Turn one long video into a proper course
Most people don't record a course. They record a session — a workshop, a talk, a long screen-share — and then face the job of turning two hours into something a learner can actually work through.
You don't have to cut it up.
How it works
When you add a video to a lesson, Bernard listens to it and works out its chapters: the points where the subject genuinely changes. That's already happening today — it's what gives you the chapter list in the player.
Those chapters are the natural lesson breaks. Ask Bernard to turn the video into lessons and it will:
- Show you the plan first. A list of the lessons it would make, with where each one starts and stops. Nothing is created yet.
- Wait for you. Chapters exist for jumping around a video, not for teaching — so the first list is a starting point, and you'll often want fewer, longer lessons. Say so and it adjusts.
- Make them as private drafts once you're happy, each lesson playing its own stretch of the one video (Understand how a course is put together covers what a lesson is made of).
Nothing is re-uploaded and nothing is transcribed twice, which is why a long recording becomes a syllabus in moments rather than an afternoon of editing.
What you'll want to check
Where the breaks fall. Bernard finds where the subject changes, which is usually right but not always where you'd have put a lesson boundary. Read the list before saying yes.
Very short chapters. A ten-second "welcome" at the top isn't a lesson, so it's folded into the one after it — never dropped. You'll see which ones were merged.
The lesson titles. They come from the chapter titles, which were written for navigation. They're worth a pass in your own voice (Organise a big course — modules, sub-lessons, many courses has more on keeping a large syllabus readable).
Notes, without the typing
Once the lessons exist, Bernard can draft the written notes for each one from what's said in that lesson — and only that lesson, so every lesson gets its own notes rather than a summary of the whole recording. They're written to work alongside the video rather than repeat it, because a wall of near-transcript is worse than nothing when the learner already has the video.
They arrive as a draft. Edit them freely — and if a lesson already has notes, Bernard leaves them completely alone.
Then the usual finishing
Set one lesson free as a taster so people can see what they'd be buying (Let people watch one lesson free), and decide how the course is sold and who gets in (Charge once, or sell a year of access). As always, nothing is visible to a learner until you publish and approve it.
The prompt
“I've uploaded one long video to [course name]. Have a look at where it naturally breaks and suggest how it could become separate lessons.”
Press Copy, then paste it into your AI and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard first — a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI.
Questions people ask
- Does my video get chopped up into separate files?
- No — and that's what makes this quick. There's still one video; each lesson simply plays its own stretch of it. Nothing is re-uploaded, re-encoded or transcribed again, so a two-hour recording becomes a dozen lessons in moments rather than hours. If you later replace the video, every lesson made from it follows along.
- How does Bernard know where the lessons should start and stop?
- From the chapters it already worked out for that video when you added it — it reads the transcript and finds where the subject genuinely changes. It won't invent breaks that aren't there: if a video is too short or too continuous to have chapters, Bernard says so rather than guessing at a split.
- Will it just go ahead and make twenty lessons?
- No. It shows you the list first and waits. Chapters are made for jumping around a video, not for teaching, so a twenty-chapter recording is rarely a twenty-lesson course — you'll often want to merge some. Nothing is created until you say yes, and everything it does create is a private draft you approve before learners see it.
- What happens to a really short chapter?
- It gets folded into the lesson next to it rather than dropped, so no part of your video goes missing. Bernard tells you which ones it merged and why.
- Can Bernard write the lesson notes too?
- Yes, from what's actually said in that lesson — and only that lesson, not the whole recording. They're written to sit alongside the video rather than repeat it, and they're a draft for you to edit. If a lesson already has notes, Bernard won't touch them: your own words always win.