How Claude helps me run my work

When people ask about my workflow, they usually mean cameras — glass, ND filters, how I grade. Fair enough, that’s the job people see. What they don’t see is the other job: the one where I’m pricing packages, drafting contracts, and trying to turn a one-man operation into an actual company. That job doesn’t happen on set. Most of it happens through Claude.

I’m a cinematographer and DP by trade, and creative director for my own agency, Lightyear Creatify. That means on any given day I might be on set shooting, and that same night I’m the one writing content strategy, working out an equity split with a partner, or figuring out what a retainer client actually gets month to month. Nobody warns you, when you start your own thing, that half the job becomes stuff that has nothing to do with why you got into this industry in the first place.

That’s the gap this ended up filling. Not as a gimmick — just as the place where a lot of the unglamorous work actually gets done, so the creative work still has room to happen.

A few honest examples of where it actually shows up.

Building the agency. Lightyear Creatify didn’t come with a business plan attached. Pricing tiers, revenue splits, partner terms — all of it got worked out back and forth before it became something I could hand to someone else.

Client content, at volume. When you’re putting out 20 videos and 16 carousels a month for a brand, you cannot write every brief from a blank page and stay sane. First drafts of content calendars and captions come out fast, in my tone — then I edit, which is a different job than writing cold.

AI prompt work. A lot of what I need — a silhouette portrait, a concept shot for a launch — starts as a prompt before it’s ever a frame. Getting the lighting and mood language specific is its own small skill, and worth getting right.

Paperwork and research. Contracts, invoices, onboarding forms, UAE trade license requirements I forgot to look up earlier. None of it is interesting. All of it moves faster when I’m not starting from zero.

This part is worth being clear about, because it’s easy to overstate what a tool like this does. It handles the second job — first drafts of pricing, contracts, briefs, and prompts, plus fast research on things like trade licensing. What it doesn’t touch is the eye: where the light goes, how a frame is composed, what a shot is actually trying to say. That instinct took years on set to build, and it’s still entirely mine. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I didn’t get into this industry to write pricing pages and partner agreements. I got into it to shoot. Running an agency just means the camera work is maybe half the job now — and this is what makes sure the other half doesn’t quietly take over the part I actually care about.