abe replies "your call" and it goes in the log as a training gap, not a decision.

Why this exists. The most common way an arrangement like this fails is not a bad hire — it is the owner quietly answering questions he already gave away, and the role quietly letting him. The log makes that visible while it is still fixable.

More than 2 out-of-scope escalations per week by day 60 means the role's boundaries were written badly. That is a signal to fix the contract, not to question you.

Lesson Editor & Cut Spec · FloristMark · Full detail: README.md in this folder · Business model: ../../HANDOFF-replace-me-v3.md