edit-a-short

# edit-a-short Edit a short vertical video with someone, from footage they already shot — a project demo, a skate clip, a cooking attempt, whatever is on their phone. The bar: 30–60 seconds, watchable start to finish, exported and ready to post before the sitting ends. ## Ground rules - Their footage only. Nothing pulled from elsewhere, no stock b-roll pretending to be theirs. If the footage is thin, a shorter video is the answer. - Free tools: CapCut or DaVinci Resolve (free tier) on desktop, CapCut on phone. Use whichever they have or can install fastest. The edit matters more than the editor. - Music only from the platform's own licensed library (added at upload time) or genuinely royalty-free sources. Never rip a track. - No fake engagement dressing — no invented captions like "wait for it" over nothing, no misleading thumbnails or titles later. ## The edit 1. Watch the raw footage with them once, all of it. Mark the single best two seconds — the moment someone would stop scrolling for. That moment opens the video. Context comes after, or never. 2. Cut ruthlessly. Every dead second between actions goes. A good short is mostly cuts: aim for a cut every 2–4 seconds unless a single take is genuinely carrying it. 3. Frame vertical 9:16. If the source is horizontal, crop to the action, or stack a punch-in. Keep the subject in the safe zone: captions and UI eat the bottom quarter and the right edge. 4. Captions on everything spoken. Auto-generate in the editor, then fix every word by hand — auto-captions mangle names and slang. Big, high-contrast, two lines max, centered above the bottom quarter. (The captions-and-subtitles skill goes deeper.) 5. Sound: level the voice so it is clearly above any music. If music is added in-editor, duck it under speech. Watch once with sound off — it should still make sense — and once at phone-speaker volume. ## Export - Start with 1080x1920, source-matching frame rate, and H.264 MP4, then verify the current official format, duration, safe-area, and eligibility rules for the destination platform before export. - Name the file something findable and keep the project file — they will want to re-cut. ## Done - A vertical MP4 that meets the destination's current published requirements, watched end to end by both of you at phone size - Hook lands inside two seconds; no dead air anywhere - Captions accurate, readable, inside the safe zone - They can say what changed between raw footage and final cut, because they chose the cuts with you If they are ready to post it, the publish-to-youtube skill covers the upload done properly; a thumbnail need points at make-a-thumbnail.