I studied 700 Acatenango videos to remake one short
Claude studied the most-viewed Acatenango videos on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Almost all are one shot of Fuego erupting. So I remade my short that way.
In December 2020 I hiked Acatenango alone, the volcano of about 13,000 feet above Antigua in Guatemala, and camped facing Fuego, the active volcano next to it, while it erupted all night. The film has about 401K views on YouTube.
These days I'm cutting every film into short vertical videos for TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts and Facebook. Most of mine have been animated route maps. On October 10 I looked at the Acatenango one and told Claude: "I think the Acatenango reel just isn't that good." I asked it to research the popular videos of that hike on the platforms I post to, figure out what they have in common, and use my footage "to make the best version of what is already successful."
The short I started with
My first Acatenango short was a 64-second narrated map reel, "Camping next to an erupting volcano": a map of Guatemala, the route drawn up the volcano, my footage underneath and captions of the narration, read by my AI voice clone. Its maps have the same look as the maps in my hiking guides (I wrote about how those are made).
On TikTok it got 1,023 views in its first 18 hours and 1,065 after 35. Then it stopped.
How Claude studied 737 videos, in 6 steps
- Gather. Claude searched TikTok (123 videos), Instagram (151 reels) and YouTube Shorts (463), plus Facebook video search, in the browser. It read each video's public numbers: views, length, sound, caption. It never downloaded anyone's video.
- Watch the top ones. It looked at 14 to 21 frames of each of the most-viewed videos, counting cuts and reading the on-screen text.
- Find the pattern. It listed what the top 15 have in common, ranked by how often each thing shows up.
- Pick one to copy. One real video as the template, not a blend of ideas.
- Rebuild it. Only my own footage from the 2021 film, with a licensed music track.
- My review. I watched it and gave one note. That note became version 2.
The 15 biggest
TikTok and Instagram are where Acatenango goes viral: more than a dozen videos there are over a million views. On YouTube Shorts, no Acatenango Short in the search passed 166K. The biggest Fuego Shorts there are news clips, like a lightning strike. On Facebook the search shows reactions instead of views, and the big posts are reposts of the same eruption clips from Instagram.
The top one, at 43.2 million, is a 14-second Instagram reel by @luis.villafranca: dawn on the summit, Fuego blowing an ash column, hikers silhouetted on the rim and the crowd reacting, then one slow pan to the sunrise over the clouds.
What the winners have in common
- Fuego is the picture (13 of 15): its cone with an ash puff or lava. Not the hike, not Acatenango itself.
- Short: 12 of 15 are 8 to 17 seconds. Nothing in the top 10 is over 28 seconds.
- One continuous shot (10 of the 13 watched frame by frame). The phone holds still or makes one slow pan.
- A person watching, back to camera or in silhouette (9 of 15). You stand there with them.
- Tiny text or none (14 of 15): no words at all, or one to three small lowercase lines in the middle of the screen, there from the first frame to the last. A feeling, a "wait for it", or a POV. Never a title card, never stats.
- No voiceover (15 of 15). The sound is the crowd, the wind, the eruption, or one emotional song.
- Golden light, sunset or dawn (9 of 15).
- The payoff happens inside the shot: the ash cloud grows, lava bursts, lightning, or the camera turns to the sunrise.
None of the 15 had a map, a route line, a day counter, miles, narration or a link to a guide. My short had all of them.
The one I copied, and why not the biggest
The 43.2M reel is a lucky live moment: a daytime eruption at dawn, with a crowd on the rim and their voices on the sound. I don't have that shot. My eruptions are at night, and I was alone. A copy of it would be a weaker version of it.
The second-biggest, a 14-second TikTok by @anyatraveldiary with 12.8 million views, is one take: a woman on the ridge with her back to the camera, facing Fuego's cone, three small lowercase lines about living while you can, and one trending sound. She has a second Acatenango video at 2 million, so the format repeats. And its whole recipe was already in my film: a tripod shot on the crater rim at sunset of me, back to camera, facing Fuego, arms out. You can see it in the film's thumbnail above.
Building it from my film
Claude cut version 1 from two parts of that one tripod shot, joined by a short dissolve so it plays as one take: 13 seconds. The text is mine, from things I say in the film ("about 13,000 feet", "totally alone"), in the template's shape of fact, fact, life line:
> i hiked 13,000 ft up a volcano alone > just to watch the one next to it. > make time for things like this.
It sits small in the middle of the screen, inside the area no app's buttons cover on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or Facebook. Under it is a licensed music track, with no voice, and a light grade on the footage. Claude also exported the edit as a Final Cut Pro timeline, so I can open it and change anything myself.
That night on the rim, in my own words
The altitude hit me pretty hard, and the lack of water didn't help. But I was still in good spirits, because there was barely anyone up there; I hardly saw another hiker. At night the clouds cleared enough to see the eruptions directly, and it was amazing. I'd never seen anything like it. Fuego went off every so often, and the eruptions were so loud. What struck me most was the gap between seeing an eruption and hearing it. They were so big, and far enough away, that the sound took maybe 10 or 15 seconds to reach me after the light. That was amazing to watch.
My one note: a payoff
Version 1 had no eruption. In that shot Fuego isn't puffing, and my eruption shots are at night without me in them. My note on it: "I think that new reel is good but I think it needs a pay off clip of the night volcano erupting maybe. Or montage of clips once music hits."
So version 2 keeps the rim shot and the text for nine seconds. When my arms go out and the music swells, it cuts to the night: six of my shots of Fuego, each cut on the beat, ending on the biggest burst over the glowing cone. That made it 19.9 seconds, which also clears TikTok's 15-second minimum. My answer to version 2 was "that's great."
Where it is now
The new short is live on YouTube Shorts since October 10, linked to the full film and the Acatenango guide. Instagram and TikTok are next, and Facebook gets it on October 20 in place of the map reel. KraigOS, the database Claude and I built to run my work, keeps it in my clip library with every platform it goes to and its numbers as they come in.
What I learned, and what's next
My map reels are still my best short videos overall. On TikTok, the K2 map reel passed 17,000 views the morning after this. But for Acatenango the people already showed what they want to see, by the millions, and it isn't a map. It's the volcano, one person watching it and almost nothing else.
Next: posting it everywhere and comparing it with the map reel on the same platforms. If it wins, I'll try the same research on other routes before making their shorts.
FAQ
What is Acatenango?
A volcano of about 13,000 feet above Antigua, Guatemala. I hiked it in two days from La Soledad, slept at the base camp facing Fuego, the active volcano next to it, and watched it erupt all night. My guide covers the route from La Soledad.
Did you use other people's videos in your short?
No. Claude only studied their public numbers and watched them. Every shot in my short is from my own 2021 film, and the music is licensed.
How did Claude find the videos?
It searched TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts and Facebook in a browser, read the public view counts, lengths, sounds and captions of 737 videos, and looked at the top ones frame by frame.
What makes an Acatenango video go viral?
In the top 15: Fuego erupting as the picture, 8 to 17 seconds, one continuous shot, a person watching it with their back to the camera, tiny text or none, and no voiceover.
Why not copy the most-viewed one?
It's a live daytime eruption with a crowd reacting on the rim, which I don't have. The second-biggest, a person on the rim facing Fuego, was already a shot in my film.
Where can I watch it?
On YouTube Shorts. The full film is on my channel.