# Eddie AI > Eddie AI is an AI assistant video editor for professional video editors. You describe the story you want in plain language and Eddie turns raw interview and B-roll footage into a structured rough cut, then exports a sequence back to Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve. Avid Media Composer support is in beta, with access from a waitlist. It is a desktop app for macOS and Windows. Eddie AI also works from ChatGPT and Claude over the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Add the server https://mcp.heyeddie.ai/api/mcp as a custom connector and sign in with your Eddie account; there is no token to paste. Claude custom connectors work on every Claude plan; ChatGPT needs a paid plan with Developer Mode. Install page: https://www.heyeddie.ai/mcp. Eddie AI launched in October 2024, founded by Shamir Allibhai (entrepreneur and video professional) and Alex Terekhov (AI scientist, applied computer vision for video). It is backed by Offline Ventures, Ashton Kutcher's Sound Ventures, Google's AI fund Gradient, and The Production Board. This is the full-text companion to https://www.heyeddie.ai/llms.txt: the complete text of every how-to guide and blog guide, generated from the site's own content by `scripts/generate-llms-full.mjs`. Every claim below appears on the linked page. # Guides by kind of video ## How to Edit Real Estate Videos URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-real-estate-videos Shoot each room as its own short clip, then put them in walking order: exterior, entry, living spaces, kitchen, bedrooms, outdoor space, and a closing drone shot. Hold each shot three to four seconds, add the address and the key facts as titles, lay a music bed under it and cut on the beat. In Eddie you upload the clips, ask for the tour in that order, then ask for titles, music and a 9:16 version for social. ### Steps 1. **Add the clips to a new project.** Create a project and upload the walkthrough clips, or pick them from Google Drive, Dropbox or Frame.io. If you already have them in a Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve or Final Cut Pro project, send them from there with the Eddie desktop app. Keep each room as its own clip; it makes the order easy to ask for. Result: A project where every clip is described, so you can ask for rooms by name instead of by file name. 2. **Ask for the tour in walking order.** Describe the route through the house and how long each shot should hold. A tour has no talking, so Eddie builds it as a sequence of trimmed clips rather than cutting around speech. Prompt: "Make a 90-second property tour from these clips in walking order: front exterior, entry, living room, kitchen, main bedroom, back garden, then end on the drone shot. Hold each shot 3 to 4 seconds, use the steadiest part of each clip, and keep it 16:9." Result: A first cut of the tour you can play straight away in the browser. 3. **Put the facts on screen.** Buyers watch listing videos with the sound off. Put the address up front, the key facts over the main rooms, and your contact details at the end. Prompt: "Add titles: "14 Alder Lane" over the first shot, "4 bed, 3 bath, 2,400 sq ft" over the living room, "Chef's kitchen with island" over the kitchen, and an end card with "Call Dana Reyes, 555 0142". Use a clean lower-third style that fades in." Result: A tour that sells the home with the sound muted. 4. **Add music and cut on the beat.** Music carries a tour that has no voice. Use a track you own, an audio file already in the project, or ask Eddie to generate one from a description. Then line the cuts up with the beat, which makes even a simple tour feel finished. Prompt: "Add a warm, upbeat acoustic track under the tour, fade it out over the end card, and move the cuts onto the beat." Result: A tour where every room change lands on the music. 5. **Clean up the picture.** Two things give an amateur tour away: shaky handheld moves and personal items in shot. Fix both before you export. Prompt: "Stabilize the entry and bedroom shots, add a slow push-in on the garden shot, and blur the family photos on the living room shelf." Result: Smooth moves, and nothing in frame the seller would not want online. 6. **Make the vertical reel and export.** Social platforms want 9:16. Ask for a vertical version of the same tour, then export the formats you need: an MP4 for the listing and social, or a timeline file if an editor will finish it. Prompt: "Make a 9:16 version of the tour for Instagram Reels, keep the titles inside the safe area, then export both versions as MP4 and the 16:9 one as a Premiere Pro project." Result: A horizontal tour, a vertical reel and an editable timeline from one project. ### Tips - **Shoot rooms as separate clips.** One clip per room, each started and stopped on purpose, gives you clean in and out points and lets you ask for rooms by name. A single twenty-minute walkthrough take works too, but you will spend prompts finding the rooms. - **Lead with the best room.** If the kitchen or the view is the selling point, it can come second, straight after the exterior. Ask Eddie to move it: "Put the kitchen right after the exterior shot." - **Keep shots short and moving.** Three to four seconds per shot, with slow, steady camera moves, holds attention without making the home feel small. Long static shots of empty rooms read as photographs. - **Check the facts on the end card.** The address, the price and the contact details are the parts a buyer acts on. Read them twice before you export; a typo in a phone number costs more than a soft focus. ### FAQ **Can Eddie edit a real estate video that has no talking in it?** Yes. When there is no speech to cut around, Eddie builds the video as a sequence of trimmed clips or stills in the order you describe, then adds titles and music on top. **Can I add a voice-over if the agent did not record one?** Yes. Write the lines and ask Eddie to place them; it generates the voice-over with AI at the time you choose. If the agent recorded an intro to camera, you can open the tour with it instead. **Can I make a slideshow from listing photos?** Yes. Eddie can sequence stills as well as clips, and add a slow push or pan to each photo so the slideshow moves. **What if I am missing a shot, like the neighbourhood?** Eddie can search stock footage for b-roll on a theme, or generate a short b-roll shot when neither your clips nor stock have it. It quotes the credits before it generates anything. **Which editing apps can I send the tour to?** Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve open Eddie's exports as timelines that point at your original clips. You can also export OTIO or a finished MP4. ## How to Edit Vlogs URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-vlogs Put your talking-to-camera clips in story order, cut every pause and false start, and cover the jumps with the b-roll you shot along the way. Then fix what handheld footage always needs: shaky shots and wind noise. Finish with captions and a music bed. In Eddie you upload the day's clips, describe the story, and ask for each of those fixes in plain words. ### Steps 1. **Add the day's clips.** Upload everything you shot, phone and camera clips together, or pick the folder from Google Drive or Dropbox. Do not sort them first. Eddie transcribes every clip where you talk and describes every clip where you do not. Result: A searchable project: you can ask for "the bit where I talk about the tram" instead of scrubbing. 2. **Describe the story and the length.** Tell Eddie the shape of the day and how long the vlog should be. Name the moments you want kept. Ask for tight pacing: a vlog should close almost every pause. Prompt: "Make an 8-minute vlog of my day in Lisbon in the order it happened: morning plans, the tram, the market, the viewpoint at sunset. Keep the story about getting lost near the market. Cut retakes and false starts, and use tight pacing." Result: A first cut that already plays like a vlog, not like raw footage. 3. **Cover the jump cuts with b-roll.** Tight pacing leaves jump cuts. Some are fine in a vlog; too many feel choppy. Put the shots you took of the places over the cuts where you talk about them. Prompt: "Cover the jump cuts with my b-roll where it matches what I am talking about: the tram footage over the tram story, the pastry close-up over the market. If nothing of mine fits a moment, find stock footage instead." Result: Cuts that flow, with the place on screen while you talk about it. 4. **Fix the shaky shots and the wind.** Handheld vlog footage is shaky, and outdoor audio carries wind. Ask for both fixes by naming the clips. Prompt: "Stabilize the market walk, remove the wind from the viewpoint clip, and level my voice so every clip sounds the same volume." Result: Footage you can watch on a big screen, and a voice that does not jump in volume between clips. 5. **Add captions and music.** Many people watch vlogs on a phone with the sound off. Captions keep them. A soft music bed fills the b-roll moments where nobody talks. Prompt: "Add social-style captions, three or four words at a time, near the bottom, and put a relaxed lo-fi track under the whole vlog, ducked under my voice." Result: A finished vlog that works with or without sound. 6. **Export it.** Download a finished MP4 to upload, or send the edit to your editing app if you like to do the last polish there. Prompt: "Export the vlog as a 1080p MP4, and also as a Final Cut Pro timeline." Result: A file ready to upload, and an editable timeline if you want it. ### Tips - **Say what happened while you film.** A line like "we just got off the tram" gives the edit something to hang the next scene on. It also gives Eddie words to find when you ask for that moment. - **Shoot more b-roll than you think.** Ten seconds of the place for every minute of talking is a good minimum. B-roll is what lets you cut your talking clips hard without the edit feeling choppy. - **Keep one mistake.** A vlog that removes every stumble can feel like an advert. If a mistake is funny or human, ask Eddie to keep it: "Keep the moment I drop the pastry." - **Fix audio before you add music.** Music hides nothing; it just competes. Clean the wind and level the voice first, then add the bed. ### FAQ **Can Eddie edit vlogs shot on a phone?** Yes. Phone clips import like any other video. Mixed frame rates and orientations are fine, and Eddie can rotate a clip that was filmed sideways. **Does Eddie remove filler words and pauses?** Tight pacing closes the pauses between lines. Captions leave filler words out by default. To cut particular words or lines from the audio, name them and Eddie marks them as removed. **Can I make a short vertical version too?** Yes. Ask for a 9:16 cut of the best minute, and Eddie builds it as a separate edit with a vertical canvas and a crop that follows your face. **What if I forgot to film b-roll of something?** Eddie can search stock footage for it, or generate a short shot when stock has nothing that fits. It always quotes the credits before it generates. ## How to Edit Vlogs for YouTube URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-vlogs-for-youtube Start with a hook: the most interesting moment of the vlog, shown in the first 30 seconds. Then tell the rest in order at a length you chose on purpose, usually 8 to 15 minutes. Add chapter titles, get a second opinion on pacing before you publish, pull a thumbnail frame, and cut two or three Shorts from the same footage. Eddie does each of those from a prompt. ### Steps 1. **Import the episode.** Upload the episode's footage or pick it from cloud storage. A YouTube vlog often has 40 minutes or more of talking; that is fine. Eddie transcribes it all, so you can search it before you cut. Result: The whole episode, searchable by what was said and what was filmed. 2. **Build the cold open and the main edit.** Ask for the hook and the length in the same prompt. The hook is the moment a viewer would describe to a friend. The length is a decision, not a leftover: name it. Prompt: "Make an 11-minute YouTube vlog. Open with a 20-second cold open from the moment the storm hits at the black sand beach, then tell the day in order. Tight pacing, and cut anything where I am only describing the drive." Result: A main edit with a hook, at a length you chose. 3. **Add chapter titles.** A title at each new place helps viewers who skip around, and gives you the chapter names for your YouTube description. Prompt: "Add a title at the start of each location: "Reykjavik", "Seljalandsfoss", "Black Sand Beach", "Glacier Hike", "Camp". Big text near the top, fading in. Then list the timestamps so I can paste them into the YouTube description." Result: On-screen chapters and a ready list of timestamps. 4. **Get notes on pacing before you publish.** You have watched your footage too many times to judge it fresh. Ask for an editorial pass that says where attention will drop. Prompt: "Watch the main edit and give me notes on the hook, the pacing and the audio, with timestamps. Leave the notes as comments on the timeline." Result: A list of the slow spots, before your audience finds them. 5. **Pull a thumbnail frame and cut Shorts.** The same project gives you the thumbnail still and the Shorts that send viewers to the long video. Prompt: "Export a still of the frame where the wave hits at 5:42 for my thumbnail. Then make two 40-second vertical Shorts: the storm at the beach and the glacier crack, each with captions." Result: A thumbnail source image and two Shorts ready to upload. 6. **Export for upload.** Export at the resolution you shot. If you filmed in 4K and want YouTube's higher-bitrate 4K stream, Eddie can upscale the whole cut to a 4K file. Prompt: "Export the main edit as an MP4 with web loudness, and the two Shorts as MP4s." Result: Three files ready for YouTube. ### Tips - **The first 30 seconds decide the video.** Show the payoff before the setup. A cold open from later in the day, then a line like "but first, how we got there", keeps people through the slow start. - **Choose the length before you cut.** Ten minutes of strong material beats twenty minutes of everything. Tell Eddie the length; it changes how hard the cut is, not just where it stops. - **End on a reason to keep watching.** The last 20 seconds should point to the next episode or a related video. Ask Eddie to end on a line where you tease what is next. - **Shorts are trailers, not leftovers.** Pick moments that make sense with no context and end on a question the long video answers. ### FAQ **How long should a YouTube vlog be?** Long enough to hold the story and no longer. Eight to fifteen minutes is common for travel and daily vlogs. Name your target in the prompt and Eddie reports the finished length against it. **Can Eddie write my YouTube chapters?** Eddie places chapter titles in the video and reads them back with their timestamps, which you paste into your description. It does not publish to YouTube for you. **Can Eddie design my thumbnail?** Eddie exports a still of any frame you choose as a JPEG. Design the text and layout of the thumbnail in your usual image tool. **Can I get feedback like a YouTube editor would give?** Yes. Ask Eddie to review the edit and it returns notes on story, pacing, hook and audio with timestamps. You can also add a retention-focused agent from the Eddie agent marketplace. ## How to Edit YouTube Videos URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-youtube-videos Record your script in takes, then keep only the best take of each line and close the gaps between them. Hide the jump cuts with b-roll, screen recordings or punch-ins, add captions and a light music bed, and level the audio for the web. With Eddie you attach your script or outline, ask for the cut, then ask for each finishing pass in turn. ### Steps 1. **Import the takes and your script.** Upload the camera files and attach the script or outline you recorded from. If you highlighted or bolded the lines that matter most in the document, Eddie can find those passages in the footage. Result: Every take of every line, lined up against your script. 2. **Cut to the script with the best takes.** Ask for the edit to follow the script and to choose the best take of each line. Name the length and the pacing. Prompt: "Build a 12-minute edit that follows my attached script in order. For every line I recorded more than once, use the best take. Tight pacing, but leave a short breath before each new section." Result: A clean assembly of your script, ready for visuals. 3. **Show what you are talking about.** Every time you mention something the viewer can see, show it. Use your product shots and screen recordings, and punch in on yourself to break up long talking stretches. Prompt: "Put the macro product shots over the parts where I describe the build quality, the settings screen recording over the menu walkthrough, and add a slow punch-in on me every time I make a recommendation." Result: An edit where the picture changes every few seconds for a reason. 4. **Add captions, music and web audio.** Captions help viewers on phones and people watching in a second language. Keep the music low; it is there to fill silence, not to compete. Prompt: "Add punchy captions with the active word highlighted, put a low electronic bed under the intro and the verdict only, and set the final loudness for the web." Result: A video that sounds consistent next to everything else on YouTube. 5. **Export for upload or finishing.** Export a finished MP4 to upload, or a timeline if you colour and finish in your own editor. Prompt: "Export the edit as a timeline for DaVinci Resolve so I can grade it, and as a 1080p MP4 for a quick check on my phone." Result: A gradeable timeline and a review copy. ### Tips - **Record each line until it is right, then move on.** Saying a line three times and moving on is faster than stopping the camera. Eddie keeps the best take, so retakes cost you nothing in the edit. - **Pick pacing by format.** Commentary and reviews suit tight pacing. Tutorials need a breath after each instruction so viewers can follow. Say which in your prompt. - **Change the picture with a reason.** A punch-in on a key line, b-roll of the thing you name, a screen recording of the step you describe. Random zooms every three seconds tire viewers. - **Read the lines Eddie could not find.** If Eddie reports a script line with no take, you either skipped it while recording or said it very differently. Decide whether the video needs it before you publish. ### FAQ **Does Eddie need a script?** No. Without a script, describe the structure you want and Eddie builds it from the transcript. A script or outline makes the first cut closer to what you planned. **Can Eddie choose between takes automatically?** Yes. When you recorded a line more than once, Eddie picks the best take. You can ask for a different take of any line afterwards. **Does it work for screen-recorded tutorials?** Yes. Screen recordings import like any video, and Eddie can place them over the matching lines of your talking footage. **Can I keep my own editing style?** You can save a look, with its pacing, punch-ins, captions and music, and apply it to later videos so every episode feels the same. ## How to Make YouTube Shorts From Long Videos URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/make-youtube-shorts-from-long-videos Find moments of 20 to 60 seconds that make sense with no context, start each one on its strongest line, reframe it to 9:16 with the speaker centred, and add large captions. Make several from one video and post them over a week. In Eddie you ask for a number of clips and a length, then ask for the vertical layout and captions on all of them. ### Steps 1. **Bring in the long video.** Upload the finished long video or the original camera files. Original files are better: a 4K wide shot leaves room to crop a sharp vertical frame. Result: A searchable transcript of the whole recording. 2. **Ask for the clips.** Ask for a number of clips and a length range, and say what makes a good one. "Stands alone" is the rule that matters most: a clip that needs the previous minute to make sense will not hold anyone. Prompt: "Find the 5 best moments for Shorts, each 30 to 60 seconds. Each one must make sense with no context, start on a strong line rather than a lead-in, and end on a complete sentence. Make each one its own edit." Result: Five short edits, still in the original 16:9 frame. 3. **Reframe to vertical.** Change the canvas to 9:16 and crop each clip to a close-up on the speaker. Use the close-up camera if you have one, or the wide shot if it has enough resolution. Prompt: "Make all five clips 9:16 for Shorts. Crop each one to a close-up on the speaker's face and keep the crop steady between cuts." Result: Five vertical clips with the speaker centred. 4. **Add captions and a hook.** Big captions in the lower middle of the frame, where a phone's interface does not cover them, and a hook title for the first two seconds. Prompt: "Add social captions to all five clips, 3 words per card, centred in the lower third with the active word highlighted. Add a short hook title at the top for the first 2 seconds of each, written from what the clip is about." Result: Clips that read clearly with the sound off. 5. **Export all of them.** Download each clip as an MP4. The same files work on YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and TikTok. Prompt: "Export all five Shorts as 1080 by 1920 MP4s with web loudness." Result: Five files ready to schedule over the week. ### Tips - **Start on the second sentence.** Speakers warm up. The first sentence of an answer is often "So, yeah, I think...". Ask Eddie to start each clip on the line that carries the point. - **One idea per clip.** If a moment covers two ideas, make two clips. A Short that wanders loses people at the turn. - **Shoot wide in 4K if you plan to crop.** A 1080p wide shot cropped to vertical is soft. 4K, or a dedicated close-up camera, keeps the vertical clip sharp. - **The same file works on all three platforms.** Shorts, Reels and TikTok all take 9:16 video. The differences are length limits and what is on screen around your video, so keep captions away from the very bottom and right edge. ### FAQ **How long should a YouTube Short be?** Most strong Shorts are 20 to 60 seconds. Ask Eddie for a length range and it keeps each clip inside it. **Do I need a separate page for Reels and TikTok?** No. The workflow is the same: 9:16, captions, a hook. Export once and upload the same file to each platform. **What if there are two people talking?** Use a stacked layout with one person in each half of the frame. The podcast clips guide shows how. **Can I make Shorts from someone else's video?** Only from footage you have the rights to use. Eddie works on the files you upload to your own project. ## How to Make Podcast Clips for Social Media URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/make-podcast-clips Sync the cameras, find exchanges of 30 to 90 seconds where both people say something worth hearing, and lay them out vertically with one speaker in the top half and the other in the bottom. Colour each speaker's captions differently so viewers can follow who is talking. Eddie syncs the angles, finds the exchanges, stacks the speakers and captions them from prompts. ### Steps 1. **Import and sync the cameras.** Upload every camera and the audio recorder, or send a multicam clip from Premiere Pro, Resolve or Final Cut Pro through the desktop app. Eddie syncs them by sound. Prompt: "Sync all three cameras and the mixer audio as one multicam group, and use the mixer audio for every cut." Result: One synced recording you can cut between angles. 2. **Find the exchanges.** Ask for back-and-forth moments specifically. Single-speaker answers make good Shorts too, but exchanges are what podcast clips do best. Prompt: "Find 5 exchanges of 30 to 90 seconds where the host and the guest disagree, laugh, or build on each other's point. Each must make sense on its own. Make each one its own edit and name it after the topic." Result: Five clip edits, each a complete exchange. 3. **Stack the speakers vertically.** Put the host's camera in the top half and the guest's in the bottom half of a 9:16 frame. Both faces stay on screen, so viewers see the reaction as well as the line. Prompt: "Make all five clips vertical with the host's camera on top and the guest's camera below, each cropped to a close-up of their face." Result: Stacked vertical clips that show both people at once. 4. **Caption each speaker in their own colour.** With two people on screen, colour tells the viewer who is talking faster than names do. Prompt: "Add social captions to all five clips in the middle of the frame, between the two speakers. Make the host's words white and the guest's words yellow." Result: Clips viewers can follow with the sound off. 5. **Export vertical and square.** Export the vertical clips for Shorts, Reels and TikTok. If you post to LinkedIn, ask for square versions of the same edits. Prompt: "Export all five as vertical MP4s. Then make a square version of the two strongest for LinkedIn with the speakers side by side, and export those too." Result: Seven files from one episode. ### Tips - **Exchanges beat monologues.** A clip where the guest pushes back on the host travels further than a long answer, because the viewer watches the reaction. - **Use the best microphone for every cut.** Camera audio on a podcast is room sound. Set the mixer or lav recording as the group's audio once, and every clip uses it. - **Keep the speaker's face the same size.** Close-up crops at the same zoom on both halves look deliberate. Ask Eddie to keep crops consistent across segments. - **Title the clip, not the episode.** "Episode 112" means nothing on a feed. A hook title that names the argument does. - **Post clips while the episode is new.** Clips work best in the week the episode comes out, when they point listeners to something they can play right now. Cut them the day you publish, and schedule one a day. ### FAQ **Do I need separate cameras for each speaker?** A camera per speaker gives the best stacked layout. With one wide camera in 4K, Eddie can crop each half of the frame to one speaker instead. **Can Eddie switch angles automatically for the full episode?** Yes. That is the full-episode workflow in the multicam podcast guide. This guide is for the short clips. **My podcast was recorded remotely. Does this work?** Yes, if you have a separate video file for each person. Eddie syncs them by sound like any multicam recording. **Can I export the clips to Premiere Pro instead?** Yes. A Premiere Pro project keeps the multicam clips as real multicam, so you can change angles there. **How many clips should I make from one episode?** Four to six is a good number for a weekly show: enough for one a day without reusing the same moment. Ask Eddie for more candidates than you need and pick the best. ## How to Edit Wedding Videos URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-wedding-videos Build the wedding film on what people said: the vows, the toasts and the private words. Sync the ceremony cameras, find the emotional moments, cut a three to five minute highlight carried by those lines over the best coverage of the day, and time it to music. Then deliver the full ceremony and speeches as separate edits. Eddie finds the moments by their words and by how they were said, then builds each edit from a prompt. ### Steps 1. **Import the day and sync the ceremony.** Upload every camera and audio recorder. Group the ceremony cameras with the officiant's microphone, so the vows are heard clearly from every angle. Prompt: "Sync the two ceremony cameras and the officiant lav as one multicam group, and use the lav audio for the ceremony." Result: A ceremony you can cut between angles with clear vows throughout. 2. **Find the moments that carry the film.** Ask for the lines and the emotional moments together. The transcript finds what was said; the emotional analysis finds the pauses and breaking voices the transcript cannot show. Prompt: "Find the strongest lines from the vows and the speeches, and the moments where someone's voice breaks or the room goes quiet. List them with timestamps before you cut." Result: A shortlist of the moments the film should be built on. 3. **Cut the highlight film.** Tell Eddie the length, the shape and the moments to build on. Let the vows and toasts carry the story and the day's coverage play over them. Prompt: "Make a 4-minute highlight film. Open on the venue drone shot with the first vow line over it, build through the ceremony and the speeches using the moments we found, and end on the first dance. Use the getting-ready and dance footage as b-roll over the voices, and breathy pacing." Result: A first highlight film to refine. 4. **Score it and cut on the music.** Use the couple's song if you have the rights, or a track from your library, or ask Eddie to generate one. Then move the cuts in the montage sections onto the beat. Prompt: "Add my track "Golden Hour Strings" under the highlight, ducked under the vows and toasts, and snap the cuts in the first-dance section to the beat." Result: A highlight that breathes with its music. 5. **Build the long-form deliverables.** Couples also want the whole ceremony and every speech. Ask for each as its own edit so the highlight film stays separate. Prompt: "Make a full ceremony edit from the multicam group: wide shot for the processional, cut to the tight camera for the vows and rings. Then make each speech its own edit, trimmed from the first word to the applause." Result: The ceremony and every speech as separate, tidy files. 6. **Export for delivery or finishing.** Deliver MP4s directly, or send the edits to your editing app to grade and finish. Prompt: "Export the highlight film and the ceremony as Premiere Pro projects with the multicam kept as multicam, and make a 1-minute vertical teaser of the highlight as an MP4." Result: Editable timelines for finishing, and a teaser for the couple to post. ### Tips - **Mic the officiant and the couple.** Vows recorded on a camera at the back of the room are hard to use. A lav on the officiant or the groom, synced as the group's audio, makes every vow usable. - **Let the words lead.** Highlight films that run on music alone feel generic. One real vow line over the opening shot tells viewers this film is about these two people. - **Choose breathy pacing for emotion.** Tight pacing suits talking heads. Wedding speeches need the laugh and the pause after the line, so ask for breathy pacing. - **Deliver the long versions separately.** Keep the highlight film short and give the full ceremony and speeches as their own files. Couples watch both, for different reasons. ### FAQ **Can Eddie find the vows without me scrubbing through the ceremony?** Yes. Eddie transcribes the ceremony, so you can ask for "the vows" or for a line you remember, and it returns the passage with timestamps. **Can Eddie tell which moments were emotional?** Eddie can analyse interview and ceremony footage for moments a transcript cannot carry, such as a voice breaking, a long pause or someone looking away. The analysis uses credits, and Eddie quotes them first. **Is there an agent that edits weddings in a particular style?** Yes. The Eddie agent marketplace has a wedding video editor agent that builds a film from what people said, carried over the day's b-roll. **Can I use the couple's own song?** You can add any audio file you have the rights to. Eddie attaches it to the edit and ducks it under speech. ## How to Edit Corporate Videos URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-corporate-videos Agree the message first, then cut the interviews to deliver it in two or three minutes. Add name titles, your logo and brand style, blur anything confidential on screen, and send a review link so stakeholders comment on the cut instead of in an email chain. Eddie builds the cut from a brief, applies the branding, handles the blurring and creates the review link. ### Steps 1. **Import the interviews and brand assets.** Upload the interviews, the office b-roll and any screen captures. Add your logo to the project, or use the workspace's Brand kit if your team has one. Result: Everything the film needs, in one searchable project. 2. **Brief the cut like you would brief an editor.** Give Eddie the message, the audience and the length. Name the points each speaker should make. A specific brief gets an approvable first cut. Prompt: "Make a 2.5-minute launch film for customers. Message: the new dashboard saves teams an hour a day. The CEO opens with why we built it, the engineering lead explains how it works, and the CEO closes with what is next. Keep answers whole and use natural pacing." Result: A structured first cut that follows the brief. 3. **Apply names, logo and brand style.** Lower thirds, a consistent graphics style and a logo make the film look like it came from your company, not from a phone. Prompt: "Add lower thirds: "Priya Shah, CEO" and "Tom Becker, Head of Engineering" the first time each appears. Use our brand style pack for the graphics, put the logo in the bottom right at small size for the whole film, and show the dashboard screen capture while Tom explains how it works." Result: A branded cut with every speaker named. 4. **Blur anything confidential.** Office b-roll catches things legal will flag: customer names on a screen, a roadmap on a whiteboard, an ID badge. Blur them before anyone outside the team sees the cut. Prompt: "In the office b-roll at 0:48, blur the monitor on the left desk, and in the dashboard capture blur the customer names in the table on the right." Result: A cut that is safe to circulate. 5. **Send it for approval.** Share a review link instead of a file. Stakeholders watch the cut in a browser and leave comments at the exact moment they mean. Prompt: "Give me a review link for the launch film so the marketing and legal teams can leave comments at the timecode." Result: Notes on the cut, in one place, at the right moments. 6. **Export the approved version.** Deliver MP4s for the website and social, or a timeline for your agency or in-house editor to finish. Prompt: "Export the approved launch film as a 1080p MP4 with broadcast loudness, and as a Premiere Pro project for the agency." Result: The approved film, and an editable version. ### Tips - **One message per film.** A corporate film that tries to say five things says none. Write the one sentence the viewer should remember and put it in the prompt. - **Spell names before you add titles.** Correct the speaker names and any product names in the transcript first. Titles and captions built after that are right everywhere. - **Blur early, not at the end.** Redact before the first review link goes out. Once a cut with a customer name on screen has been forwarded, it is too late. - **Keep the brand in one place.** A style pack and a Brand kit logo mean every film from the team looks the same, without anyone copying settings by hand. ### FAQ **Is Eddie secure enough for internal company footage?** Eddie offers enterprise plans with single sign-on, central admin and a choice of where it runs. See the enterprise page or contact sales for details. **Can several people comment on a cut?** Yes. A review link lets anyone with the link watch the edit and leave comments at a timecode, without an Eddie account. **Can Eddie add our logo automatically?** Eddie places the project's Brand kit logo, or a logo image you upload, as a watermark over the whole edit or part of it. **Can our agency finish the film in their own editor?** Yes. Export a Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve timeline. It points at the original media, so the agency relinks and finishes as usual. ## How to Edit a Documentary URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-documentaries Log everything first, then find the story in the selects rather than in the timeline. Rate every interview answer, build a selects reel, write an outline of the story, and assemble it from the strongest answers. Lay observational b-roll over the voices, mark the emotional beats, and get notes on structure before you fine-cut. Eddie logs the footage, builds the selects timeline, assembles the outline and gives timestamped story notes. ### Steps 1. **Import and log everything.** Bring in all the interviews, observational footage and archive. Send a bin from Premiere Pro, Resolve or Final Cut Pro through the desktop app, or work from a Frame.io or LucidLink library. Then ask for logs of everything. Prompt: "Log every interview with a summary and timestamped topics, and log the b-roll by what each shot shows. Tell me when both logs are ready." Result: Forty hours you can search by what was said and what was seen. 2. **Build a selects timeline.** Rate every answer before you start structuring. A selects timeline with tiers on separate tracks lets you see the best material at a glance. Prompt: "Rate every interview answer and export a selects timeline for Premiere Pro: strongest answers about the ferry closing on track 3, other strong answers on track 2, and everything usable on track 1." Result: Selects you can scan in your editor in an afternoon instead of a week. 3. **Assemble from your outline.** Write the story as an outline: acts, beats, who says what. Attach it and ask for an assembly. If you highlighted passages in a transcript document, Eddie can find those too. Prompt: "Assemble a 25-minute first cut that follows my attached outline. Act one is the town before the flood, act two the ferry closing, act three the fight to reopen it. Use the strongest answers for each beat and breathy pacing." Result: A structured assembly to react to. 4. **Lay observational footage over the voices.** Documentaries live in the cutaways. Put the observational footage and archive under the interviews where they show what the voice describes. Prompt: "Lay the ferry crossing footage over the captain talking about the river, and the 1998 flood archive over the teacher's memory of the flood. Use only our own footage; do not use stock." Result: An assembly that shows as well as tells. 5. **Get story notes.** Before you fine-cut, ask for structural notes. It is cheaper to move an act now than after the sound mix. Prompt: "Watch the assembly and give me notes on story structure and pacing with timestamps. Tell me where the audience will lose track of who someone is." Result: A list of structural problems to solve in the next pass. 6. **Take it into your editor.** Export the assembly to the application you will fine-cut, grade and mix in. Multicam interviews stay multicam in a Premiere Pro project. Prompt: "Export the assembly as a Premiere Pro project and keep the interview angles as multicam." Result: An assembly in your editor, with logs for the rest of the team. ### Tips - **Know your footage before you cut.** The logs are not admin; they are where the story is found. Read the summaries before you write the outline. - **Write the outline after the selects.** An outline written before you know the material forces the footage into a story it may not hold. Build it from what people actually said. - **Keep observational footage honest.** Documentary b-roll should show the real place and people. Tell Eddie to use only your own footage, and keep stock and generated shots out of factual scenes. - **Move acts early.** Structural notes are cheapest at the assembly stage. Once the sound is mixed and the music is placed, every act move costs a day. ### FAQ **Can Eddie handle a feature-length documentary?** Yes. Eddie works across long interviews and many hours of footage in one project, and builds assemblies to the length you name. **Will Eddie add stock or generated footage to my documentary?** Only if you ask. Eddie uses your own b-roll first, and you can tell it to use nothing else. **Can I export logs to Avid Media Composer?** Not yet. Footage logs for Avid are not supported yet. You can download logs as Premiere Pro, Resolve or Final Cut Pro bins, a spreadsheet or a Word document. Sending a cut into Media Composer is in beta through the Eddie extension. **Is there a documentary storytelling agent?** Yes. The Eddie agent marketplace includes documentary coaches that review structure, interviews and narration against your own footage. ## How to Edit Testimonial Videos URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-testimonial-videos Shape the customer's own words into three beats: the problem they had, what changed, and the result in a number or a concrete detail. Show their name and company, cover the cuts with b-roll of them using the product, and make a 60, 30 and 15 second version for different placements. In Eddie you ask for the three-beat structure, then for the cutdowns, captions and lower third. ### Steps 1. **Import the interview and b-roll.** Upload the interview cameras and the b-roll of the customer at work. Two cameras give you a cut point every time you trim; Eddie syncs them by sound. Result: The whole interview, searchable, with both angles ready. 2. **Find the problem, the change and the proof.** Ask for the three beats by name, and ask for the line with a number in it. That line is your proof, and it often comes late in the interview. Prompt: "Find where the customer describes the problem before they used us, the moment things changed, and every line with a number or a concrete result. List them with timestamps." Result: The raw material for every version you will make. 3. **Cut the 60-second version.** Build the hero version first, in the order problem, change, result. End on the line that sounds most like a recommendation. Prompt: "Make a 60-second testimonial: problem, then the change, then the mis-picks number, ending on "I would not go back". Cut between the two cameras on each trim, and natural pacing." Result: A testimonial that tells a complete story in a minute. 4. **Add the name, captions and b-roll.** A testimonial without a name is not credible. Add a lower third early, captions for sound-off viewing, and b-roll of the product in use over the change and the proof. Prompt: "Add a lower third "Dana Okafor, Operations Manager, Greenline Logistics" at the first shot, minimal captions at the bottom, and put the app close-ups over the part about the new system and the warehouse shots over the result." Result: A finished hero testimonial. 5. **Make the 30 and 15 second cutdowns.** Shorter placements need the proof line and little else. Make each cutdown its own edit so the hero version stays as it is. Prompt: "Make a 30-second version with one line of problem, the mis-picks number and the closing line, and a 15-second version with only the number and the closing line. Keep the lower third and captions on both." Result: Three lengths from one interview. 6. **Export.** Export MP4s for the website, ads and the sales team, and a timeline if your designer adds the final graphics. Prompt: "Export all three versions as 1080p MP4s, and the hero version as a Final Cut Pro timeline." Result: Every placement covered. ### Tips - **Ask about the before.** In the interview, ask what life was like before the product. The problem beat is what makes the result matter, and customers rarely volunteer it. - **Keep their words, not your copy.** A customer saying "it just works now" is more convincing than a polished sentence. Do not ask Eddie to make it sound better; ask it to find the best line. - **The number goes near the end.** Put the concrete result late in the hero version and early in the 15-second version. A short ad has no time to build up to it. - **Show the product in use.** B-roll of the customer actually using the product is proof in pictures. Stock footage of generic offices weakens the claim. ### FAQ **How long should a testimonial video be?** Sixty to ninety seconds for a website, and 15 to 30 seconds for ads. Make the long version first and cut down from it. **Can I make testimonials from a Zoom interview?** Yes. A recorded call imports like any video. Eddie can crop the customer's video to a close-up and add a vertical version for social. **Can Eddie combine several customers in one video?** Yes. Import every interview into the same project and ask for a montage, for example the strongest proof line from each customer. **Will Eddie change what the customer said?** No. Eddie cuts between the customer's real words; it does not rewrite or synthesise their voice. ## How to Edit an Event Highlight Video URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-event-highlight-videos Pick 60 to 120 seconds of the event's peaks: the crowd arriving, the stage moments, the reactions, two or three lines from speakers or guests. Cut them to an energetic music track on the beat, use slow motion for the big moments, and open and close with a wide shot of the venue. Eddie finds the moments by watching the footage, builds the montage, and snaps the cuts to the music. ### Steps 1. **Import all the coverage.** Upload every camera card from the event. Do not cull first. Eddie logs the roaming footage by what it shows and transcribes anything with speech. Result: Hours of coverage you can search by what happens in it. 2. **Find the moments in the picture.** The best recap moments have no words: a crowd standing up, a confetti drop, a handshake on stage. Ask Eddie to watch for them. Prompt: "Search all the coverage for the high-energy moments: the crowd applauding, people laughing, the confetti at the end of the keynote, packed expo booths, and the dance floor. Give me each moment with its time." Result: A list of the event's peaks without scrubbing four hours of footage. 3. **Build the montage and add a few voices.** Lay the moments in the order of the day, and let two or three short lines carry the story: one from the stage, one or two from attendees. Prompt: "Make a 90-second recap from the moments you found, in the order of the day. Open on the doors opening, include the keynote line "this is the year we ship it" and two short attendee quotes about the expo, and end on the dance floor." Result: A recap that has both energy and words. 4. **Cut to the music and ramp the peaks.** An energetic track, cuts on the beat, and slow motion on the two biggest moments give a recap its pulse. Prompt: "Add an upbeat electronic track that builds, snap the montage cuts to the beat, and ramp the confetti drop and the ovation to slow motion and back." Result: A recap that moves with its music. 5. **Add the title card, then export.** Close with the event name, the date and the next event. Then export the recap in both shapes. Prompt: "Add an end title "Summit 2026, see you in Lisbon next May" over the last shot, make a 9:16 version for Instagram, and export both as MP4." Result: A recap for the website and one for social. ### Tips - **Shoot reactions, not only the stage.** The stage looks the same at every event. The faces in the audience are what make a recap feel like being there. - **Keep soundbites under six seconds.** A recap is a music video with a few words. Long quotes break the rhythm; save them for a separate speaker highlight. - **Save slow motion for two moments.** Slow motion on everything is no longer slow motion. Ramp the biggest peak and one emotional moment. - **End on the call to action.** The recap's job is the next event. Put the date, the place or a link on the last shot. ### FAQ **Can Eddie find moments that have no speech?** Yes. Eddie can search video sources by watching the picture with its sound, for moments you describe in words, such as applause or a confetti drop. It quotes the credits before it starts. **How long should an event recap be?** Sixty to 120 seconds for the main recap, and 15 to 30 seconds for social teasers. **Can I also deliver the full keynote?** Yes. Make the keynote its own edit from the stage camera, trimmed to the talk. See the conference talks guide for that workflow. **Can I use a song from my music library?** Yes. Use a track from your workspace music shelf or an audio file in the project, or ask Eddie to generate one from a description. ## How to Edit Sermon Videos URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-sermon-videos Cut the full service down to the sermon, from the first word to the closing prayer. Sync your cameras with the pulpit microphone, switch to the close camera for the key points, and add captions. Then pull three to five short clips of the strongest passages for the week's social posts. Eddie trims the sermon, assigns the angles, captions it and finds the clips from one prompt each. ### Steps 1. **Import the service and sync it.** Upload the service cameras and the board or pulpit microphone recording. Group them so every angle uses the clean microphone. Prompt: "Sync the wide camera, the pulpit close camera and the pulpit mic as one multicam group, and use the pulpit mic as the audio." Result: The full service, synced, with clear audio. 2. **Cut the service down to the sermon.** Ask for the sermon alone. Name where it starts and ends in words, so Eddie can find the boundaries in the transcript. Prompt: "Make an edit of just the sermon, from "Please turn with me to Luke 15" to the end of the closing prayer. Remove the announcements in the middle, and cut to the close camera for the main points and the wide camera between them." Result: The sermon as its own edit, ready to post. 3. **Add captions and a title.** Captions make the sermon accessible and help people follow it in a noisy place. Add a title with the series and the passage at the start. Prompt: "Add minimal captions at the bottom, two lines at most, and a title "The Lost Son, Luke 15" for the first five seconds." Result: An accessible sermon video. 4. **Pull clips for the week.** Short clips keep the message in front of the congregation through the week. Choose passages that make sense on their own. Prompt: "Find the 4 most quotable passages of 30 to 60 seconds that make sense on their own, make each a vertical clip on the close camera with social captions, and name each one after its main line." Result: Four clips, one for each weekday post. 5. **Export, or translate.** Export the sermon and the clips. If your church serves more than one language, Eddie can dub the finished sermon into another language. Prompt: "Export the sermon as a 1080p MP4 and the four clips as vertical MP4s." Result: The week's sermon content, ready to post. ### Tips - **Record the pulpit microphone separately.** The camera's own microphone hears the room. A feed from the sound desk or a lav on the speaker makes every clip sound clear. - **Name the start and end in words.** Telling Eddie the sermon starts at "Please turn with me to" is faster and more reliable than finding a timecode. - **Use the same prompts every week.** Save your weekly prompts as a recipe in the workspace. A volunteer can run the same routine every Sunday and get the same result. - **Clip the passages, not the jokes.** A clip that carries the message of the sermon does more through the week than a funny aside with no context. - **Caption every version.** People watch sermon clips in places where they cannot play sound. Captions on the full sermon and on every clip mean the message reaches them anyway. ### FAQ **Can volunteers use this?** Yes. The prompts are plain language, and a saved recipe means a volunteer can run the same weekly routine without editing experience. **Can Eddie remove the worship songs and keep only the sermon?** Yes. Ask for the sermon from its first line to its last, and Eddie trims away the rest of the service. **Can we post the sermon in Spanish too?** Eddie can transcribe in many languages and can dub a finished edit into another language. See the dubbing page for the details. **Does it work with our livestream recording?** Yes. A livestream recording imports like any video file. Separate camera files give you more control over angles. **How long does the weekly edit take?** Most of the time is waiting for upload and render. The prompts themselves take a few minutes, and a saved recipe makes them the same every week. ## How to Edit Online Course Videos URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-online-course-videos Record each lesson against an outline, then edit every lesson to the outline: keep the best take of each point, remove the restarts, and leave a short pause after each instruction so learners can follow. Put slides or screen recordings over the explanations, add a title for each section, and caption every lesson. Eddie does this lesson by lesson from your outline and the same few prompts. ### Steps 1. **Import the takes and the outline.** Upload each lesson's recording, the screen recordings and slides, and attach your outline or script. If you bolded or highlighted the points that matter most, Eddie can find those passages in order. Result: Lessons lined up against the outline. 2. **Cut the first lesson to the outline.** Ask for one lesson at a time. Give a length range rather than an exact length: a lesson should be as long as the point needs. Prompt: "Edit lesson 1 to follow section 1.1 of my outline, 8 to 10 minutes. Use the best take of each point, remove false starts, and leave a short breath after each instruction so learners can keep up." Result: A clean lesson edit that follows the plan. 3. **Show the screen while you explain.** Learners need to see the step you describe. Put the screen recording or the slide over the explanation, and stay on your face for the introduction and the summary. Prompt: "Put the spreadsheet walkthrough over the part where I explain entering transactions, and the matching slide over each definition. Stay on me for the intro and the summary." Result: A lesson that shows each step as you say it. 4. **Add section titles and captions.** Section titles help learners find their place when they rewatch. Captions help learners in noisy places and in a second language. Prompt: "Add a title at each section of lesson 1: "What a ledger is", "Entering transactions", "Checking your balance". Then add minimal captions at the bottom." Result: A lesson that is easy to navigate and to follow. 5. **Repeat for every lesson, then export.** Save the lesson prompts as a recipe, run it for each lesson, and export them all. Level the audio the same way on every lesson so the course sounds consistent. Prompt: "Level the speech on lesson 1 to the same level as the others, set web loudness, and export it as a 1080p MP4 named "1.1 What a ledger is"." Result: Lessons that sound and look the same from start to finish. ### Tips - **Record to the outline, one point at a time.** Say each point, pause, and say it again if you stumbled. Eddie keeps the best take, so you never need to restart the lesson. - **Leave a breath after instructions.** Tight pacing works for entertainment. Learners need a moment to take in each step, so ask for natural pacing. - **Keep lessons short.** Five to ten minutes per lesson is easier to finish and easier to re-record when something changes. - **Use one recipe for the whole course.** Save the lesson prompts as a workspace recipe. Every lesson gets the same structure, titles and captions. ### FAQ **Can Eddie follow my course outline exactly?** Yes. Attach the outline and ask for each lesson to follow its section. Eddie reports any point it could not find in the recording. **Can I update one lesson later?** Yes. Re-record the changed part, add it to the project and ask Eddie to swap it into that lesson. The other lessons stay as they are. **Can I make audio-described versions for accessibility?** Yes. Eddie can make an audio-described version of an edit for blind and low-vision learners, as a separate edit beside the original. **Can I translate the course?** Eddie can dub a finished lesson into another language. See the dubbing page for details. ## How to Edit a News Package URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-news-packages A package alternates the reporter's voice track with short sound bites from the people in the story, covered with pictures of what the voice describes. Pick the two or three strongest bites, lay the voice track around them, cover the voice with b-roll, add name supers, and blur anyone who must not be identified. Eddie finds the bites, builds the alternating structure, places your b-roll, adds the supers and handles the blurring, then hands the timeline to your edit system. ### Steps 1. **Ingest the shoot and the track.** Upload the interviews, the general views and the reporter's recorded voice track. Eddie transcribes the interviews and the track, so you can work from the words. Result: The whole shoot, searchable by what was said and filmed. 2. **Pick the sound bites.** Ask for short bites that carry a view or a fact the track cannot say. Two or three are enough for a package under two minutes. Prompt: "Find the best 8 to 12 second bites: one from the resident about what the closure means for her commute, and one from the engineer on when the bridge reopens. Give me two options for each, with timestamps." Result: Bite options you can choose between in a minute. 3. **Build track, bite, track, bite.** Ask for the structure and the duration in one prompt. Eddie lays the voice track paragraphs between the bites and ends on the stand-up. Prompt: "Build a 1:45 package: track paragraph 1, the Garcia commute bite, track paragraph 2, the engineer March bite, track paragraph 3, then the stand-up to close. Use the reporter track for the voice sections." Result: The package structure, timed to the slot. 4. **Cover the track with your pictures.** Every line of track needs a picture of what it says. Use your own general views only; news packages should not use stock or generated footage as if it were shot on the day. Prompt: "Cover all three track sections with our own general views, matched to what the track says: the bridge wide shots over the closure, the detour traffic over the commute line. Use only our footage, no stock and nothing generated." Result: A package with pictures under every line. 5. **Add supers and blur what must be hidden.** Name every interviewee on screen. Blur faces of children, private licence plates and anything the story must not identify. Prompt: "Add supers "Ana Garcia, Resident" and "Mark Lee, Council Engineer" on each bite. In the detour traffic shot, blur the licence plate of the red car, and blur the children's faces at the school gate shot." Result: A package that meets your editorial rules. 6. **Send it to your edit system.** Most newsrooms finish and play out from their own system. Export a timeline to conform there, and an MP4 for the web. Prompt: "Export the package as a Premiere Pro project for the finishing suite, and as a 1080p MP4 for the website." Result: A package ready for finishing and for the web. ### Tips - **Write track to pictures you have.** Before recording the track, check the general views. A line about a closed school with no picture of the school forces a cover shot that does not match. - **Bites carry what track cannot.** Use bites for opinion, emotion and expertise. Facts the reporter can say faster belong in the track. - **Keep news pictures real.** Do not cover a news package with stock or generated footage presented as the scene. Tell Eddie to use only your own footage. - **Check redactions on every frame.** Play every blurred shot through once after export. A face that turns into frame late is the one that gets missed. ### FAQ **Can Eddie use a reporter track I recorded separately?** Yes. Import the track as an audio file and ask Eddie to use it for the voice sections between the bites. **Are the supers and blurs in the MP4?** Yes. The cloud MP4 render carries the supers and blurs. For a timeline, export a Premiere Pro project or a Resolve FCPXML. **Can I export to Avid Media Composer?** Avid Media Composer support is in beta: the cut goes into your open Media Composer project through the Eddie extension, with access from a waitlist. Footage logs for Avid are not supported yet. **Can Eddie hit an exact duration?** Eddie builds to the target you name and reports the finished duration, so you can see whether the package fits the slot before you export. ## How to Edit Sports Highlights URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-sports-highlights Find every key play in the full match, keep three to five seconds of build-up before each one and the celebration after, add a slow-motion replay of the best two, and cut it all to music. Then make a vertical version for social. Eddie watches the match footage for the plays you describe, such as every goal, builds the reel and adds the replays and music from prompts. ### Steps 1. **Import the match.** Upload the full match from every camera you have. A second angle behind the goal gives you replays from a different view. Result: The whole match in one project. 2. **Find every key play.** Describe the plays you want in the words you would use with an assistant. Eddie watches the picture and sound for them, so it works when nobody is talking. Prompt: "Watch both halves and find every goal, every save by our keeper, and any shot that hits the post. For each, give me the time, a one-line description and how sure you are." Result: Every play you asked for, without scrubbing the match. 3. **Build the reel with build-up and celebration.** A goal without its build-up is confusing, and without the celebration it is flat. Ask for a few seconds either side. Prompt: "Make a 2.5-minute highlight reel of those plays in match order. Start each one 5 seconds before the play and hold 3 seconds of the celebration or reaction after it. Leave out the goal against." Result: A complete highlight reel in match order. 4. **Add replays, music and the score.** Slow-motion replays from the second angle make the best moments land. Music on the beat gives the reel its pace. Prompt: "After each of the two goals, add a replay from the goal-end camera ramped to 40% speed. Put a driving rock track under the reel, snap the cuts to the beat, and add a title "Final, 2-1" at the end." Result: A reel with drama, rhythm and the result on screen. 5. **Make the vertical cut and export.** Players and fans share vertical clips. Make one per goal, then export everything. Prompt: "Make a 9:16 clip of each goal with its replay, cropped to the goal-mouth side of the frame, then export the full reel and both clips as MP4." Result: A reel for the website and a clip per goal for social. ### Tips - **Describe plays the way a coach would.** "Every goal" is clear. "Every time our number 9 gets past a defender" is clear too. Eddie searches for what you describe, so be specific. - **Keep the context.** Five seconds before a goal shows how it was made. Viewers enjoy the pass as much as the finish. - **Check the confidence.** Moments come back with a confidence. Watch the low-confidence ones before they go in the reel. - **Fit the action to vertical carefully.** A vertical crop is fixed to the part of the frame you name; it does not follow the ball. Check each clip, and if the play leaves the frame, use a wider crop or the other angle. ### FAQ **Can Eddie find goals without commentary?** Yes. Eddie searches video by watching the picture with its sound, so it finds plays in footage with no commentary at all. It quotes the credits per hour of footage before it starts. **Does it work for sports other than football?** Yes. Describe the moments in the words of your sport, such as every three-pointer, every try or every wicket. **Can I make a highlight of one player?** Yes. Describe the player by their number or kit and ask for every play they are involved in. Check the results, since a number can be hard to read at a distance. **Can I add the coach's post-match words?** Yes. The interview is transcribed, so you can ask for a line from it to open or close the reel. ## How to Edit Product Videos URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-product-videos Lead with the problem the product solves, then show three features, each with a close detail shot and a short line of voice-over, and end on the product with a call to action. Add a callout graphic for each feature and keep the music light. In Eddie you write the voice-over lines, ask for the shots to match them, then add the callouts, music and an export in the size you need. ### Steps 1. **Import the shots.** Upload the detail shots, the lifestyle footage and any founder interview. Clear names help, but Eddie also describes every shot, so you can ask for "the zipper close-up" whatever the file is called. Result: A shot library you can ask for by feature. 2. **Lay the voice-over.** Write the script line by line. Use a recorded voice-over if you have one; otherwise Eddie can generate one from your lines and place each line where you want it. Prompt: "Generate a voice-over in a warm, confident voice with these lines, one after another from the start: "Most packs give up when the weather turns." "Trailpack 2 is sealed at every seam." "The zip runs smooth with gloves on." "And it carries like it is not there." "Trailpack 2. Out now."" Result: A timed voice-over to cut the pictures to. 3. **Match the shots to the lines.** Each line gets the shot that proves it. Ask by feature, and Eddie finds the shot from its log. Prompt: "Under the voice-over, show the rain test for the weather line, the seams close-up for the sealed line, the zipper macro for the zip line, the hiker on the trail for the carry line, and end on the turntable hero shot." Result: Pictures that prove every claim as it is said. 4. **Add callouts, music and polish.** A short callout names each feature for viewers with the sound off. A light music bed and a soft background blur on the founder shot finish the look. Prompt: "Add a stat callout "Sealed seams" on the seams shot, "Glove-friendly zip" on the zipper shot and "1.1 kg" on the trail shot, in our brand style. Add a light acoustic bed ducked under the voice, and a whoosh on the cut to the hero shot." Result: A finished product video that reads with or without sound. 5. **Export a 4K master and cutdowns.** Product pages benefit from a sharp master. Make a 15-second cutdown for ads from the same edit. Prompt: "Export the video as a 4K upscaled MP4, and make a 15-second vertical cutdown with only the rain test, the zipper and the hero shot." Result: A 4K master and an ad-length vertical version. ### Tips - **One claim per shot.** If a shot cannot prove the line over it, change the line or find a better shot. Viewers believe what they see. - **Write the script short.** A product video line should fit in three seconds. If it does not, it is two lines. - **Shoot details in 4K.** Close detail shots are where viewers judge quality. Shoot them at the highest resolution you can and keep the master sharp. - **Keep the brand consistent.** Use one style pack for every callout so the video looks like your product page and your ads. ### FAQ **Can Eddie write the voice-over for me?** Eddie speaks the lines you write, in a voice you choose, and places them on the timeline. Write the script yourself, or draft it with Eddie in the conversation and approve it first. **What if I do not have a shot for a feature?** Eddie can search stock footage, or generate a short b-roll shot when your footage and stock have nothing that fits. For product claims, use real footage of your product. **Can I add a founder talking to camera?** Yes. Add an interview to the project and ask for a line from it at the start or the end. Eddie can blur the background behind the speaker for a cleaner look. **Can I make several versions for ads?** Yes. Ask for each version as its own edit, such as 30 seconds, 15 seconds and vertical, and export them together. ## How to Edit Conference Talk Recordings URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-conference-talks Trim each talk from the speaker's first line to the end of the applause, sync the stage cameras with the room audio, and show the speaker and the slides together, side by side or with the slides full screen when they matter. Add the speaker's name and the talk title, remove technical pauses, and pull two or three clips per talk. Eddie does each step from a prompt and repeats it for every talk. ### Steps 1. **Import the day and sync the stage.** Upload the full-day recordings from the stage: the cameras, the slide capture and the audio desk recording. Sync them once for the whole day. Prompt: "Sync the wide camera, the speaker camera, the slide capture and the room audio as one multicam group, using the room audio for every cut." Result: A whole day of talks, synced, in one project. 2. **Split the day into talks.** Ask Eddie to find each talk's start and end from the transcript: the host's introduction, the speaker's first line, the last question. Prompt: "Find where each talk starts and ends: from the speaker's first line after the host introduces them to the end of the applause after the last question. List them with the speaker names." Result: The day split into talks. 3. **Lay out speaker and slides.** Viewers need the slides. Show the speaker and the slides side by side for most of the talk, and the slides full screen when they hold a diagram or code. Prompt: "Make an edit of Raj Patel's talk with the slides on the left two thirds and the speaker camera on the right third. Cut to the slides full screen for the architecture diagram at 1:14:20, and remove the 40-second pause while the clicker failed." Result: A talk viewers can follow on a laptop or phone. 4. **Add titles and captions.** Put the speaker's name and the talk title on screen at the start, and add captions for accessibility. Prompt: "Add a title card for the first 5 seconds: "Scaling search to a billion queries, Raj Patel, Northwind". Then add minimal captions at the bottom of the speaker side." Result: A talk that names its speaker and is accessible. 5. **Pull clips and export.** Two or three short clips per talk promote the recordings. Export the full talks for your website or YouTube. Prompt: "Make 2 vertical clips of 45 seconds from the strongest moments of Raj's talk, on the speaker camera with social captions. Export the talk and the clips as MP4." Result: The talk and its social clips, ready to publish. ### Tips - **Record the slides directly.** A capture of the presentation laptop's output is far sharper than a camera pointed at the screen. Ask the AV team for it. - **Sync once for the whole day.** Group the day's files once, then cut each talk from the group. Every talk uses the same sync and audio. - **Show slides when they carry information.** Full-screen slides for diagrams and code; side by side for everything else, so the speaker stays human. - **Publish within the week.** Interest in a talk peaks in the days after the event. A repeatable edit per talk is what makes that possible. - **Name every speaker in the transcript.** Correct the speaker names once for the whole day. Titles, captions and the list of talks then use the right names in every edit. ### FAQ **Can Eddie split a full-day recording into separate talks?** Yes. Eddie finds each talk's start and end from the transcript, and you make one edit per talk. **Can I show the slides and the speaker together?** Yes. Eddie can place several video layers on the canvas, such as the slides and the speaker side by side. **What about panels with several speakers?** Sync a camera per panellist if you have them, and Eddie can switch to whoever is speaking. Name the speakers so captions and titles are right. **Can I remove technical problems from a talk?** Yes. Name the problem and roughly where it happens, such as a clicker failure, and Eddie removes that stretch. **Can I publish the talks with the slides only?** Yes. Ask for the slide capture full screen with the speaker's audio, and Eddie builds the talk that way. It suits technical talks where the slides carry most of the content. ## How to Edit a Webinar Recording URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-webinar-recordings Remove the waiting-room minutes, the housekeeping and the technical hiccups, keep the presentation and the best audience questions, and add chapter titles so on-demand viewers can skip to what they need. Then cut a three-minute highlight and a few short clips to promote the recording. Eddie finds each of those parts in the transcript and builds the on-demand version, the highlight and the clips from prompts. ### Steps 1. **Import the recording.** Upload the recording from your webinar platform. If the platform gives you a separate speaker-view file and the shared-screen file, upload both. Result: The full webinar, searchable. 2. **Cut the on-demand version.** Name what to remove and what to keep. Eddie finds the parts in the transcript. Prompt: "Make an on-demand version: start at "Let's get into it", remove the housekeeping about the chat and the recording, remove the 2 minutes when the screen share failed, and keep only the Q&A answers about discounts and annual plans. Natural pacing." Result: A webinar of about 40 minutes instead of an hour. 3. **Add chapter titles.** Chapters let on-demand viewers skip to the part they came for. Put them on screen and in the description. Prompt: "Add a chapter title at each new section of the presentation, using the slide titles, and list the chapters with their timestamps." Result: A navigable on-demand video. 4. **Make the highlight and clips.** A short highlight sells the on-demand recording. Clips of single insights work on LinkedIn. Prompt: "Make a 3-minute highlight of the strongest insights, then 3 square clips of 45 seconds each for LinkedIn with the speaker cropped to a close-up and minimal captions." Result: Promotional content from the same recording. 5. **Clean the audio and export.** Webinar audio is laptop microphones and home rooms. Level the speakers and reduce background noise before you export. Prompt: "Reduce the background noise on the guest's audio, level all speakers to the same volume, set web loudness, and export the on-demand version, the highlight and the clips as MP4." Result: A clean on-demand recording and promotional files. ### Tips - **Keep only the questions others share.** A question about one attendee's account is not worth three minutes on demand. Keep the questions most viewers would have asked. - **Start on the first useful sentence.** On-demand viewers did not wait for the room to fill. Start where the content starts. - **Ask for the speaker view if you can.** A separate speaker recording gives you sharp close-ups for clips; a gallery view rarely does. - **Fix the audio before the clips.** Cleaned and levelled audio carries into every edit you build afterwards. - **Write the description from the chapters.** The chapter list Eddie reads back is most of a good video description. Add one sentence on who the webinar is for, and paste it in. - **Check the questions you removed.** Read the list of Q&A answers Eddie left out before you publish. A question you thought was niche can be the one prospects ask most, and it takes one prompt to put it back. ### FAQ **Does this work with Zoom and Teams recordings?** Yes. Any recording file imports. Separate speaker and screen files, where your platform provides them, give more control. **Can Eddie remove the parts where nothing happens?** Yes. Describe them, such as the waiting room or a broken screen share, and Eddie finds them in the transcript and removes them. **Can I get a transcript or summary document too?** Yes. Eddie can create a downloadable document, such as a summary or a list of the Q&A, from the webinar. **How long should the on-demand version be?** As long as the content, without the live overhead. Most hour-long webinars lose 15 to 25 minutes. **Can I add the webinar's slides as a separate track?** Yes. Import the slides as a video or a screen recording and ask Eddie to show them over the matching parts of the talk, or side by side with the speaker. **Should I keep the live intro and the host's welcome?** Keep one short line of welcome if it sets up the topic, and cut the rest. On-demand viewers chose the recording for its content, so get to it within the first minute. ## How to Edit Training Videos URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-training-videos Cut the recording so each step of the procedure is its own short section with a title, show the screen or the hands doing the task while the trainer explains it, add captions, and blur anything confidential. Then send it for approval, and make accessible and translated versions for staff who need them. Eddie builds the steps, titles, captions, blurring, audio description and review link from prompts. ### Steps 1. **Import the recording and the screen capture.** Upload the trainer's recording, the screen recording of the software and any footage of the physical task. Eddie transcribes the trainer and tags the screen recording. Result: Everything the training needs, matched by what is said and shown. 2. **Cut it into titled steps.** Ask for one section per step, each with a title. Learners come back to a training video to find one step; titles make that possible. Prompt: "Edit the returns training into 6 steps, one section each, following the order in the trainer's recording. Put a numbered title at the start of each step, such as "Step 1, Check the order number". Natural pacing, with a short pause after each instruction." Result: A procedure that reads like a checklist. 3. **Show the task, blur the private details.** Put the screen recording over the software steps and the hands-on footage over the packing steps. Blur customer names and addresses on the screen. Prompt: "Show the returns system screen recording during steps 1, 3 and 4, and the packing station footage during step 5. Blur the customer name and address panel on the screen recording wherever it appears." Result: Learners see each action, and no customer data is shown. 4. **Add captions and get approval.** Captions are essential on a noisy floor. Then send a review link to the process owner and compliance so they approve the exact wording. Prompt: "Add minimal captions at the bottom, then give me a review link so the process owner and compliance can comment at the timecode." Result: An approved, captioned training video. 5. **Make accessible and translated versions.** Staff who are blind or have low vision need audio description; staff who work in another language need a dubbed version. Make both from the approved edit. Prompt: "Make an audio-described version of the approved training for staff with low vision, then export the approved version and the audio-described version as MP4s." Result: One training, usable by everyone on the team. ### Tips - **One step, one section.** Learners rewind to a step, not to a minute. Titled sections make the video work as a reference. - **Show hands and screens.** Narration alone does not teach a procedure. Film the hands doing it and capture the screen. - **Blur before review.** Remove customer data before the review link goes out, not after compliance spots it. - **Plan for every learner.** Captions, audio description and translation are cheaper to make from the approved edit than to retrofit later. ### FAQ **Can Eddie make training videos accessible?** Yes. Eddie adds captions, and it can make an audio-described version of an edit for blind and low-vision viewers, with a still-frame pause wherever a description needs more time. **Can I translate a training video?** Eddie can dub a finished edit into another language, placing the translated lines where the originals land. See the dubbing page for details. **Can I update one step without redoing the video?** Yes. Re-record the step, add it to the project and ask Eddie to replace that section. **Is it safe for internal content?** Eddie offers enterprise plans with single sign-on and a choice of where it runs. Blur customer data before you share a review link. ## How to Edit UGC Ads URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-ugc-ads Have the creator record three to five different hooks and the body of the ad, then keep the best take of each line and build one version per hook with the same body. Cut tight, add punchy captions, product b-roll over the claims and light music, all in 9:16. Eddie builds each variant from a prompt, so testing five hooks costs five prompts instead of five edits. ### Steps 1. **Import the creator's takes.** Upload the hook takes, the body takes and the product shots. Creators usually film on a phone in 9:16; that is ideal. Result: Every hook and every line, searchable. 2. **Build the body once.** The body is the same in every variant: the problem, the product, the result, the call to action. Build it first with the best take of each line. Prompt: "Build the body of the ad from the body takes, 22 to 25 seconds: my skin was dull, I tried this serum, the glow after a week, and "link below" to close. Best take of each line, tight pacing." Result: A tight body to put each hook in front of. 3. **Make one version per hook.** Each variant is a hook plus the same body. Ask for them together, named by hook, so the results are easy to compare in your ads manager. Prompt: "Make 4 versions of the ad, each starting with a different hook from the hook takes, followed by the body. Name them "Hook A" to "Hook D" after the first words of each hook. Keep each hook under 3 seconds." Result: Four ads ready to test against each other. 4. **Add captions, b-roll and music.** Most ads play muted at first. Punchy captions carry the message, product shots prove the claims, and light music keeps the energy up. Prompt: "On all 4 versions, add punchy captions with the active word highlighted, put the product pour shot over "I tried this serum" and the before-and-after over "the glow after a week", and add an upbeat pop track low under the voice." Result: Four finished variants that differ only in the hook. 5. **Export the variants.** Export all four as vertical MP4s. Upload them to the same ad set so the platform tests the hooks for you. Prompt: "Export all 4 versions as 1080 by 1920 MP4s with web loudness, named by hook." Result: A hook test ready to launch. ### Tips - **Test hooks, not bodies.** Changing the hook and keeping the body the same tells you which hook works. Changing both tells you nothing. - **Keep the creator's voice.** UGC works because it sounds real. Choose the best take, but do not polish out every natural pause and laugh. - **Captions are the ad on mute.** Highlight the words that sell, like the result and the call to action, so the ad works before anyone taps for sound. - **Prove claims with real footage.** Use the creator's own before-and-after and product shots. Stock or generated shots weaken a claim about real results. - **Name variants by what changed.** Name each edit after its hook, not "version 2". When the results come back from the ad platform, you can see at once which opening line won. ### FAQ **How many hook variants should I test?** Three to five is a practical start. Eddie builds each variant from the same body, so more variants cost more prompts, not more editing time. **Can Eddie choose the best take from several creators?** Yes. Import every creator's takes into one project and ask for the best version of each line, or one ad per creator. **Can I make a 16:9 version for YouTube ads?** Yes. Ask for a landscape version of any variant. Footage shot vertically will be fitted to the wider frame. **Can I reuse the same edit style for every campaign?** Yes. Save the look, including caption style, pacing and music, and apply it to the next round. **Can Eddie add a product logo or offer card at the end?** Yes. Ask for an end card with your logo and the offer, as a title or a template graphic, and Eddie adds it to every variant. ## How to Add B-roll to a Video URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/add-b-roll-to-videos Put b-roll where the words describe something the viewer could see, and over cuts you want to hide. Use your own footage first, because it shows the real place and people. Where you have nothing, use stock footage, and when stock has nothing that fits, generate a short shot. Eddie places b-roll from all three sources from a prompt, and quotes the credits before it places or generates anything. ### Steps 1. **Log your b-roll.** Add your b-roll to the project with the interview. Eddie describes every clip and finds the strongest stretches inside each one, so a seven-minute clip becomes several usable shots. Prompt: "Cut my b-roll into short subclips: the best moments of the roasting drum, the beans pouring out, hands sorting beans, and the cafe queue. Tell me the price first." Result: A library of short, described shots ready to place. 2. **Place your own b-roll over the story.** Ask for b-roll over the lines that describe something visible. Name specific shots where you care, and let Eddie match the rest. Prompt: "Add b-roll from my own footage over the interview: the roasting drum when she talks about the first roast, sorting hands over "we pick every bean by hand", and the cafe queue over the part about opening day. Cover the jump cuts in the middle answer too." Result: Your edit, now showing what it talks about. 3. **Fill the gaps with stock.** Some lines describe things you did not film: a coffee farm, a shipping port. Eddie reads those lines and searches stock footage on their themes. Prompt: "Where she talks about the farms in Colombia and the beans arriving at the port, find stock footage that fits and show me the options before importing." Result: Coverage for moments you did not shoot. 4. **Generate a shot only when nothing fits.** Sometimes neither your footage nor stock has the shot, for example a specific named place. Eddie can generate a short b-roll clip for that moment. It quotes the credits first and generates nothing until you agree. Prompt: "Stock has no shot of the old roastery on Calle 8 in 1985. Quote me a generated b-roll shot of a small 1980s coffee roastery storefront at dusk for that line, and place it there if I say yes." Result: Coverage for the one moment nothing else could cover. 5. **Check the placements and export.** Watch the edit through once. Ask Eddie to check every placement for mistakes, then export. B-roll comes with you into Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve exports. Prompt: "Check every b-roll placement for problems, such as a shot that contradicts what is said or covers a face at an important moment, then export the edit as a Final Cut Pro timeline." Result: A checked edit with b-roll, ready to finish. ### Tips - **Shoot b-roll for your words.** Before a shoot, read the interview questions and list what each answer will need to show. The best b-roll is planned, not found. - **Own footage first, always.** Your own shots show the real place and people. Stock and generated shots are for gaps, not for the heart of the story. - **Never generate what must be true.** In news, documentary and testimonials, a generated shot presented as the real scene misleads viewers. Use generated b-roll for illustration, and say so if it could be mistaken for fact. - **Leave the face on for the key line.** Cover the setup with b-roll, but let viewers see the speaker for the line that matters most. ### FAQ **Where does Eddie get b-roll from?** From three places: your own footage in the project, stock footage (free Pexels clips, plus your own Shutterstock catalog if you connect it), and generated shots when nothing else fits. **Does Eddie generate b-roll without asking?** No. Generated b-roll always starts with a free quote of the price and the shot description. Nothing is generated or charged until you agree. **What does b-roll cost?** Placing b-roll uses credits based on the length of the b-roll files the edit draws on, and Eddie quotes the price before it places anything. Generated shots are charged per clip. See the pricing page for current rates. **Can I pick a different shot for one placement?** Yes. Ask for a different shot at that moment, or hover the clip on the timeline in the web app and ask for an alternative there. ## How to Add Motion Graphics to a Video URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/add-motion-graphics-to-videos Use motion graphics to say what the picture cannot: a name, a number, a quote, a step. Keep one style across the whole video, time each graphic to the word it supports, and keep it on screen long enough to read twice. In Eddie you place template graphics such as lower thirds and stat callouts by asking for them, or describe a custom graphic and Eddie animates it in your brand style. ### Steps 1. **Start from an edit.** Graphics go on a cut that is nearly final, because they are timed to words and shots. Build or import your edit first. Result: An edit ready for graphics. 2. **Pick a style for the whole video.** Choose one style pack before you add anything. Every graphic on the edit then shares the same type, palette and card treatment. Prompt: "Set a clean, warm style pack for the graphics on this edit that matches our brand colours." Result: Graphics that look like they belong together. 3. **Add names, numbers and quotes from templates.** Most graphics are one of a few kinds. Ask for them by kind and by the word they belong to. Prompt: "Add a lower third "Rosa Lin, Director" when she first speaks, a stat callout "48,000 meals" when she says the number, and a quote card with "Nobody here is a number" when the volunteer says it." Result: The key facts on screen at the moment they are said. 4. **Make a custom graphic from a description.** When a template is not enough, describe the graphic. Eddie animates it in your brand style and places it where you say. Prompt: "Make a motion graphic of a simple map of the city with dots appearing at our 12 pantry locations, one after another, while the director says "we now run 12 pantries". Keep it in our brand style." Result: A custom animation without leaving the edit. 5. **Refine it, or reuse a saved template.** Change one element at a time in plain words. Each refinement is saved as a new version. If your workspace already has saved motion graphic templates, such as an end card, place them by name. Prompt: "Make the dots our brand green and slow the animation so the last dot lands on "pantries". Then place our saved "End card" template over the last 4 seconds." Result: A finished custom graphic, and your team's standard end card. 6. **Export.** Motion graphics are drawn in the player and rendered into the MP4. Export the video with the graphics in it. Prompt: "Export the impact video as a 1080p MP4 with all graphics, and a 30-second vertical cut for social with the stat callout and the quote card." Result: A finished video with its graphics, in both shapes. ### Tips - **Graphics say what pictures cannot.** A name, a number, a quote, a step. If the picture already shows it, the graphic is noise. - **One style per video.** Mixed fonts and colours look like a template sampler. Set the style pack first and every graphic follows it. - **Hold it long enough to read twice.** A viewer reads a short callout in about a second. Keep it on screen for two to three seconds. - **Reuse what works.** A graphic your team uses on every video, such as an end card, belongs in the workspace as a saved template, so anyone can place it by name. ### FAQ **Which motion graphics templates does Eddie have?** A curated set that includes kinetic titles, lower thirds, quote cards and stat callouts, all styled by the edit's style pack. **Can Eddie make a custom animation?** Yes. Describe it, and Eddie authors a motion graphic in your workspace's brand style. Authoring and refining a custom graphic uses credits. **Do motion graphics come through to Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro?** Graphics are shown in the Eddie player and rendered into the MP4. Check the export page for what each timeline format carries before you plan to finish graphics in another application. **Can a graphic sit inside the shot rather than on top?** Yes. Blend modes such as Screen or Multiply let a graphic composite into the picture. They appear in the player and in MP4 exports. ## How to Edit Talking Head Videos URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-talking-head-videos Cut every flub, restart and long pause so each sentence starts clean, then break up the single static shot: punch in to a tighter crop at the cuts and on the lines that matter, and lay b-roll over the jumps a crop cannot hide. Add captions, because much of the audience watches on mute, and make a vertical cut-down of the strongest minute for social. Eddie finds the flubs and pauses in the transcript, then builds the clean cut, the punch-ins, the b-roll, the captions and the vertical version from prompts. ### Steps 1. **Import the recording and the cutaways.** Upload the main take, any pickup lines you recorded afterwards, and anything you can cut away to: screen recordings, product shots, footage of the team. Cutaways are what you will use where a punch-in is not enough. Result: A searchable recording and a small library of cutaways. 2. **Find the flubs before you cut.** Unscripted takes repeat themselves. Get a list of the stumbles, the restarted sentences and the points you made twice, and decide what goes before anything is cut. Prompt: "List every place I stumble, restart a sentence or make the same point twice, and every pause longer than two seconds, with timestamps. Do not cut anything yet." Result: A list of everything that should not survive the edit. 3. **Build the clean cut.** Keep the cleanest version of each point and remove the filler. Natural pacing keeps a breath between thoughts; tight pacing suits short social videos better than a five-minute update. Prompt: "Make a 6-minute edit from the first take: keep the cleaner version of each repeated point, use the pickup for the hiring line, remove the ums and the restarts you listed, and use natural pacing so it still sounds like me talking." Result: A six-minute cut from nineteen minutes of rambling. 4. **Punch in to hide the jump cuts.** A cut inside one locked-off shot makes the head jump. Change the shot size at the cut and the jump reads as a new angle. Alternate between the full frame and a close-up, and save the tightest crop for the lines you want to land. Prompt: "At every cut inside an answer, alternate between the full frame and a close-up crop on my face at about 1.3x, and use a tighter 1.6x crop for the three lines about the new pricing." Result: One camera that looks like two. 5. **Cover what a crop cannot.** Some stretches need more than a punch-in: a run of short cuts, or an explanation of something the viewer should see. Put b-roll there, and stay on your face for the opening line and the ask. Prompt: "Cover the cuts in the section about the dashboard with the dashboard screen recording, and put the team b-roll over the part where I thank the team. Keep me on screen for the first line and the ask at the end." Result: An edit that shows what you are talking about. 6. **Caption it and make the vertical cut-down.** Caption the main video for viewers on mute. Then make a separate vertical edit from the one section that works with no context; a vertical clip is a new edit, not the main video squeezed into 9:16. Prompt: "Add minimal captions at the bottom of the main edit. Then make a separate 60-second vertical version from the pricing section, cropped to my face, with social captions in the middle of the frame." Result: A captioned main video and a vertical clip. 7. **Get notes and export.** Before you publish, get a second opinion on the first ten seconds and the pace. Then export for posting, or for finishing in your editor. Prompt: "Watch the main edit and tell me if the opening hooks and where the pace drags, with timestamps. Then export it as a 1080p MP4 and a Premiere Pro project, and the vertical clip as an MP4." Result: Notes to act on, and files ready to post. ### Tips - **Pause instead of saying um.** When you lose a sentence while recording, stop, take a breath and start the whole sentence again. A clean pause gives the edit a clean place to cut; a sentence repaired halfway does not. - **Make the punch-in obvious.** A crop that changes the frame only slightly looks like a mistake. Change the shot size enough that it reads as a new angle, and record in 4K if you can, so the close-up stays sharp. - **Do not remove every breath.** Cutting every pause makes a person sound breathless and nervous. Remove the dead air, and keep the short pause before a point you want to land. - **Use b-roll with a reason.** Cover a cut with footage of the thing you are describing. Generic office footage over a personal update makes it feel like an advert. - **Keep your face on the ask.** The opening line and the call to action should be on camera. People trust a face more than a cutaway at the moment you ask them for something. ### FAQ **How do you hide jump cuts in a talking head video?** Change the shot size at the cut with a punch-in, cover the cut with b-roll or a screen recording, or keep the jump on purpose in a fast-paced edit. A punch-in hides most cuts; b-roll covers runs of short cuts that would otherwise flicker between sizes. **Can I remove ums and uhs automatically?** Yes. Name the filler words you want gone and Eddie marks them as removed in the transcript, so edits skip them, and captions leave filler words out by default. Listen to the result: removing every filler can clip a breath, and a few natural ones sound more human. **What is a punch-in?** A punch-in is a tighter crop of the same shot, used at a cut so the change of size hides the jump, or on a key line for emphasis. It is a digital zoom, so it works best on footage recorded at a higher resolution than you deliver. **Do I need a script for a talking head video?** No. Many talking heads are recorded from a few bullet points. Describe what you want to keep and the length, and Eddie builds the cut from the transcript. With a script, follow the YouTube video guide instead, which matches takes to scripted lines. **Do I need two cameras?** No. One camera and punch-ins cover most talking heads. A second angle helps for long videos where the same two framings start to repeat, but it adds lighting and syncing work. **How long should a talking head video be?** As long as one idea takes. Short social posts usually make one point, while explainers and updates can run longer if every minute earns its place. Cut the long version first, then make the short versions from it. ## How to Edit a Zoom Recording URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-zoom-recordings Start from the best files the platform gives you: Zoom can save an active-speaker view and a gallery view, and in local recording a separate audio file for each participant, while Teams and Google Meet usually give one file with mixed audio. Cut the joining chatter, the "can you hear me" moments and the connection freezes, keep the conversation, and switch between speakers instead of sitting on the gallery grid. Level the laptop microphones so everyone sounds the same, then add names and captions. Eddie syncs the files, names the speakers, finds the freezes and dead air in the transcript and builds the cut from prompts. ### Steps 1. **Upload every file the call produced.** Download the recording and upload all of it: the active-speaker and gallery files from a Zoom cloud recording, or the separate participant audio files from a local recording. Each file is another option in the edit. Teams and Meet usually give one file, which works too. Prompt: "Sync the gallery view, the active speaker view and both participant audio files as one multicam group, with the gallery view as the reference." Result: The whole call as one synced, searchable recording. 2. **Name the speakers and fix the crosstalk.** Transcription labels voices as Speaker 1 and Speaker 2. Name them once. Where two people talked over each other, check that each line sits with the right person, because captions and clips will credit whoever the transcript says. Prompt: "Rename Speaker 1 to Maya Chen and Speaker 2 to Tomas Reyes, and move the lines between 31:05 and 31:40 to Tomas; we were talking over each other there." Result: A transcript that says who said what. 3. **Find the dead air and the freezes.** Connection problems leave traces in the transcript: someone asks if they can be heard, says the other person froze, or repeats an answer. Find all of them, plus the small talk before and after the interview. Prompt: "Find the small talk before the first question, every "can you hear me", "you froze" or "you cut out", any long silence while someone reconnected, and the goodbyes after the last answer. List them with timestamps." Result: A list of everything that is the call, not the conversation. 4. **Build the conversation cut.** Cut from the first real question to the last answer. Where a freeze swallowed part of an answer and the guest repeated it, keep the repeat and drop the broken version. Prompt: "Make an edit of the interview from Maya's first question to Tomas's last answer, without the small talk, the connection problems and the reconnects you found. Where Tomas repeated an answer after a freeze, keep only the repeat. Natural pacing." Result: The conversation without the call around it. 5. **Show whoever is talking.** A gallery grid for forty minutes looks like a meeting. Use the active-speaker file for most of the cut, and the gallery view for laughter and quick exchanges, cropped so the empty parts of the grid are gone. Prompt: "Use the active speaker view for most of the interview. Where we laugh or talk over each other, cut to the gallery view cropped to just our two tiles." Result: A cut that follows the conversation. 6. **Add names, captions and a clip.** Name both people on screen, caption the conversation with a colour per speaker, and pull one answer that stands on its own for social. Prompt: "Add a lower third with each person's name and role at their first answer, captions coloured by speaker, and a 45-second vertical clip of Tomas's answer about port delays with the two of us stacked." Result: A finished interview and a clip to promote it. 7. **Export and level the voices.** Two laptop microphones never match. If you have a separate audio file per person, level each voice on its own track in your editor and reduce room echo there; with one mixed file, level the whole track and accept small differences. Prompt: "Export the interview as a Premiere Pro project with the angles kept as multicam, and the vertical clip as a 1080p MP4." Result: An interview ready for the audio pass, and a clip ready to post. ### Tips - **Change the recording settings before the call.** In Zoom's recording settings you can save the active speaker and gallery view as separate files for cloud recordings, and a separate audio file for each participant for local recordings. They cannot be created afterwards. - **Ask guests to wear headphones.** Without headphones, each laptop picks up the other person from its own speakers, and that echo is on the recording for good. Wired earbuds are enough. - **Ask for a repeat when the line drops.** If an answer breaks up, ask the guest to say it again there and then. A clean repeat is easy to keep; a broken answer cannot be repaired in the edit. - **Crop gallery tiles with care.** Each tile in a gallery recording is a fraction of the frame, so a crop to one tile is soft. Use it for short reactions, and the active-speaker file for long answers. - **Fix the names before the captions.** Speaker names and crosstalk fixes carry into every caption and clip built afterwards. Do them first and you do them once. ### FAQ **Where does Zoom save recordings?** Cloud recordings are in the Recordings section of your Zoom account on the web, where you can download each file. Local recordings are saved to a Zoom folder on your computer, by default inside Documents. **Can I get a separate audio track for each person?** In Zoom, turn on the option to record a separate audio file for each participant before you start a local recording. Teams and Google Meet recordings usually come as one mixed file, so if audio quality matters, ask each person to record their own audio as a backup. **How do I fix a frozen video in a Zoom recording?** You cannot recover the missing frames. Cut the frozen stretch, keep a repeated answer if the guest gave one, or cover a short freeze with a cutaway while the audio continues. If the audio also dropped, the words are gone. **How do I edit out crosstalk?** With a separate audio file per person you can lower one voice under the other in your editor. With one mixed file you cannot separate them, so cut the overlap or keep it when it sounds natural. Either way, check that the transcript credits each line to the right person. **Does Eddie connect to my Zoom account?** No. Download the recording from Zoom, Teams or Meet and upload the files to Eddie. Any recording file imports. **How is this different from editing a webinar?** A webinar is a presentation with a Q&A, and the edit is about trimming the housekeeping and showing the slides. A recorded conversation is about the back-and-forth: who is talking, who reacts and how the exchange sounds. ## How to Edit a Panel Discussion URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-panel-discussions Sync the wide shot and the closer cameras, name every voice, then cut to whoever is speaking and go back to the wide when two people talk at once or the panel reacts. Trim the welcome, the sponsor thanks, the microphone handovers and the time checks, but keep the questions that set up each answer. Put each panelist's name on screen at their first answer, and pull one short clip per panelist so every speaker has something to share. Eddie syncs the cameras, names the speakers, switches angles by who is talking and builds the clips from prompts. ### Steps 1. **Import and sync the cameras.** Upload every camera and the sound desk recording. Panels are often shot with two-shots rather than a camera per seat; that is enough if each two-shot is sharp. Prompt: "Group the wide camera, the moderator camera, both two-shot cameras and the desk mix as one multicam recording, synced by sound, with the desk mix as the audio." Result: One synced panel instead of five files. 2. **Name all five voices.** Name the moderator and every panelist before anything else. Ask for speaking time too: it shows straight away whether one panelist dominated and another barely spoke. Prompt: "Name the speakers: the moderator is Priya Nair, and the panelists from left to right are Dan Okoro, Helen Marsh, Sam Whitfield and Lucia Ferraro. Then tell me how long each person speaks in total." Result: A transcript with names, and a picture of the balance. 3. **Trim the housekeeping.** Remove what was for the room: the welcome, the sponsor thanks, microphone handovers and "we have five minutes left". Keep every question, shortened if the moderator took a long run-up, because the answers make no sense without them. Prompt: "Start the edit at Priya's first question to the panel, remove the sponsor thanks, the mic handovers and the time checks, and end after the last audience answer. Keep every question Priya asks." Result: The panel without the event around it. 4. **Cut to whoever is speaking.** Switch to the camera on the person talking, use the moderator's camera for questions, and go back to the wide shot when two people talk at once or the whole panel reacts. With two-shots, crop to the half that holds the speaker. Prompt: "Cut to whoever is talking: crop the two-shot cameras to the left or right half for each panelist, use the moderator camera for Priya's questions, and use the wide shot when two people talk at once and for the first few seconds after each new question." Result: A cut that keeps up with the conversation. 5. **Add names and topic titles.** Viewers join a panel video halfway through. Name each panelist at their first answer and put a short topic title at each new question, so anyone can find their place. Prompt: "Add a lower third with name and job title at each panelist's first answer, and a topic title at each new question: "Hiring", "Remote teams", "AI at work" and "Audience questions". List the topics with their timestamps." Result: A panel viewers can navigate. 6. **Pull one clip per panelist.** Every panelist will share a clip of themselves, which is free promotion for the event. Pick each person's strongest answer that makes sense without the question. Prompt: "Make one 60-second vertical clip for each panelist from their strongest answer that works without the question, cropped to them, with social captions and their name at the top." Result: Four clips, one per speaker. 7. **Export.** Render the clips for posting, and take the full panel into your editor if it needs a grade or a sound pass. Prompt: "Export the full panel as a Premiere Pro project with the cameras kept as multicam, and render the four panelist clips as MP4s." Result: The full session and four clips. ### Tips - **Shoot the wide in 4K.** A 4K wide shot can be cropped into singles and two-shots when a closer camera missed someone. It is the cheapest insurance a panel shoot can have. - **Record the sound desk.** Every panelist on their own microphone, mixed at the desk, sounds better than any camera microphone. Record the desk output and use it for the whole edit. - **Hold the wide for crosstalk.** When two people talk at once, a fast cut between them looks frantic. The wide shot shows both and lets the exchange play out. - **Shorten the questions, do not cut them.** A moderator's long run-up can lose its preamble, but the question itself has to stay. An answer without its question is a clip, not a panel. - **Watch the balance.** If one panelist barely spoke, give them a clip from their best answer anyway. Panelists remember how they were treated in the edit. ### FAQ **How do you edit a panel discussion with one camera?** Record the wide shot in 4K and crop it into singles and two-shots as people speak, then return to the full wide for reactions and crosstalk. One sharp wide shot and good audio make a watchable panel. **Should I cut the moderator's questions?** Cut the moderator's housekeeping, not the questions. Shorten a long preamble, but keep the question itself, or the answers lose their context. **How long should an edited panel be?** The full session minus the housekeeping, for people who want the whole conversation, plus short clips for everyone else. Most panels lose several minutes of welcome, thanks and handovers without losing any content. **Can Eddie tell which panelist is speaking?** The transcript separates the voices, and you name each one once. Where two people talked over each other, you can move lines to the right person, so captions, titles and clips credit them correctly. **What do I do when panelists talk over each other?** Use the wide shot so the viewer sees both, and keep the exchange if it is lively. If it is just two people starting at once, cut to whoever continues. **Can I make a highlight reel of the whole panel?** Yes. Ask for a highlight of a few minutes with the strongest answer from each panelist, in the order of the discussion, and Eddie builds it as a separate edit. ## How to Edit Oral History Interviews URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-oral-history-interviews Keep the full, unedited recording as the archival master, with a corrected transcript, a time-coded index of topics and the narrator's details stored alongside it. Then make the versions people watch: an access copy of the whole interview with chapters and only the setup and breaks removed, and a short film of a few minutes built from the strongest stories, with archival photos over the lines where the narrator describes them. Never join words in a way that changes what the narrator meant. Eddie transcribes and indexes the interview, fixes names in the transcript, builds the access copy and the short film, and plays every edit from your original files without changing them. ### Steps 1. **Import, transcribe and record the details.** Upload both parts of the interview, the separate microphone recording and the scanned photos. Record who, when and where on the files straight away; an interview without that information is much less useful to an archive. Prompt: "Transcribe both parts of Ruth Alvarez's interview, and record on the sources: narrator Ruth Alvarez, interviewer Ben Cole, recorded 14 March 2026 at the Alvarez home, keywords bakery, Eastside, 1950s." Result: A searchable interview that carries its own catalogue details. 2. **Correct names and places in the transcript.** Speech-to-text gets common words right and names wrong. Family names, street names and businesses are what researchers search for, so correct them before anything else. Prompt: "Correct the transcript: "Alvarez" not "Alvarado", "Reyes Panaderia" not "race panadera", and "Eastside" as one word. Then list any other names you think may be misheard." Result: A transcript you can hand to an archive. 3. **Index the interview into topics.** A two-and-a-half-hour interview needs an index: what is discussed, and where. It is what makes the recording usable to someone who will never watch all of it. Prompt: "Log the interview with a summary and timestamped topics, and give me a chapter list for the full interview with a short title for each chapter." Result: An index of the whole interview. 4. **Build the access copy.** The access copy is the whole interview for viewers: remove only the setup and the breaks, keep every answer whole, and put a chapter title at each topic. The archival master stays as recorded. Prompt: "Make an access copy of the full interview: remove only the microphone check before the first question and the break at 47:10, keep every answer whole with breathy pacing, and put a chapter title at each topic from the index." Result: The full testimony, navigable. 5. **Cut a short film with the photos.** A short piece of five to eight minutes is what most people will watch. Build it from two or three complete stories, use whole sentences only, and show the photos where the narrator describes them. Prompt: "Make a 6-minute short from the stories about opening the bakery and the fire of 1965. Use complete sentences only and never join parts of two answers into one. Put the scanned photos over the lines where Ruth describes them, with slow, subtle movement." Result: A short film made only of the narrator's own words. 6. **Deliver to the archive and the public.** Archives want the transcript and the index as documents, and captions for accessibility. The public versions need captions too. Prompt: "Export the access copy and the short as 1080p MP4s with SRT captions, and make a transcript document with speaker names, timestamps and the topic index at the top." Result: An archive package and two versions to publish. ### Tips - **Keep the master unedited.** The archival copy is the recording as it happened, including the pauses and the off-topic stories. Edited versions are for viewing; label them as excerpts and point back to the full interview. - **Check the release first.** Most oral history programmes ask the narrator to sign a release that says how the recording may be used. Read it before you publish anything, and respect any section the narrator asked to restrict. - **Edit for clarity, not for polish.** Remove the setup and long breaks, but leave the narrator's hesitations inside an answer. They are part of the testimony, and smoothing them out changes how a memory sounds. - **Caption the photos you use.** Note what each photo shows, when and where it was taken, and who holds the original. The same details belong in the catalogue record. - **Correct names early.** Every caption, chapter title and document is built from the transcript. Fix names and places first and they are right everywhere. ### FAQ **Should you edit an oral history interview at all?** Keep the full recording unedited as the archival master. Edited versions, such as an access copy without the setup or a short film, are fine for viewing as long as they are labelled as edits and the full interview stays available. **How do you transcribe an oral history interview?** Start with a speech-to-text draft, then check every name, place and date against the interviewer's notes or with the narrator. Decide whether the transcript is verbatim or lightly edited, and say which in the archive record. **What should I keep for the archive?** The original camera and audio files, unaltered, plus the corrected transcript, the topic index, the signed release and the details of who, when and where. Eddie never changes your original files. **Can I hide details the narrator asked to restrict?** Yes, in the versions you publish. Eddie can blur or cover a region of the picture, such as a document or a face, and mark spoken words as removed. A blur is baked into rendered video, not into project files for other editors, and the archival master stays complete. **Can Eddie find the most moving moments?** Yes. Eddie can analyse the interview for moments a transcript cannot carry, such as a voice breaking, a long pause or a look away, and record them with timestamps. The analysis uses credits per hour of footage. **How is this different from editing a documentary?** A documentary combines many voices into one story. An oral history keeps one narrator's account whole, so the edit is about access, indexing and short excerpts, not about building an argument from the footage. ## How to Edit Instagram Reels URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-instagram-reels Open on your strongest shot or line in the first second, keep the whole Reel to one idea, and cut it to music so every change of shot lands on a beat. Edit in 9:16, crop any horizontal footage so the subject stays centred, and keep on-screen text out of the bottom fifth and the right edge, where Instagram puts its caption and buttons. Most Reels work best between 7 and 30 seconds. In Eddie you describe the order of shots, then ask for the vertical crop, the beat cuts, the text and the export in plain words. ### Steps 1. **Bring in the clips and the track.** Upload the phone clips, any camera footage and the music you have the rights to use. Shoot vertical on the phone when you can; horizontal camera footage works too if it is 4K, because you will crop it. Result: Every clip described, so you can ask for shots by what is in them. 2. **Build the Reel around the hook.** Decide what the first second shows before anything else. A Reel lives or dies on it: movement, a reveal or a surprising line. Then put the rest in an order that pays it off, and give a total length. Prompt: "Make a 25-second Reel from these clips. Open on the croissant being pulled apart, then the dough fold, the oven opening and the counter filling up, and end on the baker saying "we do this every morning at 5". Use the strongest 1 to 2 seconds of each shot." Result: A first cut that starts on the hook, not on a lead-in. 3. **Reframe to vertical.** Set the canvas to 9:16. Phone clips shot vertically fill it as they are. For horizontal camera shots, say which part of the frame matters, so the crop keeps the hands or the face rather than the empty middle. Prompt: "Make the Reel 9:16. Crop the wide counter shots to the right third of the frame where the trays are, and crop the baker's line to a close-up on her face." Result: Every shot fills the phone screen with the subject in frame. 4. **Cut on the beat and slow one moment.** Cuts that hit the beat make a Reel feel edited rather than assembled. Pick one moment to slow down, usually the hook or the reveal, and leave the rest at full speed. Prompt: "Put my upbeat track under the Reel, snap every cut to the nearest beat without cutting into the baker's line, and ramp the croissant pull down to slow motion and back." Result: A Reel that moves with its music. 5. **Add the hook text and captions.** Many people watch Reels muted, so put the hook in words too. Keep text in the upper and middle part of the frame: the bottom fifth holds Instagram's caption and the right edge holds its buttons. Prompt: "Add a hook title "400 croissants before sunrise" near the top for the first 2 seconds, and punch captions on the baker's line, 2 words per card, placed just above the middle of the lower half." Result: A Reel that reads clearly with the sound off. 6. **Export the Reel and a cover frame.** Download the Reel as an MP4 and upload it from your phone or a desktop browser. Pick a cover frame too, because the profile grid shows the cover, not the first frame. Prompt: "Export the Reel as a 1080 by 1920 MP4 with web loudness, and export a still of the croissant pull at its slowest point for the cover." Result: A Reel ready to post and a cover image to go with it. ### Tips - **Decide the first second first.** Choose the opening shot before you build anything else. If the first second is a slow pan or a logo, people swipe before the good part arrives. - **Shoot more cutaways than you think.** A 25-second Reel cut on the beat can use ten or more shots. Film each action from two or three angles and close up, so you are not repeating a shot to fill a gap. - **Keep text out of the app's way.** Instagram covers the bottom of the frame with your caption and the right edge with its buttons. Put titles and captions in the upper two thirds, away from the right side. - **Loop the ending.** Reels replay automatically. An ending that flows back into the first shot, or a last line that answers the hook, makes the second watch feel natural. - **Leave room in the music.** If someone speaks, keep the music low under the line and bring it back up after. A spoken line fighting a loud track gets skipped. ### FAQ **How long should an Instagram Reel be?** Instagram accepts Reels of up to a few minutes, but most that hold attention are 7 to 30 seconds and carry one idea. Make it as long as the idea needs and no longer, then ask Eddie for that target length. **What size should a Reel be?** Vertical 9:16, usually 1080 by 1920 pixels. Eddie sets the canvas to 9:16 and renders the MP4 at that size. **Can I use a trending sound from Instagram?** Songs from Instagram's own music library can only be added inside the Instagram app. If you plan to do that, export the Reel without music and add the sound when you post. Use a track as a file in Eddie only if you have the rights to it. **Can I edit a Reel from horizontal footage?** Yes. Eddie crops each shot to the part of the frame you name, or to a close-up on the speaker's face. Horizontal 4K footage keeps the crop sharp; 1080p footage cropped to vertical looks soft. **Does Eddie post the Reel to Instagram for me?** No. Eddie renders an MP4 that you upload to Instagram yourself, from your phone or from a desktop browser. **Is this different from cutting Reels out of a podcast or a long video?** Yes. This guide builds one Reel from a set of short clips. To cut several Reels from one long recording, follow the Shorts guide or the podcast clips guide; the export works the same way. ## How to Edit a Video Essay URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-video-essays Lock the voiceover first: cut the false starts, keep one clean take of each line and leave a short pause between chapters. Then cover every line with a picture that shows or supports what it says, using your own footage, archive stills with slow movement and stock where you have nothing. Put quotes and numbers on screen as graphics so viewers can read what they hear, and keep a low music bed under the narration. In Eddie you build the narration from your script, then ask for the b-roll, stills, graphics and music line by line. ### Steps 1. **Import the voiceover and the script.** Upload the voiceover recording, your footage, the archive stills and any interview, and attach the script you read from. Record the narration in one quiet session if you can, so the voice sounds the same all the way through. Result: Narration, footage and stills in one project, searchable by what is said and shown. 2. **Tighten the narration.** Build the voiceover spine before you touch a picture. Ask for the best take of each line in script order, with the stumbles gone, and a breath between chapters so the structure is audible. Prompt: "Build the essay narration from my voiceover takes, following the attached script in order. Use the best take of each line, cut the false starts and retakes, natural pacing, and put a 1-second pause before each of the four chapters." Result: A locked narration to cut every picture against. 3. **Cover the lines with your footage and archive.** Start with what you shot and collected. Archive stills need slow movement, or they read as a slideshow. Let the interview play on screen for the lines where a real person says it better than you can. Prompt: "Cover the narration with my footage where it matches: the shelf close-ups over the chapter about the VHS boom, the walkthrough over the store today. Put the 1989 storefront photo over "it opened in 1989" and the 1994 newspaper over the headline line, each with a slow push-in. Use two short lines from the owner interview where she describes closing night." Result: The essay's own pictures, in the right places. 4. **Fill the gaps with stock.** Some lines talk about things you could never film: a 1990s multiplex, a streaming server farm. Stock footage covers them. Check every pick, because a wrong decade or country undercuts an argument. Prompt: "For the lines with no picture yet, about the rise of streaming and the multiplex opening in town, find stock footage that fits and show me the options before you import anything." Result: No line left on a blank or repeated shot. 5. **Put quotes and numbers on screen.** When the narration quotes someone or gives a figure, show it. Viewers remember what they read and hear at once. Set one graphic style first so every card in the essay matches. Prompt: "Use a clean editorial style pack for the graphics. Add a quote card with "Be kind, rewind" when I read the sticker line, a stat callout "9,000 stores" when I give the 2004 store count, and a chapter title at the start of each of the four chapters." Result: The essay's key lines on screen, in one consistent look. 6. **Add a music bed and get notes.** Music in an essay sets the mood and fills the pauses; it should never compete with the voice. Then get a second opinion on pacing before you publish, especially on the first minute. Prompt: "Add a low ambient piano bed under the whole essay, ducked under the voice. Then watch the cut and give me timestamped notes on the hook, the pacing of each chapter, and any stretch where the picture repeats." Result: A scored essay and a list of fixes before it goes live. 7. **Export for YouTube or your editor.** Export an MP4 to upload, or a timeline if you grade and mix in your own editor. Export a still for the thumbnail from the same project. Prompt: "Export the essay as a 1080p MP4 with web loudness, and as a Premiere Pro project so I can do the final sound mix." Result: An essay ready to upload, and a project to finish if you want to. ### Tips - **Write for the ear, then cut for the eye.** Read the script aloud before recording. Sentences that are hard to say are hard to follow. Once the narration is locked, every picture decision gets easier. - **Something new every few seconds.** A video essay holds attention when the picture changes about as often as the idea does. A single shot held over a long paragraph tells viewers to look at their phone. - **Move the stills.** Give every photo or scan a slow push or pan, and vary the direction. Static stills read as a slideshow; the same move on every still reads as a template. - **Show the source.** When you quote a newspaper, a study or a person, show the quote or the document on screen. It makes the argument easier to trust and easier to remember. - **Keep stock honest.** Use stock to illustrate, not to stand in for a specific real event. If a shot could be mistaken for the actual place or day you describe, use archive or say on screen that it is illustrative. ### FAQ **How long should a video essay be?** As long as the argument needs. Many popular essays run 10 to 30 minutes, but a tight 8-minute essay beats a padded 20-minute one. Cut any section that repeats a point the viewer already has. **Do I need to record the voiceover myself?** Your own voice usually builds more trust with an audience. If you cannot record, Eddie can generate a voice-over from the lines you write, in a voice you describe, and place each line on the timeline. **Where do I get footage for a video essay?** From footage you shoot, archive you have the rights to, and stock. Eddie places your own footage first, searches free Pexels clips and your own Shutterstock catalog when you connect it, and imports only the picks you choose. **Can I use clips from films or TV in my essay?** That depends on copyright law where you publish and on how you use the clip, such as short excerpts for commentary or criticism. Keep clips short, comment on them, and check the rules for your country and platform. Eddie edits only the files you upload. **What microphone setup do I need for the voiceover?** A decent USB or XLR microphone in a quiet, soft-furnished room is enough. Speak 15 to 20 centimetres from the mic and record every session in the same place so the voice matches. **Can I finish the essay in Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve?** Yes. Export a Premiere Pro project, a Final Cut Pro timeline or a DaVinci Resolve timeline that points at your original media, then grade and mix there. ## How to Edit an Explainer Video URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-explainer-videos Lay the voiceover first and cut every picture to it. Show the screen or the thing being explained while the voice describes it, zoom in on the part that matters, and use a simple animated diagram for the idea that has no picture. Add captions, keep the music quiet, and make 16:9, square and vertical versions from the same edit. Eddie lays the voiceover from your script, places and crops the screen recordings, animates diagrams from a description and builds each size from a prompt. ### Steps 1. **Lay the voiceover from the script.** Write the script so each line explains one thing, and record it, or let Eddie voice it. Short lines are easier to cover with a matching picture and easier to change later. Prompt: "Generate a voice-over in a calm, clear voice from these lines, in order: "Your files live in three places: your laptop, your team's laptops and the cloud." "When you save, the change goes up first." "Then every other device pulls it down." "If two people edit at once, you choose which version wins." "That is the whole idea."" Result: A timed narration to cut every picture to. 2. **Animate the idea that has no picture.** Concepts like sync, a supply chain or a pricing model have no footage. A simple diagram that builds as the voice speaks makes them clear. Describe it in plain words, one element per line of narration. Prompt: "Make a motion graphic for the first three lines: a laptop, two team laptops and a cloud appear as the voice names them, then an arrow goes from the first laptop up to the cloud on "goes up first", and arrows come down to the other two on "pulls it down". Our brand style." Result: The core idea shown, not just said. 3. **Show the screen and zoom to what matters.** A full-screen recording of an app is too small to read on a phone. Put each recording under the line that describes it, and crop in on the button, menu or dialog the voice is talking about. Prompt: "Put the conflict dialog recording under "you choose which version wins", cropped to the dialog in the centre of the screen. Put the settings panel recording under the closing line, cropped to the left half, with a slow push-in." Result: Screens a viewer can read, timed to the words. 4. **Add captions, labels and music.** Captions help viewers on mute and in a second language. A short label on screen names the feature the viewer is looking at. Keep music light: an explainer is understood, not felt. Prompt: "Add editorial captions at the bottom, a title "Conflict resolution" over the dialog shot, and a light, curious electronic bed ducked well under the voice." Result: An explainer that works with or without sound. 5. **Get sign-off on a review link.** Explainers usually need approval from product, legal or a subject expert. A review link lets them comment at the exact moment they mean instead of sending a list of timecodes. Prompt: "Give me a review link for the explainer so the product lead can comment at the timecode, then read me any comments left on it." Result: Approval notes pinned to the moments they are about. 6. **Make every size and export.** The same explainer goes on a website, in a help article, on LinkedIn and on vertical social. Build the other sizes from the approved edit rather than starting again. Prompt: "Make a 1:1 version and a 9:16 version of the approved explainer, keeping the diagram and the cropped screens centred, then export all three as 1080p MP4s." Result: One explainer in every shape you need. ### Tips - **One idea per line of script.** If a sentence explains two things, split it. Each line then gets its own picture, and a change to one idea does not force a re-edit of the next. - **Record screens at the size you will show them.** Make the app window large, the text big and the cursor slow before you record. Hide personal bookmarks, notifications and test data you would not want on screen. - **Explain the problem before the product.** Open on what goes wrong without the thing you are explaining. Viewers follow a solution more closely once they recognise the problem. - **Plan for square and vertical early.** Keep important screen detail and diagram elements near the centre of the frame, so the 1:1 and 9:16 versions do not crop them off. - **Keep it under three minutes.** Most explainers lose people after two or three minutes. If yours runs longer, it is probably two explainers. ### FAQ **How long should an explainer video be?** Sixty to 120 seconds for a product or concept explainer on a website or in an ad; up to three minutes for a detailed how-it-works video. Shorter is easier to watch to the end and easier to update. **Can I make an explainer video without animation software?** Yes. Describe the diagram in plain words and Eddie authors an animated graphic in your brand style, then you change any element with another prompt. Template graphics such as lower thirds and stat callouts are also available. **Do I need a professional voiceover?** A clear, well-recorded voice matters more than a famous one. Record it yourself or have a colleague read it, or ask Eddie to generate the voice-over from your script lines. **How is an explainer different from a product video or a training video?** A product video sells features with detail shots. A training video teaches a procedure step by step. An explainer makes one idea understood, usually with a diagram and a few screens. **Can I hide private data in a screen recording?** Yes. Ask Eddie to blur, pixelate or cover a region of the screen for the time it is visible. The rectangle is fixed, so re-record if the private detail moves around a lot. **Can I update the explainer when the product changes?** Yes. Record the new screen, add it to the project and ask Eddie to swap it under the same line. Change the voiceover line too if the wording changes. ## How to Make a Sizzle Reel URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/make-a-sizzle-reel Gather every shoot you have, pull the strongest two to four seconds from each clip, and arrange them by energy rather than by date: a cold open, a build, a peak and a closing title. Cut it to a driving track on the beat, add a few bold title cards and one or two short soundbites, and keep it between 60 and 120 seconds. Then make shorter cuts from the same edit. In Eddie you describe the moments you want across all the footage, then ask for the structure, the beat cuts, the titles and each length. ### Steps 1. **Import every shoot and label it.** Upload everything you might use, from every year and every camera. Do not pre-select; the point is to find moments nobody remembers. Label sources by shoot so you can ask for a mix. Prompt: "Label the 2024 launch and the 2025 conference as "events", the product shoot as "product" and the office gimbal footage as "team"." Result: Hours of footage, described, rated and grouped. 2. **Pull the best moments from every clip.** A sizzle reel is made of two-to-four-second peaks: a reveal, a laugh, a crowd reaction, a product in motion. Ask for those by description, across every source, and let Eddie cut them out. Prompt: "Across all the footage, find the high-energy moments: crowds reacting, people laughing, hands-on product shots in motion, the stage reveal at the 2024 launch, and team high fives. Cut each one into a 2 to 4 second subclip and tell me the price first." Result: A bin of short, strong moments, without scrubbing every hour. 3. **Build it to a peak.** Order the moments by energy, not by date. Open cold on one striking shot, build with faster cuts, hit the peak around two thirds in, then land on a line and the logo. One or two short soundbites give it a voice. Prompt: "Build a 90-second sizzle from those moments. Cold open on the stage reveal, then a build of product and team shots getting faster, a peak of crowd and booth reactions, and end on the founder saying "we are just getting started". Add one customer line of under 5 seconds in the build." Result: A first cut with a shape: open, build, peak, button. 4. **Cut it to the music.** The music decides the pace of a sizzle. Pick a track that builds, put the cuts on the beat, slow down the single biggest moment, and use a riser to push into the peak. Prompt: "Add a driving cinematic track that builds to a drop, snap every cut to the beat, ramp the stage reveal to slow motion and back, and put a riser into the peak and a whoosh on the cut to the logo." Result: A reel that hits with its music. 5. **Add title cards and the logo.** A few big words do the selling between shots: what this is, a number that impresses, the ask. Keep every card in one style and finish on your logo. Prompt: "Use our brand style pack. Add kinetic titles "3 launches" in the build, "40 countries" at the peak, and "Join us" before the founder line, then put our logo in the bottom right for the last 4 seconds." Result: A reel that says what it is selling. 6. **Make the cutdowns and export.** You will need the reel at several lengths: the full version for a pitch or a stage, a minute for the website, thirty seconds for social. Build each as its own edit from the same moments. Prompt: "Make a 60-second and a 30-second version from the same moments, each keeping the cold open and the founder line, and a 9:16 version of the 30-second cut. Export all four as MP4s." Result: One sizzle reel in every length you need. ### Tips - **Energy beats chronology.** Nobody watching a sizzle needs to know what happened first. Order shots by how they feel, so the reel rises to a peak instead of wandering through a calendar. - **Two seconds is often enough.** Most sizzle shots work at one to three seconds. Hold longer only for the opening shot and the single biggest moment. - **Mix wide, close and faces.** A run of wide shots looks like a venue tour. Alternate scale, and put people's faces and reactions between the big shots. - **Match the footage before you show it.** Shoots from different years and cameras rarely match. A consistent grade across the reel makes it feel like one story. - **Write the ask before you edit.** Decide what the viewer should do at the end: book a call, join, commission the show. The titles and the last shot should point at that. ### FAQ **How long should a sizzle reel be?** Sixty to 120 seconds for the main reel, and 15 to 30 seconds for social. For a TV pitch, a sizzle of two to three minutes is common. Shorter is almost always stronger. **What is the difference between a sizzle reel and a highlight video?** A highlight video tells what happened at one event, usually in order. A sizzle reel pulls the best moments from many shoots to sell what comes next, and is ordered by energy rather than by time. **Can Eddie find good moments in footage with no talking?** Yes. Eddie can search video by watching the picture with its sound for moments you describe, such as a crowd reacting, and it rates the strongest stretches inside b-roll files when it logs them. It quotes the credits before it starts. **What music works for a sizzle reel?** A track that builds and has a clear beat, so cuts can land on it. Use a track you have the rights to, one from your workspace music library, or ask Eddie to generate one from a description. **Can I make a sizzle reel for a TV show pitch?** Yes. Import the test shoot, any talent footage and reference material you have the rights to, and build the reel the same way: cold open, build, peak, then the show title. Keep the tone of the show in the music and pacing. **Can my editor finish the reel in Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro?** Yes. Export the reel as a Premiere Pro project, a Final Cut Pro timeline or a DaVinci Resolve timeline pointing at your original files, and finish the grade and sound there. ## How to Edit a Short Film URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-short-films Organize the footage by scene, shot and take, then assemble every scene as written, using the best take of each line. Watch the whole assembly once without stopping, then tighten it: trim the air before and after lines, cut dialogue the picture already says, and move scenes if the middle drags. Lay in temp music, get notes from someone who has not read the script, and only then lock picture and send it to the grade and the sound mix. Eddie tags the takes, cuts the dialogue scenes to your script with the best take of each line, gives timestamped notes and hands the cut to Premiere Pro, Resolve or Final Cut Pro. ### Steps 1. **Import the rushes and the script.** Upload the camera files, or send a bin from Premiere Pro, Resolve or Final Cut Pro through the desktop app. Attach the shooting script. If your files are named by scene, shot and take on set, Eddie can use those names to tag them. Prompt: "Tag every file with its scene, shot and take from the file names, mark the ticket insert and the night walk as b-roll, and list the files by scene so I can see if any scene in the script has no footage." Result: Rushes you can ask for the way they were slated: "scene 5, take 3". 2. **Assemble the dialogue scenes to the script.** Ask for the scenes in script order with the best take of each line. Use natural pacing for a first assembly; you will tighten later, and it is easier to cut air than to put it back. Prompt: "Assemble scenes 3, 5 and 7 in order from my attached script. Use the best take of every line, play Mara's lines on her close-up and the driver's on the wide, and use natural pacing. List any script line you could not find." Result: A faithful assembly of the script to watch from start to finish. 3. **Place the inserts and silent shots.** Shots with no dialogue, such as an insert of a ticket or a night exterior, have no words to match to the script. Put them in by naming the line they belong to. Prompt: "Lay the ticket insert over Mara's line "I only have a twenty", and open scene 7 on the night walk shot over the driver's first line." Result: Scenes that cut away where the script calls for it. 4. **Get notes on the assembly.** You know what every line is meant to do, so you cannot see where the film loses a stranger. Ask for notes before you start trimming. Prompt: "Watch the assembly and give me notes on pacing and story with timestamps: where it drags, where a line repeats what the picture already shows, and where the audience could get lost. Leave the notes as comments on the timeline." Result: A list of problems to solve in the next pass. 5. **Tighten the cut.** Work through the notes. Trim the heads and tails of lines, cut what the picture already says, and try moving a scene before you decide it does not work. Prompt: "Shorten the pause before the driver's answer at 4:12, cut the line "you know what I mean" at 7:30, and move scene 6 so it plays before scene 5." Result: A tighter cut with the structure you chose. 6. **Add temp music and send it to your editor.** Temp music tells you whether a scene's pace works. Then export the cut to the application where you will grade, design the sound and mix. Prompt: "Put a sparse piano track from our music library under the cut as temp score, ducked under the dialogue, then export it as a Premiere Pro project for the grade and the mix." Result: Your cut, open in your editor, ready to lock and finish. ### Tips - **Name files by the slate.** Scene, shot and take in the file name costs nothing on set. In the edit it lets you ask for "scene 5, take 3" instead of scrubbing through cards. - **Assemble first, judge second.** Cut every scene as written before you change anything. You need to see what the script does on screen before you can decide what to lose. - **Check the alternates of key lines.** Eddie picks the cleanest delivery of each line. For the few lines the film hangs on, watch the other takes yourself; a quieter or slower read is sometimes the right one, and you can ask for it by take number. - **Let the picture do the work.** If the actor's face already tells us she is scared, the line saying so can usually go. Short films get better when the dialogue does less. - **Lock picture before the mix.** Grade and mix after the cut is locked. Every picture change after the mix means reconforming the sound, which costs time and money. ### FAQ **How long should a short film be?** The Academy and many festivals define a short as 40 minutes or less including credits, but shorter films are easier to program. Most festival shorts run under 15 minutes. Cut to what the story needs, then try cutting another minute. **What order do you edit a short film in?** Organize and sync the rushes, assemble the script, make a rough cut, then a fine cut. Lock picture, then do sound design, the mix, the colour grade and the titles and credits. **Can Eddie choose the best take of each line?** Yes. Attach the script and Eddie matches each line to its takes and picks the cleanest delivery. You can ask for a different take of any line afterwards. **What about shots with no dialogue?** There are no words to match to the script, so Eddie does not place silent shots on its own. Mark inserts and exteriors as b-roll and tell Eddie which line each one goes over, or place them yourself in your editor. **Can I edit a short film without a script?** Yes. Describe each scene and the order you want, and Eddie builds it from the transcript. A script makes the first assembly closer to what you shot. **Can I finish the film in DaVinci Resolve or Final Cut Pro?** Yes. Export the cut as a DaVinci Resolve project or a Final Cut Pro timeline. Both point at your original media, so you grade and mix from the full-quality files. ## How to Make a Documentary Trailer URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/make-a-documentary-trailer A documentary trailer is 90 seconds to two minutes that sells a question, not the whole story. Open on an image and a line that set up the world, bring in the stakes with the strongest emotional moments from the interviews, then tease the conflict without giving away the ending. Build the music so it rises toward the end, use black and title cards between the beats, and finish on the film's title and release line. Eddie finds the emotional moments in your interviews, assembles the trailer to your target length, adds the cards, the music and the cuts on the beat, and makes the shorter versions. ### Steps 1. **Find the lines that carry feeling.** A trailer runs on emotion, and the strongest moments are often ones a transcript cannot show: a voice that breaks, a long pause, a look away. Ask for those alongside the quotable lines. Prompt: "Analyse all three interviews for emotional moments, then give me the 12 lines most likely to make a stranger want to see this film: each under 10 seconds, and none that gives away the ending." Result: A shortlist of trailer lines in minutes, from hours of interviews. 2. **Build setup, stakes and tease.** Give the trailer a shape in one prompt: what sets up the world, what raises the stakes, and what is left as a question. Name the lines and shots for each part. Prompt: "Make a 2-minute trailer in three parts. Setup: the dawn drone over the boats and Okafor on his father and the river. Stakes: Lind on the salt moving and the 1987 archive. Tease: the protest and Amara's pause before "I don't know if we'll stay". Tight pacing, and end on a question, not an answer." Result: A trailer with a shape, ready for cards and music. 3. **Add beats of black and title cards.** A second of black after a big line gives it time to land. Title cards carry what the voices cannot: a place, a year, the claim the film makes. Prompt: "Insert one second of black after Amara's pause and after the archive, and add the cards "In 1987 the river ran fresh", "Now the salt is 40 km upstream" and, at the end, "SALT LINE" with "Coming this spring". Fade each card in." Result: A trailer with room to breathe and the facts on screen. 4. **Score the build and cut on the beat.** Trailer music starts low and rises into the tease. Cutting the last section on the beat makes the rise feel deliberate. Prompt: "Put a slow cinematic track from our music library under the trailer, ducked under the voices, snap the cuts to the beat, and add a riser into the final title and a deep low hit on it." Result: A trailer that builds, with the pictures moving on the music. 5. **Get fresh-eyes notes.** You cannot watch your own trailer as a stranger. Ask for a review of the hook and of what it gives away, then send it to people who have not seen the film. Prompt: "Review the trailer as someone who has never heard of this film: is the hook clear in the first 10 seconds, does it give away the ending, and where does it drag? Then give me a review link for the producers." Result: Notes from outside your own head, and a link for the team. 6. **Cut the other lengths and export.** Festivals, sales agents and social channels each want a different length. Cut the long version first, then build the short ones from it rather than from scratch. Prompt: "From the 2-minute trailer, make a 60-second version and a 30-second teaser that keep the hook and the final title, plus a 9:16 version of the teaser cropped to the faces. Export the 2-minute trailer as a Premiere Pro project for the final mix and all of them as MP4." Result: Every length you need from one cut, and a project for the finishing mix. ### Tips - **Sell the question, not the answer.** A trailer's job is to make people ask what happens. Cut every line that resolves the story, however good it is. - **Let a few shots play silent.** Not every picture needs a voice over it. Two or three held images with only music give the lines around them more weight. - **Write the cards last.** Title cards should fill the gaps the voices leave, such as a date or what is at stake. Write them once the lines are chosen, not before. - **Clear the music for public use.** A trailer goes public. Use a track you have the rights to for trailers and advertising, not a temp track lifted from another film. - **Open fast.** Online, many viewers decide in the first few seconds. Start on your strongest image or line, not on a logo. ### FAQ **How long should a documentary trailer be?** Most run from 90 seconds to two and a half minutes. Make a 60-second and a 30-second version as well, because social platforms and festival programmes often ask for shorter cuts. **What is the difference between a trailer and a teaser?** A teaser runs 30 to 60 seconds and sets a mood or a question with very little story. A trailer is longer and shows the setup and the stakes, while still holding back the ending. **Should a documentary trailer have narration?** Usually not. Let the people in the film speak and use title cards for facts. Narration can work when the film itself is narrated. **Can I cut a trailer before the film is finished?** Yes. Many filmmakers cut a teaser from early interviews to raise money or apply for funding. Expect to recut it once the film's structure settles, because the strongest lines often change. **Can Eddie find emotional moments that are not in the words?** Yes. Eddie analyses interview footage for moments a transcript cannot carry, such as a voice breaking, a long pause or a look away, and records them with timestamps you can cut to. **How is cutting the trailer different from cutting the film?** The film builds understanding; the trailer withholds it. In Eddie you can cut the trailer in the same project as the film, so it draws on the transcripts and logs you already have. The documentary editing guide covers the film itself. ## How to Edit Travel Videos URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-travel-videos Sort the clips by day or by place, keep only the best two to four seconds of each, and choose one thread to carry the video: the route, one day, or what the trip changed. Cut the montage to a music track on the beat, put a short location title on each new place, and let one or two moments of your voice or natural sound break up the music. Then make a vertical version for social. Eddie logs every clip by what it shows, cuts out the best moments, builds the montage in the order you describe and snaps it to the beat, then adds the titles and the vertical cut. ### Steps 1. **Upload the trip and tag the places.** Upload everything at once, phone, drone and action camera clips together. Eddie logs every clip by what it shows. Then tell it where each batch was shot, so you can ask for footage by place. Phone files are numbered in the order you shot them, which makes this quick. Prompt: "Tag the clips with where they were shot: IMG_4800 to IMG_5060 are Tokyo, IMG_5061 to IMG_5300 and all the GoPro clips are Kyoto, and the rest are Hiroshima. Treat the piece to camera as A-roll." Result: A trip you can search by place and by what is in the shot. 2. **Pull the best seconds from every clip.** Most travel clips are long and hold three good seconds. Describe what a good moment looks like and let Eddie cut those out as subclips. Prompt: "Cut subclips of the best 2 to 4 second moments from all the b-roll: movement through the frame, food close-ups, signs and street details, and anything at golden hour. Skip the shaky starts and the ends where I lower the phone." Result: A library of short, usable moments instead of hours of raw clips. 3. **Build the montage in trip order, on the beat.** Choose the track before you cut, because it sets the length and the pace. Then ask for the montage in the order you travelled. Prompt: "Make a 3-minute montage from the best subclips in trip order, Tokyo, then Kyoto, then Hiroshima. Use an upbeat track from our music library and snap every cut to the beat." Result: A montage that moves with the music, city by city. 4. **Let one moment breathe.** Three minutes of music and pictures gets tiring. Break it once with your voice or a natural sound, such as a line to camera or a temple bell. Prompt: "Halfway through Kyoto, add the line from my piece to camera where I say "this is the first quiet place we've found", keep it under 15 seconds, and duck the music right down under it." Result: A montage with a human moment in the middle. 5. **Fix the picture and add location titles.** Phone clips come in sideways and handheld walking shots wobble. Fix both by naming the clips, then put the name of each place on screen as it arrives. Prompt: "Rotate the sideways clip IMG_5390, stabilize the walking shots at the red gates, and add a location title at the start of each city: "Tokyo", "Kyoto", "Hiroshima", bottom left, fading in." Result: Steady, upright shots and a clear sense of where you are. 6. **Make the vertical reel and export.** The best 30 seconds of the trip makes a vertical reel for Instagram or TikTok. Build it as its own edit so the long version stays as it is. Prompt: "Make a 30-second 9:16 reel of the best moments from the whole trip, keep the city titles inside the frame, then export the reel and the 3-minute montage as MP4." Result: A long version for YouTube and a reel for social, from one project. ### Tips - **Shoot clips, not recordings.** Five to ten seconds per clip, started and stopped on purpose, is far easier to edit than one long recording. It also gives every shot a clean start and end. - **Hold the camera the same way.** Pick horizontal or vertical for the trip and stick with it for most shots. Mixed orientations mean black bars or tight crops in the edit. - **Record sound, not just pictures.** Ten seconds of a market, a train or the sea gives you natural sound to break up the music. Point the camera at the source and stay still. - **Pick one thread.** A video about everything is about nothing. Choose the route, a single day, or one question, and cut what does not serve it. - **Shoot a few pieces to camera.** Two or three short lines on location, saying where you are and how it feels, give the montage a voice and a reason to watch. ### FAQ **How long should a travel video be?** For Instagram or TikTok, 15 to 60 seconds. For YouTube, a music-led montage works at two to four minutes. A travel vlog with a lot of talking can run longer if the story holds. **What is the best way to organize travel footage?** By place or by day, whichever matches how you will tell the story. Tag clips by place as soon as you import them, and delete obvious mistakes like pocket shots before you start. **How do I make a travel video look cinematic?** Use only the best few seconds of each clip, favour steady shots, cut on the music, use slow motion on movement, and grade every clip to one look so phone and camera shots match. Eddie can add speed ramps and a colour grade to the edit. **Can Eddie edit a travel video with no talking in it?** Yes. When there is no speech, Eddie builds the video as a sequence of trimmed clips in the order you describe, then adds music, titles and transitions on top. **Can I mix phone, drone and camera footage?** Yes. All of them import into the same project, and mixed frame rates and orientations are fine. Eddie can rotate a clip that was filmed sideways. **What if I forgot to film a place?** Eddie can search stock footage for it, or generate a short shot when stock has nothing that fits. It quotes the credits before it generates anything. For a personal travel video, you may prefer to leave the gap. ## How to Edit Street Interviews URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-street-interviews Transcribe every answer, keep the interviewer's question once at the start, and group the answers by what they say: yes and no, or two or three themes. Keep only the clearest five to ten seconds of each person and alternate between people and locations so the sequence feels like a crowd. Caption everything, because street audio is noisy, and leave out or blur anyone who did not agree to be filmed. Eddie transcribes and labels the answers, builds the grouped sequence at tight pacing, cleans the voices, adds captions and blurs the regions you name. ### Steps 1. **Import the cards and name the reporter.** Upload every card as it came off the camera. Long continuous recordings are fine. Eddie transcribes each one with speaker labels, so every stranger becomes a separate voice you can search. Prompt: "Rename the person asking the questions to "Reporter" on all three cards, so I can tell the questions from the answers." Result: Hours of street recording you can read and search like a document. 2. **Sort the answers.** Label every answer by what it says before you build anything. Yes and no works for a simple question; for an open one, use two or three themes. Prompt: "Find every answer to "would you take a four-day week for less pay?" and label each one yes, no or it depends. Skip one-word answers, and bookmark the three funniest." Result: Every usable answer, sorted, before you cut a frame. 3. **Leave out anyone without a release.** Deal with consent before you build the piece. Anyone who did not agree to be filmed, or who changed their mind, should not appear identifiable. Prompt: "Label the answers at 12:40 and 19:05 on card A part 1 as "no release" and remove them, so they never end up in an edit." Result: A project where unreleased answers cannot slip into a cut. 4. **Build the sequence.** Ask for the structure in one prompt: the question, then each group of answers, then a closer. Tight pacing suits vox pops; nobody needs the breath before an answer. Prompt: "Build a 75-second vox pop: open with the reporter asking the question once, then four yes answers, four no answers, and end on the best it-depends answer. Leave out the reporter after the first question, switch between the three cards where you can so the background changes, and use tight pacing." Result: A vox pop that reads as a range of opinion, not a queue of strangers. 5. **Clean the voices and caption every word.** Street audio has traffic, wind and other voices. Clean the voices first, fix any word the transcript misheard, then caption every answer. Prompt: "Take the traffic noise out from under the voices, change "for day week" to "four-day week" everywhere in the transcripts, and add punchy captions, two or three words at a time, in the lower third." Result: Answers you can follow with the sound up or off. 6. **Blur faces in the background.** Passers-by behind your interviewee did not agree to anything. Blur faces and anything private, such as a shop's name if it is not part of the story. Prompt: "Blur the face of the man in the grey coat behind the second yes answer, top right of the frame, for the whole answer, and pixelate the shop sign behind the last no answer." Result: Nobody identifiable who should not be. 7. **Make the vertical version and export.** Vox pops do well as vertical clips. Make one as its own edit, add the same blurs to it, since blurs belong to one edit, and export both. Prompt: "Make a 9:16 version for Reels cropped to each person's face, repeat the two blurs from the landscape cut, put the question as a title at the top for the whole clip, then export both versions as MP4." Result: A landscape vox pop and a vertical clip, ready to post. ### Tips - **Ask an open question.** "What would you do with a free Friday?" gets sentences. "Do you want a four-day week?" gets a yes and a walk-away. You can still label open answers yes or no in the edit. - **Alternate the eyeline.** Frame one person looking left of camera and the next looking right. Cut together, the answers feel like a conversation instead of a jump. - **Get agreement on camera.** Ask each person to say on camera that they are happy to be filmed, as well as signing a release. A spoken yes is easy to find later in the transcript. - **Check the blurs in every version.** Blurs belong to one edit. When you make a vertical or shorter version, check its blurs too, and play every blurred shot through once before you post. - **Start on the first strong word.** Cut the "um, well" at the start of each answer, but let people finish their sentence. A clipped ending sounds like you put words in their mouth. ### FAQ **What is a vox pop?** Vox pop, from the Latin vox populi, "voice of the people", is a sequence of short answers from members of the public to the same question. News, documentaries and social channels use them to show a range of opinion quickly. **Do I need permission to film street interviews?** Anyone you interview should agree to it, and most broadcasters and brands want a signed release. The rules for filming bystanders in public differ by country, so check local law and your platform's policy. When in doubt, blur them or leave them out. **How many people should I interview?** Far more than you will use. A one-minute vox pop usually uses six to ten answers, and many answers are too short, too quiet or off topic. **How do I fix noisy audio in street interviews?** Record with a lavalier or a directional mic close to the speaker, and keep a backup. In the edit, isolate the voices from the background and caption every answer so nothing is lost. **Can Eddie's blur follow a face that moves?** No. Each blur is a fixed rectangle with its own time window. For someone who moves through the shot, use several short regions or one larger region, or cut the shot. **Are the blurs kept when I export to Premiere Pro?** No. Blurs are baked into Eddie's rendered MP4, but timeline and project files for other editing applications cannot carry them. Deliver the MP4, or redo the blurs in your editor. # Blog guides and comparisons ## Best Descript Alternatives URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/descript-alternative Published: 2026-02-22 > **In Summary** > Descript replaces your editing environment. Eddie strengthens the one you already use. If your workflow runs inside Premiere or Resolve, tools that plug into that workflow outperform tools that try to replace it. Descript is best when you want to edit in a single transcript-first environment that also supports recording and publishing. The best alternatives depend on whether you are replacing the transcript editing, the recording layer, or the “all-in-one editor” philosophy. | **Tool** | **Best alternative when you need** | **Why it is different** | | --- | --- | --- | | Eddie AI | Transcript-driven rough cuts inside pro workflows | NLE-first round-trip; logging and multicam focus | | Adobe Premiere text-based editing | Transcript editing without leaving Premiere | Native transcript-based rough cuts in an NLE | | Riverside | Recording plus AI clipping + text-based editing | Creator platform with Magic Clips and captions | | VEED | Browser editor + subtitles + dubbing | Outcome-first platform for social and teams | | OpusClip | Repurposing long-form into shorts | Shorts engine, not full transcript editor | ## Eddie AI x IBC Accelerator: Cutting RAI's Archive and a Blackmagic Cloud Project URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/eddie-ai-ibc-accelerator-rai-blackmagic-cloud Published: 2026-09-09 We are going to IBC in Amsterdam, and I am especially grateful that Eddie AI was invited into one of IBC's Accelerator projects. The IBC Accelerator program exists to push the boundaries of the media industry. That matters to us. Eddie has always been about pushing video workflows forward: not as a gimmick, but as practical infrastructure for editors, producers, directors, story teams and post teams doing real work. This year IBC has nine Accelerator programs. Eddie AI joined **FRAMES**, a project focused on federated retrieval, agentic media environments and software-defined workflows. It brings together teams including RAI, MovieLabs and Google Cloud, with Eddie AI as one of the invited participants. The work split into two parts. Both are the kind of thing that makes the future of post-production feel much closer than it did even a year ago. ### Finding the best moments in RAI's archive The first part was about archive footage. RAI had hours of archival material. The task was to go through that material and find the best moments for the project. A human working with Eddie did the search in about **10 minutes**. A human working alone took about **three hours**. The speed difference is obvious, but speed was not the only difference. The human plus Eddie workflow delivered a better result: faster search, better coverage and more accurate selections. That is the kind of workflow where AI should be useful. The point is not to remove judgment from the process. The point is to let a human editor or producer spend less time digging through the archive and more time making the call. ### Cutting inside a Blackmagic Cloud project The second part came near the end of the project, and it was mind-blowing. We had a set of generative video shots. Eddie was invited into a Blackmagic Cloud project, spun up a computer in the cloud, installed and opened DaVinci Resolve, joined the project, went through the bin, collated the takes, chose the best ones, cut them to the script, added music and timed the edit to the beats. That is the part I cannot wait to show properly at IBC. This is not just "AI generated a video." It is an assistant editor operating inside the same kind of collaborative project environment a post team already uses. It can look through the material, make editorial choices, assemble the sequence and still hand the work back in a professional editing workflow. ### Come see it at IBC There is a big Accelerator presentation on Friday, and there will be an Accelerator booth at the show. Eddie AI will also be at **Booth 7.A38 in Hall 7 from Friday to Monday, September 11-14, 2026**. Come by and we will show you what we built together. Congratulations to our peers and colleagues on the project, and thank you again to IBC for inviting Eddie AI into the program. Full booth details, session information and demo booking links are in [our IBC 2026 announcement](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/eddie-ai-at-ibc-2026). ## Eddie AI now works with Iconik: from managed media to editable story URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/eddie-ai-now-works-with-iconik-from-managed-media-to-editable-story Published: 2026-06-18 > **In Summary** > Eddie AI now integrates with Iconik, the media asset management platform from Backlight. Pull selected Iconik assets and proxies into Eddie, generate logs and selects, build topic-based stringouts and rough cuts (including complex multicams), then export to Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve with clips relinking back in Iconik. Iconik stays the source of truth for your media. Eddie turns it into a cut, with editors keeping the creative decisions. If your footage lives in a media asset management system, you already know the gap. Your assets are organized, tagged, and searchable. And then the edit still starts from an empty timeline. Today we're closing that gap. Eddie AI now integrates with Iconik, the creative operations and media asset management platform from Backlight. Iconik stays the source of truth for your media. Eddie becomes the assistant editor that turns it into a cut. #### The gap between organized and edited MAM platforms solved a real problem: with thousands of hours of footage across teams and projects, you need one place where every asset is logged, searchable, and shareable. Iconik does that well. But organized media is not an edit. Once you have found the right assets, someone still has to watch them, pull the selects, structure the story, and build the rough cut by hand. For teams producing at volume, that assembly work is where the days go. ![](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/framer/ce34d689-V6tnyz8keuQ3Rf3vZ2m8XBqnfgk.jpg) #### What the integration does With Iconik and Eddie connected, the handoff from library to timeline becomes one continuous flow: * Bring selected Iconik assets and their connected proxies straight into Eddie * Eddie generates smarter logs and selects from the footage, including complex multicams * Ask for topic-based stringouts and get back organized bins * Eddie builds a rough cut, an editorial starting point rather than a blank sequence * Export to Adobe Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve, with clips seamlessly relinking back in Iconik ![](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/framer/54f5ce0c-xZ9znBRdGhtud2C16WbknFFpmk.jpg) Raw footage goes in. Logs, selects, stringouts, and a structured rough cut come out. The editor opens a sequence that is already on its feet and spends their time on the decisions that actually need them. #### Why it matters The point of connecting these two tools is not to remove the editor. It is to remove the empty timeline. As Shamir Allibhai, our co-founder and CEO, put it: "Media asset management helps teams unify their footage. What Eddie adds is the next step: swiftly turning that footage into cuts. With Iconik and Eddie AI together, teams get to a structured rough cut in minutes, while keeping editors in control of the creative decisions that matter." Backlight sees the same shape from the MAM side. "Iconik and Eddie AI's agentic assistant video editor accelerates the tedious parts of the creative process by connecting rich media management and collaboration tools to the story creation process," said Mike Szumlinski, chief technology officer of Backlight. "This helps our shared customers scale their output and move faster than ever to deliver finished content." #### If you're already on Iconik You have done the hard part of getting your media organized. This connects that library directly to the cut, so your team can move from selected assets to a rough sequence in your NLE of choice, without anyone starting from scratch. ## What Enterprise Video Teams Asked Us at NAB Show New York 2026 URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/enterprise-video-teams-nab-show-new-york-2026 Published: 2026-10-27 > **In Summary** > At NAB Show New York 2026 (Javits Center, October 21 to 22), the enterprise conversations at Booth 656 kept coming back to three questions. Where does our footage live? Does it fit the editors and NLEs we already have? What does it save us? The short answers: in our cloud, in your own cloud or on-prem; yes, timelines go back to Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro, pointing at your original media; and on conservative assumptions, about $60,000 a year of editor time for a team logging 120 hours of footage a month. ### Thank you, New York Thanks to everyone who came by Booth 656, and to the r/editors crowd who came out the night before. A lot of the people we met were editors already cutting with Eddie. A growing share were people who run post for a whole team: newsrooms, brand studios, documentary companies and sports media groups. This post is for them. ### Question 1: where does our footage live? For enterprise teams this comes first, before any demo. Eddie offers three deployments: - **Eddie Cloud**, the default, with nothing to set up. - **Private cloud**, which runs Eddie inside your own AWS, Google Cloud or Azure account. - **On-prem**, which runs Eddie's models on hardware you control. On every deployment, Eddie does not train on your data. SAML/SSO, centralized admin and custom limits come with every enterprise deployment. Eddie is SOC 2 Type I and Type II audited and GDPR certified, and the [enterprise page](https://www.heyeddie.ai/teams/enterprises) covers HIPAA as well. ### Question 2: does it fit how our editors already work? Eddie is an assistant editor, not a new NLE. It transcribes and logs the footage, pulls selects, and builds a string-out or rough cut from a brief. Then it sends the timeline to Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve or Final Cut Pro, pointing at your original media. Your editors finish where they already finish: pacing, music, color, sound and approvals stay in their hands. ### Question 3: what does it actually save? This is the question we now answer with a model instead of an adjective. It takes three inputs: hours of footage a month, editor day rate, and hours saved per hour of footage. We keep the last one conservative. Logging and transcribing by hand takes roughly 4 hours per hour of footage. We assume Eddie saves 0.75 hours of that for news, 1 hour for brand work and 1.5 hours for interview-heavy documentary. We count nothing on finishing, and we price an editor day at 8 hours. | Team | Footage a month | Hours saved per footage hour | Editor time saved per year | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | News team, 6 editors, $450/day | 120 h | 0.75 | about $60,750 | | Brand studio, 4 editors, $500/day | 60 h | 1.0 | about $45,000 | | Documentary company, 5 editors, $400/day | 100 h | 1.5 | about $90,000 | Usage is metered in credits: importing is 250 credits per hour of footage and a timeline export is 100 credits. Even budgeting a generous 500 credits per footage hour, the news team uses about 720,000 credits a year. That is about $5,000 at [published pack prices](https://www.heyeddie.ai/pricing) ($350 for 50,000 credits), against about $60,000 of editor time. Your numbers will differ, which is the point. The fastest way to find yours is a two-week pilot: one project, one editor, 10 to 30 hours of footage, measured against a comparable past project. ### Talk to us If you run post for a team and want to plug in your own numbers, [book a 20-minute call](https://www.heyeddie.ai/contact-sales). Bring a typical month: how many editors, how much footage, and where it has to live. ## Feedback v2: Brief Eddie Before It Reviews Your Cut URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/feedback-v2-brief-eddie-before-it-reviews-your-cut Published: 2026-06-11 > **In Summary** > Feedback v2 lets you brief Eddie before it reviews your cut, video type, platform, goal, and edit stage, so you get timestamped notes aimed at the edit you're actually making. Eddie has been giving feedback on edits for a while, timestamped notes on story, pacing, clarity, the hook, emotional impact, and platform fit. You upload a cut, Eddie watches it, and you get a second set of eyes before you publish, send to a client, or move to the next version. But feedback is only useful if it's aimed at the right thing. A YouTube explainer and a client review cut don't need the same notes. A social ad lives or dies on its first three seconds; a documentary scene lives on its arc. Until now, Eddie had to infer all of that from the video itself, and you'd spend the back half of a session steering it toward the feedback you actually wanted. Feedback v2 changes that. You can now tell Eddie what you're making before it reviews, so the notes come back aimed at your edit, not a generic one. ### What's new **Structured questions.** Before Eddie reviews, you can brief it on the essentials: the video type (YouTube explainer, documentary scene, brand film, social ad, course lesson, trailer, product demo), the objective (inform, teach, sell, persuade, entertain, improve retention, drive action), the platform (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, website, client delivery), the feedback focus (hook, story, pacing, clarity, structure, emotional impact, edit polish), and the edit stage (assembly, rough cut, fine cut, review cut, or near-final). The notes come back shaped around what you told Eddie matters, not what it guessed. **Custom prompt.** If you already know exactly what you want reviewed, skip the structured questions and just tell Eddie directly, "Review this as a YouTube documentary; focus on story structure, pacing, and whether the emotional arc is clear," or "Review this as a paid social ad; focus on the hook, clarity of the offer, and whether the edit moves quickly enough." Use structured questions or a custom prompt, not both. ![](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/framer/e4203baa-NLULPol1RC3YR7Az6KSzyKwBU.png) **Timestamped notes.** Where it helps, Eddie includes timestamps so you can jump straight to the moment it's talking about instead of hunting for it. ![](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/framer/f2fcd082-m7t3D0Ih2A37dnT1hzU4aOLn5E.png) ### Why this matters Feedback you have to correct isn't a second set of eyes, it's a first draft of a conversation. If Eddie doesn't know whether it's looking at a rough cut or a near-final delivery, a TikTok or a client review, its notes hedge, and you spend your time re-prompting toward what you meant. Briefing it up front closes that loop. It's the same principle as handing an edit to a colleague: the more they know about what you're making and where it's going, the more useful their notes are the first time. Eddie's feedback is built to support your judgment, not replace it, a fast way to spot what you might have missed and get to the next version sooner. ### How to use it 1. Open Eddie and click New Project. 2. Choose Show Me All Modes, then select Feedback Mode. 3. Upload your video. 4. Brief Eddie one of two ways: answer the structured questions (video type, objective, platform, feedback focus, edit stage, plus any additional direction), or write a custom prompt. 5. Let Eddie review. Once your video has been processed, it returns notes shaped by your brief, with timestamps where useful. A couple of things worth knowing: Feedback Mode is free to use, and for now it's one-and-done, you can't follow up with additional prompts after the review yet. ### Tips for better feedback The more specific your brief, the sharper the notes. Tell Eddie what kind of video you're making, where it'll be used, what the goal is, and what kind of feedback matters most. "Focus on whether the opening 30 seconds are strong enough" or "this is for a client review, so prioritize clarity and brand message" will get you further than uploading the cut cold. ### Try it now Feedback Mode is live and free on every tier. [Open Feedback Mode](https://heyeddie.ai/open/feedback), or [download Eddie](../#desktopapp) and start a new project. ## Best Gling Alternatives URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/gling-alternative Published: 2026-02-22 > **In Summary** > If you are “Gling-heavy” today, you are paying for cleanup. Eddie and Descript become interesting when cleanup is not the end goal, it is the start of getting to a story you can ship. Gling is specifically a “cleanup-first” tool, so the best alternatives are either (a) other cleanup automations, or (b) transcript-first tools that let you fix the same problems while also supporting broader editing workflows. | **Tool** | **Best alternative when you need** | **Why it is different** | | --- | --- | --- | | Eddie AI | Cleanup plus story assembly for interviews | Rough cuts, logging, multicam workflows, NLE round-trip | | Descript | Cleanup inside transcript-first editor | Cut by deleting words; broader creation suite | | Adobe Premiere text-based editing | Cleanup directly in your NLE | Transcript-based rough cuts inside Premiere | | Wisecut | One-click silence removal for simple videos | Automation step, storyboard-based editing | | AutoPod | Automated podcast multicam switching | Premiere plugin focused on multicam podcasts | | VEED | Browser-based cleanup + captions | Online editor with automation and caption tools | ## Gling vs Eddie AI: Which AI Editor Fits Your Workflow? URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/gling-vs-eddie-ai Published: 2026-02-20 > **In Summary** > Gling is “cleanup automation,” Eddie is “assembly automation.” If your bottleneck is silence and retakes, buy Gling. If your bottleneck is turning raw interviews into a structured cut you can finish professionally, buy Eddie. Gling is the better choice if you mainly want to delete silences, bad takes, and filler words in talking-head footage fast. Eddie is the better choice if you need transcript-driven story assembly, multicam workflows, and a clean round-trip back into Premiere/Resolve for finishing. | **Category** | **Eddie AI** | **Gling** | | --- | --- | --- | | Best for | Editors cutting interviews, docs, podcasts, corporate | YouTube creators cleaning talking-head footage | | Rough cut creation | Yes, story-driven rough cuts via chat | Indirect, mainly cleanup-first | | Multicam podcasts | Yes, explicit “Multicam Podcasts” mode | Not a core focus | | NLE workflow | One-click style workflow with Premiere/Resolve extensions | Export flow including XML to NLEs | | Logging | A&B Roll logging with summaries and tagging | Not positioned as logging-heavy | | Social shorts | Social Clips + vertical export options | Often requires finishing elsewhere | | Pricing model | Export credits per unique project export | “AI edited media per month” limits | ## Gling vs OpusClip vs Eddie AI URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/gling-vs-opusclip-vs-eddie-ai Published: 2026-02-20 > **In Summary** > If you sell your workflow as “pro editing,” Eddie is the center of gravity. If you sell your workflow as “creator volume,” Opus is the center of gravity. If you sell your workflow as “I hate cutting pauses,” Gling is the quickest win. These tools compete in marketing pages, but they actually sit in three different workflow lanes. Gling is best at cleaning talking-head footage, OpusClip is best at generating and packaging shorts, and Eddie is best at story assembly and NLE round-tripping. | **Question** | **Pick Eddie AI if…** | **Pick Gling if…** | **Pick OpusClip if…** | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | What are you trying to automate? | Logging + assembly + rough cuts | Retakes + silence + filler | Viral clip selection + captions + layouts | | Where do you finish? | Premiere/Resolve/Final Cut | Premiere/Resolve/Final Cut | Mostly inside OpusClip | | Is multicam core? | Yes | Not core | Not core | | Is publishing core? | Not core | Not core | Yes | ## How to Add Captions to a Video Automatically URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-add-captions-to-a-video-automatically Published: 2026-07-26 > **In Summary** > Captions should not need a second transcription pass. Eddie builds the caption track from the timing your edit already carries, in an animated word-by-word style or a plain subtitle block, for free. The important detail is where captions end up: burned into the MP4, and not carried into a Premiere or Resolve timeline. ### The short answer Most caption workflows re-transcribe the finished video. That is the wrong way round, and it shows: the words drift out of sync, filler you deliberately cut comes back, and speaker changes vanish. Your footage was already transcribed at import, with word-level timing. The captions should be derived from that, mapped onto the edit's timeline. You should never have to hand a caption tool a list of words and their timings, and in Eddie you do not: you name the edit and the style, and the words and timings come from the cut itself. ### The footage in this walkthrough Three interviews with Jessica Hernandez and her daughter Alizé, who run Simply Men's Barbershop in West Chester, PA. ![Third interview from the barbershop shoot](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/how-to/barbershop-interview-3.png) - **3 interviews**, 8:20, 24:59 and 30:38, **1 hour 4 minutes** total - **13,675 words** of transcript - **3 speakers** separated automatically, plus interviewers Every word of those 13,675 arrives with timing attached, which is the only reason automatic captions can be accurate to the frame rather than accurate to the sentence. ### Step 1: Have an edit first Captions attach to an edit, not to a source file. That is a deliberate distinction: a source is an hour of raw interview, an edit is the 90 seconds you actually cut, and the caption timings have to be relative to the cut. So the order is: build the cut, watch it, then caption it. If you have not built one yet, start with [how to build a rough cut from an interview transcript](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-build-a-rough-cut-from-an-interview-transcript). ### Step 2: Pick a style, not a font stack Two styles, and the choice is genuinely about where the video is going: - **word-pop** (the default). Karaoke style. Each word pops in and highlights as it is spoken. This is the social format, and on a vertical clip watched with the sound off it is the difference between somebody watching and somebody scrolling. - **static**. A plain subtitle block. The whole phrase appears at once, no per-word animation, no highlight. This is what you want on a corporate piece, a testimonial, or anything where karaoke captions would look cheap. The knobs worth knowing, with their real defaults: - **Position:** bottom (default) or centre. - **Colour:** white by default (`#FFFFFF`). - **Highlight colour:** Eddie's mint (`#39E0A6`) by default, for the word being spoken. Static captions ignore it, because they have no per-word highlight. - **Size:** a fraction of canvas height, 0.06 by default, adjustable between 0.02 and 0.15. One caption track per edit. Adding captions again replaces the track rather than stacking a second one, and clearing removes it. All of it is free. ### Step 3: Check what the captions inherit Two behaviours that are easy to miss and are the whole reason to caption inside the editor rather than after export: - **Word-level cuts are honoured.** If you removed every "um" from the source, those words do not reappear as caption words. A caption track built by re-transcribing the render would not know that, but a caption track built from the edit does. See [how to remove filler words from an interview](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-remove-filler-words-from-an-interview). - **Timing follows the player's cursor.** Each word's start is the second on the edit timeline where its audio starts, so the on-screen overlay, the timeline and the burned-in MP4 all agree. Nothing drifts between preview and render. ### Step 4: Get them out Where captions go depends entirely on the format, and this is the part to read before you promise a client anything: - **MP4.** Captions are baked in, along with titles, graphics, music and voice-over. The cloud render works from your original files at 1080p or source quality up to 4K, capped at 10 minutes of output. - **SRT or VTT sidecar.** Available as a built document, which is free, and useful for YouTube, a broadcaster's spec, or a client who wants to proofread. The download link lasts 30 days. - **Premiere, Final Cut, Resolve, OTIO.** The caption track does **not** travel into an NLE timeline. Crops, colour grades, b-roll and the vertical layout do. Captions do not. That last point is not a bug we are hiding, it is a design line: burned-in captions belong to a finished deliverable, and a timeline you are still cutting should carry a subtitle file you can restyle in your own project. If you are finishing in an NLE, take the SRT. See [how to export an AI edit to Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve or Final Cut](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-export-an-ai-edit-to-premiere-resolve-final-cut). ### What it will not do - **It will not fix a bad transcript.** Captions are only as good as what the transcription heard. Names, brand names, industry jargon and heavy overlap are where errors live, and captions will faithfully display those errors in a large friendly font. - **You cannot retype a word through the connector.** There is no tool for correcting a mistranscribed word from a chat prompt. Fix it in the Eddie app, or export the SRT and correct it there before you deliver. - **It does not position around your graphics.** Captions sit bottom or centre. If a lower third occupies the same space, you move one of them. - **It is not a compliance deliverable on its own.** Broadcast and accessibility specs have requirements about reading speed, line length, speaker identification and positioning that no automatic pass should be trusted to satisfy unchecked. Read them before you deliver them. ### FAQ **Do captions cost credits?** No. Adding, restyling, and clearing captions are all free, and so is building an SRT or VTT file. **Can I caption in a language other than the one spoken?** Not as a caption track. The animated track is derived from the edit's own transcript. For a translated subtitle file, build an SRT with the translated cues. **Will the captions match if I re-cut the edit?** Re-apply them after the re-cut. The track is built from the edit as it stands when you ask for it. **Do captions work on vertical clips?** That is what the animated style is for. See [how to make vertical clips for social from a podcast or interview](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-make-vertical-clips-from-a-podcast-or-interview). **Can I do all this from ChatGPT or Claude?** Yes, over the same [MCP connector](https://www.heyeddie.ai/mcp). See [how to edit video with ChatGPT](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-chatgpt) and [how to edit video with Claude](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-claude). --- The barbershop interviews ship as the demo project inside Eddie, so you can caption a real cut rather than take our word for it. [Open it and prompt it](https://app.heyeddie.ai/new). ## How to Build a Rough Cut from an Interview Transcript URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-build-a-rough-cut-from-an-interview-transcript Published: 2026-07-26 > **In Summary** > A paper edit is a document. A rough cut is a timeline. The step between them is the one that eats your first day, and it is the step that should be automated. Eddie builds the assembly from soundbites you or the model choose out of the transcript, honours the clips you already rejected, and hands you a sequence you can play and then argue with. ### The short answer Every interview edit starts the same way: read everything, mark what is good, put the good bits in an order. The reading and the marking are editorial. The bit in the middle, finding each chosen line back in the footage and dragging it onto a timeline, is clerical, and it is where the day goes. Transcript-driven editing removes only the clerical part. You still choose. The difference is that "the line about her first day" resolves to a real in and out point instead of a note in a document you now have to execute. If you want the theory of the paper edit first, we wrote that up separately: [how to create paper edits from interviews](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-create-paper-edits-from-interviews). ### The footage in this walkthrough Three interviews with Jessica Hernandez and her daughter Alizé, who run Simply Men's Barbershop in West Chester, PA, a mother-and-daughter business that came together during covid. ![Jessica and Alizé Hernandez during the interview shoot at Simply Men's Barbershop](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/how-to/barbershop-interview-1.png) - **3 interviews**, 8:20, 24:59 and 30:38, **1 hour 4 minutes** total - **13,675 words** of transcript once processed - **3 speakers** identified across the three files, plus interviewers Three files is the detail that matters for a rough cut. The story is not in any one of them. The best answer to a question in interview one is often given better, thirty minutes later, in interview three, and finding that by hand means holding two transcripts in your head at once. ### Step 1: Read the transcripts, all of them Start with the source list, then the transcripts. On a long project you do not want the whole thing at once: a single source comes back in pages of 200 segments (500 maximum), and you can page through with an offset or fetch just a time window. To find something specific, search one source by text and get back matching segments with their index and timestamps, up to 50 by default and 200 at most. That page size is not trivia. It is why this works on a feature-length project and not just a demo: the model reads what it needs rather than choking on an hour of talking. ### Step 2: Say what the video is for The prompt that built the cut on this footage: > Create a story about Alizé's journey as a female barber in a mostly male field. No timecodes, no clip names, no structure. The model reads all three interviews, picks the moments that carry that particular story, and puts them in an order that builds. The prompts that work name the **purpose and the audience**. The prompts that fail are the ones that name a vibe: "make it good", "make it cinematic". Those give the model nothing to select on, and selection is the entire job. ### Step 3: Understand how a soundbite is matched Each soundbite in the assembly is targeted one of three ways, and knowing which is which will save you an argument later: - **By segment index.** The most precise, and the one to insist on when it matters. - **By a quoted line of text.** Fuzzy matched, so it does not have to be verbatim. Eddie reports how each soundbite matched and flags weak or low-confidence matches rather than quietly using them. - **By in and out times** in seconds. The fuzzy path is convenient and it is the one that can bite you: a phrase that recurs across three interviews can resolve to the wrong instance. That is exactly why the match report exists. If a line is load-bearing, pin it by index. The edit gets a short unique name, one to three words. Names that do not fit are normalised rather than rejected, so an edit never fails to be created over punctuation. ### Step 4: Your review marks are respected If you have already been through the footage marking clips, that work is not thrown away: - **Rejected segments are hard excludes.** They are dropped from any assembly, and the response tells you how many were dropped. You cannot accidentally build a cut out of material you already killed. - **Favourited segments are a strong preference.** They get reached for first. Both are visible before the cut is built, so the plan is honest rather than corrected after the fact. ![Second interview setup from the same shoot](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/how-to/barbershop-interview-2.png) ### Step 5: Watch it, then give notes You get a timeline you can play. Treat the first version as an assistant editor's pass, because that is what it is: - "The opening is slow, start on the line about her first day." - "You used the same anecdote twice, keep the better read." - "Take 30 seconds out of the middle." - "Add the covid section to the end of that cut." Each note is another prompt. Extending an existing cut appends to it rather than rebuilding it, so the b-roll and everything else you have already set stays put. Nothing is destructive, and you are not paying for a render to change your mind. If you want a second opinion rather than your own, Eddie can render the cut and have a video-understanding model actually watch it: story, pacing, the hook, a cut list with timestamps, audio problems, and the three things to do next. It can post those as timestamped comments pinned to the timeline where each one applies. That one is metered rather than free: roughly 4 to 5 credits per minute of the cut plus about 7 fixed, so a one minute cut is around 11 credits and a ten minute cut around 50. Re-reviewing an unchanged cut returns the cached result for nothing. ### What it will not do - **It reads words, not performance.** The transcript does not record that the second take was warmer, that she welled up, or that the first answer was said to the floor. It cannot choose the better read for you, and if you tell it to keep "the better take" it will guess from wording alone. - **It does not watch every frame.** It samples frames on request. A soft take, a boom in shot, somebody crossing behind: those are yours to catch. - **Dialogue-led footage plays to its strengths.** Interviews, podcasts and testimonials work well because the story is in what people say. A wordless montage is possible and you will be steering far more of it. - **A repeated phrase can match the wrong instance.** Fuzzy matching is a convenience, and the confidence warnings exist because it is not infallible. - **The last 10% is still yours.** Colour, mix, titles and taste happen in your NLE, which is why the export path matters more than the render. ### FAQ **Does building the rough cut cost credits?** No. Reading transcripts, creating an edit, appending to it, renaming it and exporting it are all free. The metered things are the ones that generate media: an AI review that renders and watches the cut, generated music, voice-over, stabilisation. **How long can the cut be?** The assembly itself is not the constraint. The AI review tops out around 40 minutes of cut, and cloud MP4 renders are capped at 10 minutes of output. NLE timeline exports have no such cap. **Can I build several different cuts from the same interviews?** Yes. Each is a separate named edit over the same sources, and they do not interfere with each other. **Does this work from ChatGPT or Claude?** Yes, over the same [MCP connector](https://www.heyeddie.ai/mcp). See [how to edit video with ChatGPT](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-chatgpt) and [how to edit video with Claude](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-claude). **What do I do about all the "um"s?** Clean the source first, then build the cut. That order matters, and the reason is in [how to remove filler words from an interview](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-remove-filler-words-from-an-interview). --- The barbershop shoot is the demo project inside Eddie, so you can build this exact assembly on the identical footage. [Open it and prompt it](https://app.heyeddie.ai/new). ## How to Build a Rough Cut in Premiere Pro with AI (Round Trip, Step by Step) URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-build-a-rough-cut-in-premiere-pro-with-ai Published: 2026-10-17 > **In Summary** > Premiere Pro does not build a rough cut for you. An AI editor can, if it can read your bin and write a sequence back. Eddie does both through a panel that the desktop app installs. You pick the clips in Premiere, ask for the cut in plain language, and the sequence comes back relinked to the media you already have. This guide walks the round trip from the bin to the timeline. ### The short answer The slow part of an interview edit is not the cutting. It is the logging: watching every take, finding the lines that carry the story, and putting them in an order. Premiere Pro's Text-Based Editing lets you cut from a transcript, but you choose every line yourself. It does not read three interviews and propose an assembly from a brief. Eddie is an [AI video editor](https://www.heyeddie.ai/ai-video-editor) that does. It connects to Premiere through the Eddie AI AE panel. The panel sends your clips, multicam clips and timelines into an Eddie project. Eddie transcribes them, finds the speakers, and builds the cut from your prompt. Then the sequence comes back into Premiere, pointing at your original files. You finish colour, sound and titles where you already finish them. The whole route is on the [Premiere Pro workflow page](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/adobe-premiere-pro). This article is the step-by-step version. ### What you need - Premiere Pro with Creative Cloud installed. The panel installs through Adobe's own installer, so Creative Cloud must be on the machine. - Adobe Media Encoder. Eddie uses it to prepare your clips during import. - The [Eddie AI desktop app](https://www.heyeddie.ai/downloadapp) for Mac or Windows. The web app cannot install the panel. - An Eddie account. A new account starts with free credits; see [pricing](https://www.heyeddie.ai/pricing). ### Step 1: Install the panel There is no separate download. Open the Eddie desktop app and sign in with the account you use on the web. In the app's menu bar, choose **Help → Install Premiere Pro Extension…**. The app hands the panel to Adobe's installer agent and tells you when it is done, or why it could not finish. In Premiere, the panel is under **Window → Extensions → Eddie AI AE**. ### Step 2: Send the bin to Eddie Open Premiere Pro, the Eddie AI AE panel, and Adobe Media Encoder. Pick the clips, multicam clips or timelines you want Eddie to work from, and send them from the panel. Three rules save you a second import: - **Bring everything in one import.** Adding more media from Premiere to the same project after its first import is not supported yet. Select every clip you need before you click Import. - **Import a timeline on its own.** A timeline cannot share an import with other clips. - **Do not mix Premiere multicam clips or timelines with standalone files** such as .mp4 or .mov in one project. Keep Media Encoder open and your computer awake until the import finishes. If your bin is very large and the asset list does not load, move the clips you want into a smaller bin and try again. If a file cannot be imported, Eddie names the file, says why, and refunds its credits. An import costs 250 credits for each hour of footage, billed in 15-minute blocks. That price includes the first transcript of every file. ### Step 3: Let Eddie read the footage During import, Eddie transcribes every clip with word-level timing and marks where the speaker changes. Two cameras of the same interview arrive as one multicam group, synced by audio. Prompting opens when the first import finishes, so Eddie never cuts footage it has not read. If you want the log before you cut, you can have it. Open **Export → Footage logs** and generate the interview log. It arrives as a Premiere XML of bins: soundbites grouped by subject, with each interview's outline and timestamps. For a project under 90 minutes of A-roll the generation is free, because the import already paid for it. ### Step 4: Ask for the rough cut Open Prompt Eddie and describe the video. Say what it is for, who it is for, and how long it should be. Length changes how Eddie cuts, not only how much it keeps. > Build a rough cut from these interviews. Pull the strongest soundbites from each speaker and put them in an order that tells a clear story. Aim for about 8 minutes. Eddie reads the transcripts, chooses the takes and builds a timeline. Then it tells you the finished length against your source length. Every prompt after that changes the same edit. You are steering, not starting over: - "The intro drags. Start on the second question." - "Drop the section about pricing." - "Remove filler words and long pauses." - "Why did you cut that answer?" Change one thing per prompt. You can also cut by hand in the paper edit: the transcript sits beside the edit, and you drag the lines you want into place. ### Step 5: Send it home Open the edit, open **Export**, and choose **Send to Premiere Pro** in the desktop app. Eddie rebuilds the edit inside Premiere against the media you sent, so the sequence points at your original files on your machine, not at a copy Eddie made. Windows drive paths are included. Two details editors ask about: - **Your own multicam clips.** If you sent a multicam clip you built in Premiere, Send to Premiere Pro rebuilds the edit against that clip. The downloadable .prproj and the Premiere XML cannot carry it, and the Export menu says so on those rows. - **Multicam Eddie synced.** Cameras you imported separately come back as a real multicam clip in the .prproj, with the angle you chose playing at each cut. You can keep switching angles. The legacy XML for Premiere Pro 2018 and older has no native multicam; there the angles arrive as stacked tracks with your chosen angle on top. The .prproj keeps bins, crops, clip gains, the audio channel layout and multicam. If the edit has captions, the download is a ZIP with the project and an SRT file. A muted track arrives muted on the mixer. Each review comment pinned to the edit becomes a timeline marker, named after the comment. A timeline export costs 100 credits, the same for every format. Nothing is charged if the file fails to build. You can keep editing after an export and export again. ### Teams on Premiere Productions If your Production lives on a LucidLink filespace, Eddie can join it the way another editor would. Invite Eddie's LucidLink identity to the filespace, point Eddie at the Production folder, and it reads the footage off the mount. When you ask for a cut, Eddie writes new Premiere project files into an Eddie folder inside your Production. Your original projects and folders are not touched. See the [LucidLink workflow](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/lucidlink). ### What it will not do - **It will not grade, mix or finish.** Colour, sound and the last ten percent of taste stay in Premiere. That is the point of the round trip. - **It does not watch every frame.** Eddie edits from the transcript and can sample frames on request. You still watch the cut. - **It will not add media to the same project later from Premiere.** Start a new project if more footage arrives from the bin. Plain uploads can be added any time. - **It does not take proxies made on the web into your originals.** If you uploaded in a browser instead of sending from Premiere, the export points at Eddie's proxy media. Send from the panel when you want the sequence to relink to camera files. ### FAQ **Does Premiere Pro have its own AI rough cut?** No. Premiere Pro's Text-Based Editing lets you cut from a transcript, but you pick every line yourself. It does not read several interviews and propose a structured cut from a brief. Eddie does that and sends the sequence back. **Do I need the desktop app?** Yes, for the round trip. The desktop app installs the panel and runs Send to Premiere Pro. If you only need a project file, the web app can download a .prproj, but it will point at Eddie's proxies rather than your camera files. **Which codecs survive?** Pro codecs including BRAW and R3D come through the panel, with the proxies Eddie uses to stay fast. Timecode, frame rate and resolution stay with the media. **What does it cost?** Import is 250 credits per hour of footage. A timeline export is 100 credits. A new account starts free, and credit packs never expire. See [pricing](https://www.heyeddie.ai/pricing). **Does this work in DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro too?** Yes. The same desktop app carries a [Resolve round trip](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/davinci-resolve) and a [Final Cut Pro round trip](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/final-cut-pro). --- Ready to try it on your own bin? [Start a project for free](https://app.heyeddie.ai/new), or read the [Premiere Pro workflow](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/adobe-premiere-pro) first. ## How to create paper edits from interviews (and stop wasting your first day in the timeline) URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-create-paper-edits-from-interviews Published: 2026-06-17 > **In Summary** > * Pick soundbites in story order before opening the NLE. > > * It costs less to move a paragraph than a clip. > > * Eddie collapses the read → pull → arrange → assemble loop into one prompt. > > > > Try it on your next interview cut. Worst case you spend an extra hour up front and you don't paper edit your next one. Best case you get half your week back. If you cut interview-driven work — docs, branded mini-features, founder interviews, podcasts with B-roll — the most expensive part of the edit isn't the edit. It's the first pass. The one where you scrub through five hours of footage trying to remember which soundbite said what, before you've made a single cut. The fix is older than NLEs: a **paper edit**. Pick the soundbites and put them in order _before_ you touch the timeline. Then assemble. This post is a practical walkthrough — how to do a paper edit by hand, and how Eddie does it for you in minutes. ### What a paper edit actually is A paper edit is a text document that lists, in story order, the interview soundbites that will form the spine of your cut. For each beat you note: * **Source** — clip name + timecode in/out * **The line** — verbatim transcript of what the subject says * **Why it's here** — what story beat it serves * **B-roll cue** (optional) — what you'll cover this with That's it. No timeline, no proxies, no sequence settings. Just the spine, on paper. The point: by the time you open your NLE you already know what's making the cut. The assembly becomes mechanical. ### Why it saves so much time Three reasons: 1. **You skip the timeline scrub.** You're reading transcripts, not scrubbing footage at 1x. Reading is ~3-5x faster than watching. 2. **You make structural calls cheaply.** Rearranging a paragraph in a doc costs nothing. Rearranging clips in a timeline costs ten minutes and a lost sync. 3. **You catch holes before assembly.** "We have no soundbite for the resolution beat" is something you'd rather know on Monday than Thursday. Editors who paper-edit consistently report cutting their first-pass time roughly in half. The trade-off is the upfront read — which is the slow step most editors skip and then pay for later. ### The manual workflow (the long version) If you're doing this without tooling: 1. **Get clean transcripts** for every interview. Most modern tools (Premiere, Resolve, Descript, Whisper) will do this — burn an hour and get them all. 2. **Read everything once.** Don't pre-judge. Just read. 3. **Pull soundbites** into a doc — paste the transcript line with the clip name + TC. Tag each one with the story beat it serves (e.g. _setup_, _conflict_, _turn_, _resolution_). 4. **Arrange the spine.** Reorder soundbites until the story works on the page. Read it out loud. If it doesn't make sense in text, it won't make sense in cut. 5. **Add B-roll cues** in the gaps — "cover this with the workshop wide" / "intercut with the close-up of hands." 6. **Now open the NLE.** Build the assembly straight from the paper edit. You're not editing — you're transcribing your decisions. For a 5-hour interview shoot, expect 3–6 hours of paper edit work. Feels slow. Saves a day on the back end. #### What Eddie does ![](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/framer/ce2c33c8-gbCDxIwQWb2isIQ2WG7ZZzwFaD0.png) Eddie was built to compress steps 1–5 into one prompt. You give Eddie: * The raw interview footage (Eddie handles transcription) * A short **creative brief** — what's the story, who's the audience, what's the angle, how long should it be Eddie returns: * **A paper edit** — soundbites in story order, with clip/timecode references and verbatim transcript * **Story beats** mapped to each soundbite so you can see the spine * **B-roll placement suggestions** based on what's in your footage * The whole thing **lands directly in Premiere / Resolve / FCP** as a rough cut sequence You review the paper edit, swap soundbites you don't like, send back to Eddie, iterate. The actual NLE assembly is already there when you're done — no transcribing decisions by hand. The skill we're optimising is the editor's: **deciding what story to tell**. Everything mechanical around that should be automated. ### A worked example Say you're cutting a 6-minute brand doc from a single 4-hour subject interview + 2 hours of B-roll. **Without paper edit**: import everything, scrub through interview at 1x while noting standout moments in a separate doc, build a rough sequence by hauling clips onto the timeline, realise the structure doesn't work, tear it up, rebuild. ~2 days. **With manual paper edit**: get a transcript, read it, pull ~25 soundbites into a doc, arrange into a 6-minute spine, mark B-roll cues, then build the sequence from the doc. ~1 day. **With Eddie**: feed footage + brief, get back a paper edit + assembled rough cut in the NLE in ~15 minutes. Spend 2–3 hours iterating on soundbite choices and story order. ~half a day. The structural choices — what story you're telling, what gets cut, what soundbite lands the close — those still belong to you. The mechanical work of pulling them out of 4 hours of talking head doesn't. ### When _not_ to paper edit A paper edit is overkill for: * Reels / short-form social where the cut is reactive to footage, not driven by spoken content * Music videos and montage-driven work * Anything where the story is in the visuals, not the voice Paper edits are for _talking heads telling stories_ — interviews, docs, founder content, podcast clips, sales videos. If most of your runtime is someone's mouth moving, paper edit. ## How to Cut a Multicam Interview or Podcast Automatically URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-cut-a-multicam-interview-automatically Published: 2026-07-26 > **In Summary** > Automatic multicam cutting is a transcript problem, not a signal-processing one. Once cameras are synced into a group, the cut follows who is speaking, and the rules it follows are written down rather than implied. The exports are the interesting part: Final Cut and Resolve get a real multicam clip, and Premiere gets every alternate angle stacked underneath the chosen one, ready to reveal. ### The short answer Switching angles on a two-hour podcast is the most mechanical work in post. It is also not hard: stay on whoever is speaking, use the wide for the back and forth, do not cut on every "yeah". Those are rules, and rules are automatable, provided the tool knows two things: which cameras belong to the same take, and who is speaking when. The first comes from syncing. The second comes from the diarised transcript. Put them together and the angle cut is a decision the model can make segment by segment while you watch. The demo project we use throughout these guides is an interview shoot with Jessica Hernandez and her daughter Alizé, who run Simply Men's Barbershop in West Chester, PA: three interviews, 8:20, 24:59 and 30:38, **1 hour 4 minutes** total, **13,675 words**, **3 speakers** separated automatically. The speaker separation is the part that carries over here. Angle cutting on a podcast is only as good as knowing who is talking. ![Interview setup from the barbershop shoot](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/how-to/barbershop-interview-2.png) ### Step 1: Get your cameras into a group Angles are cuttable once the cameras of the same take are grouped. There are three ways in, and it is worth knowing which one you are on: - **Grouped at import.** Nothing to do. Your source list will show the group. - **Grouped by hand.** Nominate a reference camera, then give every other camera an offset in seconds: where that camera's file starts on the reference timeline. Find a moment both cameras caught, a word or a clap, and the offset is the time of that moment in the reference file minus its time in the other camera's file. Positive means that camera started later. You can derive it straight from matching transcript timestamps. This is free, it never guesses, and it works across separate imports, so a camera you added a week later can still be grouped with the originals. - **Already synced elsewhere.** If you assembled a synced timeline in Premiere or Resolve, or with Syncaila or Tentacle Sync, import it as-is. See [import dirty multicams (aka synced timelines)](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/import-edit-dirty-multicams-aka-synced-timelines). There is also a whole-project "sync all my cameras" analysis that proposes a grouping for everything ungrouped and changes nothing until you confirm it. It is metered, roughly 2 to 3 credits per minute of ungrouped footage plus about 6 fixed, so about 150 credits for an hour, and it is still behind a rollout flag. Treat grouping by hand as the path that always works. ### Step 2: Look at the angles before you cut Ask for the angles on the edit and you get each one's id, role, name and **real pixel dimensions**, plus which angle is currently live on every segment. Read this before anything else, for two reasons. The dimensions are what any reframe or split-screen has to be computed against, and cameras are not all 16:9: cinema cameras ship 1.9:1, and phone footage reports rotation-aware display dimensions rather than its raw encode. ### Step 3: Cut on who is speaking Angle assignment happens per segment. The editorial rules Eddie follows are not vague "AI magic", they are stated instructions, and they are the ones a careful assistant would follow: - Stay on whoever is speaking: the guest's shot for their answers, the host's shot or the wide for questions and reactions. - Use the wide two-shot for quick back and forth. - Do **not** switch angle for every short "yeah" or "right". It looks nervous. - Only switch on a real change of speaker, or to smooth a jump cut. - If a speaker has no camera of their own, stay on the wide rather than sit on the wrong person's face. - Prefer the sharpest camera. Fall back to a softer angle only briefly, and only when it is the only shot of that person. You can override any of it in plain language: "stay wide for the whole intro", "never cut to camera B, the focus is soft". ### Step 4: Use angles to hide your own cuts The most valuable thing a second camera does is cover the cuts you made for other reasons. Every filler word you removed at word level leaves a jump cut on a single locked-off camera. Switching angle on those segments makes the cut invisible, and it is the reason to clean filler before you assign angles rather than after. See [how to remove filler words from an interview](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-remove-filler-words-from-an-interview). For a vertical deliverable, the same angle information drives a split-screen canvas: guest on the top half, host on the bottom, with per-segment overrides so you go full frame on whoever is talking. See [how to make vertical clips for social from a podcast or interview](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-make-vertical-clips-from-a-podcast-or-interview). ### Step 5: What your NLE actually receives This is where multicam workflows normally fall apart, so here is precisely what Eddie writes: - **Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve (FCPXML)** get a genuine multicam clip. The chosen angle is written as the video source and the group's single reference angle as the audio source, as two separate entries. That second part is deliberate: a single combined entry let Resolve enable every angle's audio at once and split it across A1 and A2. Pinning audio to one angle stops that. - **Premiere Pro XML** gets the chosen angle on the timeline and **every alternate angle stacked on the lanes directly beneath it**, in group order, closest alternate first. The alternates stay video-enabled, hidden behind the top clip, with their audio muted so angles do not pile up. Switching to a different angle in Premiere is then a matter of hiding the top clip, not re-syncing anything. - **OTIO** carries the cut, not the group. Both formats relink to your original camera files. See [how to export an AI edit to Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve or Final Cut](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-export-an-ai-edit-to-premiere-resolve-final-cut). ### What it will not do - **It does not sync by waveform for you as a free automatic step.** Cameras that were grouped at import are grouped. Everything else is either your offset, your synced timeline, or the metered whole-project analysis. Anyone claiming free instant sync of arbitrary footage is describing a wish. - **It has no opinion on the picture.** The angle choice is made from who is speaking, not from which shot is better composed, better exposed, or in focus. If camera B drifts soft in the second hour, you have to say so. - **It will not invent an angle.** If nobody pointed a camera at the person talking, the best it can do is stay wide. - **Reaction shots are a judgement call it will usually miss.** The moment where the host raises an eyebrow is not in the transcript, so it is not in the model's view of the world. Those cuts stay yours. - **Only real same-take angles belong in a group.** B-roll is not an angle, and grouping it will produce nonsense. ### FAQ **Does multicam angle cutting cost credits?** No. Listing angles, assigning them, grouping cameras by hand and exporting are all free. The whole-project sync analysis is the metered exception. **How many cameras can be in a group?** More than two is fine. Each becomes a switchable angle, and Premiere exports stack every alternate under the chosen one. **Can I add a camera later?** Yes. Re-declare the group with the extra camera and its offset. Grouping works across separate imports. **Do my existing cuts break when I change the grouping?** No. Adding angles is additive, and edits you already built stay valid. **Can I drive this from ChatGPT or Claude?** Yes, over the same [MCP connector](https://www.heyeddie.ai/mcp). See [how to edit video with ChatGPT](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-chatgpt) and [how to edit video with Claude](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-claude). --- If you want to see the transcript-driven half of this before you point four cameras at anything, the barbershop project ships inside Eddie. [Open it and prompt it](https://app.heyeddie.ai/new). ## How to Edit a Podcast with ChatGPT (Multicam, Step by Step) URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-a-podcast-with-chatgpt Published: 2026-10-17 > **In Summary** > ChatGPT can read a podcast transcript and tell you where the good parts are. It cannot open your camera files, sync them, cut between angles or export a timeline. Connect ChatGPT to Eddie over MCP and it can. This guide covers the recording you need, the connector, the prompts for a multicam cut, the social clips, and the hand-off to your editor. ### The short answer A two-camera podcast is the most repetitive edit in video. Sync the cameras, cut to whoever is talking, remove the ums and the dead air, pull three clips for social, export. Every week. ChatGPT alone cannot do any of the cutting. It has no access to your media, no timecode and no way to write a sequence. What it can do is understand what you want. Give it a tool that holds the recording and it can direct the edit in plain language. Eddie is an [AI video editor](https://www.heyeddie.ai/ai-video-editor) built for multicam; its MCP connector gives ChatGPT hands inside it. The general version of this workflow is in [how to edit video with ChatGPT](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-chatgpt). This article is the podcast version. ### What ChatGPT can and cannot do with a podcast | Task | ChatGPT alone | ChatGPT + Eddie | | -------------------------------------- | ------------- | --------------- | | Summarise the episode | Yes | Yes | | Suggest which segments to keep | Yes | Yes | | Sync two or more cameras | No | Yes | | Cut to the person speaking | No | Yes | | Remove filler words and long pauses | No | Yes | | Make vertical clips with captions | No | Yes | | Export a multicam timeline to your NLE | No | Yes | ### Step 1: Record something ChatGPT can cut Eddie plays the audio of the camera file it is currently showing. If each camera only recorded its own person's microphone, a cut to camera A plays only person A, including during person B's reactions. This is a gap in the recording, not something a prompt can fix later. So bring in one file where every voice is audible together, alongside the camera angles: - The combined or "all speakers" download from Riverside, Zoom, Squadcast and similar tools, which is separate from the per-speaker tracks. - A room mic or board mix that heard everyone, if you recorded one. Import it in the same batch as the cameras. Once it is in the group, you can set it as the group's active audio, so every cut plays the combined track. An audio-only podcast works too: Eddie builds, plays and exports an audio edit like any other. ### Step 2: Connect ChatGPT to Eddie ChatGPT reaches outside tools through MCP connectors. You need a paid ChatGPT plan (Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu) with Developer mode turned on under Settings. Then create a custom connector: - **Name:** Eddie AI - **URL:** `https://mcp.heyeddie.ai/api/mcp` - **Authentication:** OAuth. You sign in with your Eddie account; there is no token to paste. ChatGPT moves these menus often. The current click-path is on the [install page](https://www.heyeddie.ai/mcp), which we keep up to date. The same connector works in Claude, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and any other MCP client. ### Step 3: Import the episode ChatGPT cannot upload your files. Add them in the Eddie web app or desktop app: start a new project, drag in the camera files and the combined audio, and click Import. Or pull them from Google Drive, Dropbox, Frame.io or iconik. Cameras that arrive in the same import are grouped and synced by audio. There is no multicam setting to turn on. If a camera did not join the group, say so in plain language: "camA and camB are two angles of the same episode. Group them and sync them." A late camera card can be added to an existing project and synced the same way. An import costs 250 credits per hour of footage, billed in 15-minute blocks. Two cameras of the same hour are two hours of footage. Then go back to ChatGPT and ask it to list the sources in the project. ### Step 4: Ask for the cut Now the prompt does real work, because ChatGPT can see the transcript with timing and speakers attached. > Cut this episode to the best 20 minutes. Cut to whoever is speaking, hold the wide shot for crosstalk, and remove filler words and long pauses. Give a length. Length changes how Eddie cuts, not only how much it keeps. Then refine in the same conversation: - "Open on the strongest line in the episode." - "Drop the section about scheduling." - "Stay on the guest for the whole answer about her first job." - "Leave a beat after the punchline." A pause is genuine silence. Eddie checks the transcript timing, so quiet speech is never mistaken for a gap. ### Step 5: Pull the clips for social Every edit in the project draws on the same footage, so clips are new edits, not new imports: > Cut five vertical clips from the strongest moments, each under 45 seconds, as separate edits. Add punch captions. "Vertical" gives a 9:16 canvas, and Eddie reframes each shot to keep the speaker in the picture. A stated maximum is a hard limit: a clip that runs over is trimmed until it fits. Punch captions are two words at a time in large type, kept clear of the speaker's face. ### Step 6: Export Ask for the finished MP4 when you only need the video. The first 10 cloud MP4 exports each day are free for each workspace; after that each one costs 50 credits. When you want to finish in your editor, export a timeline instead. The Premiere .prproj, the Resolve .drp and the Final Cut FCPXML each build a real multicam clip with the angle Eddie chose at each cut, and you can keep switching angles. Each review comment becomes a timeline marker. A timeline export costs 100 credits. ### What it will not do - **It will not fix a recording that has no combined audio.** If no file holds every voice, no cut can play both people. Record the mix. - **It does not watch every frame.** Eddie edits from the transcript and samples frames on request. You still watch the cut. - **It will not upload from the chat.** Footage goes in through the web app or desktop app. - **It is a first cut, not a final cut.** Colour, music and the last pass of taste still happen in Premiere, Resolve or Final Cut. ### FAQ **Can ChatGPT edit a podcast by itself?** No. It has no access to your media and cannot sync cameras or output a timeline. Connected to Eddie over MCP, it can direct the whole edit. **Do I need a paid ChatGPT plan?** Yes. Custom connectors need Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu, with Developer mode on. Claude custom connectors work on every Claude plan, including Free. See [how to edit video with Claude](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-claude). **My podcast is audio only. Does this work?** Yes. Import the audio and Eddie builds, plays and exports the edit like any other. **Does the multicam survive the export?** Yes. The .prproj, the .drp and the FCPXML each carry a switchable multicam clip. See [multicam editing](https://www.heyeddie.ai/features/multicam). **What does it cost?** Import is 250 credits per hour of footage. A timeline export is 100 credits. The first 10 MP4 exports a day are free for each workspace. A new account starts free, and credit packs never expire. See [pricing](https://www.heyeddie.ai/pricing). --- Ready to cut this week's episode? [Start a project for free](https://app.heyeddie.ai/new), then connect ChatGPT from the [install page](https://www.heyeddie.ai/mcp). ## How to Edit by Transcript in Final Cut Pro (With AI) URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-by-transcript-in-final-cut-pro Published: 2026-10-17 > **In Summary** > Final Cut Pro can transcribe speech into captions, but it has no text-based editing mode. You cannot select a paragraph and get a cut. Eddie adds that step outside Final Cut: drag your clips from the event into Eddie, cut from the transcript by prompt or by hand, and send an FCPXML back. Your own multicam clips return switchable, and the export can write Favorites, keywords and transcript markers onto the clips in your browser. ### The short answer Interview editors on Final Cut have watched Premiere editors cut from a transcript for a while. Final Cut Pro transcribes for captions, but it does not let you edit by text. The transcript is not a cutting surface in Final Cut. Eddie is an [AI video editor](https://www.heyeddie.ai/ai-video-editor) that makes it one. It transcribes every clip with word-level timing, marks the speakers, and lets you cut in two ways: ask for the edit in plain language, or drag transcript lines into an edit by hand. The result goes back to Final Cut as an FCPXML that relinks to your original files. The full route is on the [Final Cut Pro workflow page](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/final-cut-pro). This article is the step-by-step version. ### What you need - Final Cut Pro, with the event that holds your clips. - The [Eddie AI desktop app](https://www.heyeddie.ai/downloadapp) for Mac. The desktop route is what makes the export point at your original files instead of proxies. - An Eddie account. A new account starts with free credits; see [pricing](https://www.heyeddie.ai/pricing). ### Step 1: Drag the clips from your event into Eddie Open your Final Cut event. Select the clips, multicam clips or the project you want to cut from, and drag them into Eddie together, as one batch. Two rules: - **Bring everything in one import.** Adding more media from Final Cut to the same project later is not supported yet. Select every clip you need before you import. - **Keep Final Cut multicam clips and projects apart from standalone files.** Do not mix them with loose .mp4 or .mov files in one project. An import costs 250 credits for each hour of footage, billed in 15-minute blocks. That price includes the first transcript of every file. If a file cannot be imported, Eddie names it, says why, and refunds its credits. ### Step 2: Read the transcript, not the footage During import Eddie transcribes every clip. Every word carries a time-stamp, so a cut lands between words. Speaker changes are marked, which is what makes a prompt such as "keep only the guest's answers" possible. Eddie transcribes more than 100 languages and detects the language itself. A multicam clip you built in Final Cut arrives as one clip. Eddie keeps your alignment and does not switch angles inside it. Cameras you drag in separately are synced by audio into a multicam group that Eddie can cut between. Names and product terms: attach a Backgrounder with the right spellings before you import. Eddie hands them to the transcription engine as a dictionary. ### Step 3: Cut from the transcript, two ways **By prompt.** Open Prompt Eddie and say what the video is for and how long it should be: > Build a rough cut from these interviews. Pull the strongest soundbites from each speaker and put them in an order that tells a clear story. Aim for about 8 minutes. Then steer it, one change at a time: "start on the second question", "drop the pricing section", "remove filler words and long pauses". **By hand.** Set the Chat / Pro switch to Pro and open the paper edit. The transcript sits in one column and your edit in the other. Drag a line from the transcript into the edit, in the order you want. One drag carries one line. This is text-based editing in the plain sense: you choose the words, the cut follows. You can mix the two. Ask Eddie for the assembly, then move lines by hand. ### Step 4: Send the edit back to Final Cut Open the edit, open **Export**, and choose **Final Cut Pro**. Eddie writes an FCPXML. Because the clips came from your event through the desktop app, the file references your original media by file name and path, and Final Cut relinks to it. Three options are on by default in the Final Cut export: - **Favorites & rejects.** A clip or transcript passage you bookmarked becomes a Favorite range. A rejected b-roll clip, or a transcript passage you deleted, becomes a Reject range. - **Labels as keywords.** Each label on a clip or transcript passage becomes a keyword range in the browser. - **Transcript markers.** Each transcript passage becomes a marker, with the speaker in its note. If the edit uses a multicam clip from Final Cut, the FCPXML puts your own multicam clip back on the timeline at Eddie's cut points. You keep switching angles in Final Cut. A multicam group that Eddie synced also comes back as a real multicam clip, on the angle Eddie chose at each cut. Review comments pinned to the edit become timeline markers, named after the comment. A timeline export costs 100 credits, the same for every format, and nothing is charged if the file fails to build. ### The marks you get before you cut You do not need an edit to get Favorites into your browser. - **A stringout with Favorites.** Ask Eddie to find the best moments across your clips and build them into one timeline, then ask for the FCPXML with every clip marked as a Favorite. Eddie marks each clip's in and out point as a Favorite range on the source clip. - **The B-roll log.** From a project with no edit yet, open Export and choose the B-roll log as FCPXML. The clips in your browser get keywords for shot type, for each group Eddie made and for each topic, plus Favorite ranges for the good moments. A footage-log export costs 100 credits. ### If Final Cut shows missing files An FCPXML does not embed your video. If Final Cut cannot find a file at the recorded path, the clip shows offline. Select the offline clips, choose **File → Relink Files…**, and point Final Cut at the top-level folder that holds your originals. Final Cut matches files by name and searches subfolders. If you see "Param element ignored… interpolation attribute", Final Cut is skipping a keyframe type from Eddie's automatic cinematic motion. The clip still works; only that motion detail is dropped. ### What it will not do - **It will not colour, mix or finish.** That stays in Final Cut. - **It does not switch angles inside a multicam clip you built in Final Cut.** It cuts that clip as one source and hands it back switchable. - **It does not write ratings you set in the chat into Final Cut.** To get a mark into the browser, bookmark the moment or label the clip, then export with the options above. - **It does not swap web proxies for your originals.** If you uploaded in a browser instead of dragging from your event, the FCPXML points at Eddie's proxies, and Final Cut may refuse to relink them to camera files whose frame rate or length differs. Import from the event when you want the export to relink to originals. ### FAQ **Does Final Cut Pro have text-based editing?** Final Cut Pro can transcribe speech to captions. It does not have a mode where you select transcript text and get a cut. Eddie provides that step and returns an FCPXML. **Can I cut by hand instead of by prompt?** Yes. The paper edit puts the transcript beside the edit, and you drag the lines you want into place. **Do my Final Cut multicam clips survive the round trip?** Yes, when they come from your event through the desktop app. The FCPXML puts your multicam clip back at Eddie's cut points, and you keep switching angles in Final Cut. **Can Eddie mark clips as Favorites in Final Cut?** Yes. Ask for a stringout of the best moments and export it as FCPXML with Favorites. The Export menu and the B-roll log also write Favorites into the browser. **What does it cost?** Import is 250 credits per hour of footage. A timeline export is 100 credits. A new account starts free, and credit packs never expire. See [pricing](https://www.heyeddie.ai/pricing). --- Ready to cut from the transcript? [Start a project for free](https://app.heyeddie.ai/new), or read the [Final Cut Pro workflow](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/final-cut-pro) first. ## How to Edit Video with ChatGPT (Step by Step) URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-chatgpt Published: 2026-07-25 > **In Summary** > ChatGPT can read, plan and structure a video. It cannot open your footage, find a soundbite at a timecode, or produce a timeline. To go from prompt to actual edit you connect ChatGPT to an [AI video editor](https://www.heyeddie.ai/ai-video-editor) that holds the media. This walkthrough uses a real 1 hour 4 minute interview shoot. ### The short answer ChatGPT on its own cannot edit video. It has no access to your media, no timecode, and no way to write a sequence your NLE can open. What it _is_ genuinely good at is everything that surrounds the cut: reading a long transcript, finding the story, ordering beats, writing a paper edit. The useful workflow is therefore not "ask ChatGPT to edit my video." It is: **give ChatGPT access to a tool that holds the footage, then ask for the edit in plain language.** Since ChatGPT supports MCP connectors, that is a configuration step, not a hack. Eddie is an [AI video editor](https://www.heyeddie.ai/ai-video-editor) built for pros; the connector gives ChatGPT hands inside it. ### What ChatGPT can and cannot do with video | Task | ChatGPT alone | ChatGPT + an editor tool | | ---------------------------------- | ------------- | ------------------------ | | Summarise a transcript | Yes | Yes | | Suggest a story structure | Yes | Yes | | Find the exact timecode of a line | No | Yes | | Know which take was in focus | No | Yes — via frames | | Produce a cut you can play | No | Yes | | Export to Premiere / Resolve / FCP | No | Yes | The row that matters is the third one. A transcript pasted into a chat window loses its timing. "She says it best around here" is not something you can cut on — the edit needs `00:12:31:04`, and it needs to survive into an XML your NLE will relink. ### The footage in this walkthrough Everything below was run against a real shoot: three interviews with Jessica Hernandez and her daughter Alizé, who run Simply Men's Barbershop in West Chester, PA — a mother-and-daughter business that came together during covid. ![Jessica and Alizé Hernandez during the interview shoot at Simply Men's Barbershop](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/how-to/barbershop-interview-1.png) The raw material, exactly as it arrived: - **3 interviews**, 8:20, 24:59 and 30:38 — **1 hour 4 minutes** total - **13,675 words** of transcript once processed - **3 speakers** identified across the three files, plus interviewers That is a normal small-documentary load and a genuinely awkward amount of material: too much to hold in your head, not enough to justify a week of logging. This is the same demo project that ships inside Eddie, so you can follow along with the identical footage rather than taking our word for any of it. ### Step 1 — Connect ChatGPT to the editor ChatGPT reaches outside tools through MCP connectors. Eddie's connector details: - **Name:** Eddie AI - **URL:** `https://mcp.heyeddie.ai/api/mcp` - **Auth:** OAuth — you sign in with your Eddie account the first time you connect, no token to paste Custom connectors need a paid ChatGPT plan (Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu — Free can't add one) and Developer Mode turned on first, under Settings, in Connectors or Apps. That menu has moved more than once in 2026, so if "Add custom connector" isn't where you expect it, check Developer Mode before anything else. On ChatGPT Free? You can still follow this walkthrough: Claude's free plan can add the connector (see [how to edit video with Claude](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-claude)), or you can prompt Eddie directly in its own [web app](https://app.heyeddie.ai/new) with the same words. The current click-path inside ChatGPT lives on our [install page](https://www.heyeddie.ai/mcp), which we keep up to date as the UI changes — we would rather point you at a maintained page than bake screenshots of a settings menu into an article that ages. The fastest route is to paste this into ChatGPT and let it do the setup: > Read https://www.heyeddie.ai/mcp to install the Eddie AI MCP connector in ChatGPT and set up a new task for me. ### Step 2 — Get the footage in The connector lets ChatGPT read and cut a project; it does not upload your rushes. Import happens once, in Eddie — drag the files in, or pull them from Google Drive, Dropbox, Frame.io or iconik. During import each file is transcribed and diarised. For this shoot that produced the 13,675 words and the speaker split above. Nothing is edited at this stage: import makes the footage _legible_, it does not make a cut. ![Second interview setup from the same shoot](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/how-to/barbershop-interview-2.png) ### Step 3 — Ask for the edit in plain language Now the prompt does real work, because ChatGPT can see the transcript with timecode attached. The prompt we used on this footage: > Create a story about Alizé's journey as a female barber in a mostly male field. Note what is _not_ in that prompt: no timecodes, no clip names, no structure. That is the point — the model reads the transcript, picks the moments that carry the story, and assembles them in an order that builds. Prompts that work well on interview footage: - "Cut a 90-second version for Instagram, vertical, captions on." - "Find every moment where they talk about opening during covid." - "Tighten this — remove the filler and the false starts." - "Start with the strongest line in the whole shoot." Prompts that work badly are the vague ones: _make it good_, _make it cinematic_. Say what the video is **for** and who it is for. [How to Prompt Eddie AI v4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R14Aggk6jT0) ### Step 4 — Watch it, then argue with it The first cut is a draft, and treating it as one is the entire skill. You get a real timeline you can play, so react to it the way you would react to an assistant editor's pass: - "The opening is slow — start on the line about her first day." - "Cut 20 seconds." - "You used the same story twice, keep the better take." Each note is another prompt. Nothing is destructive, and you are not paying for a render each time you change your mind. ### Step 5 — Take it into your NLE This is where an AI video workflow usually collapses: you end up with a flat MP4 and no way to keep working. Export a **timeline** instead — FCPXML for Final Cut or Resolve, XML for Premiere, or OTIO — and your original camera files relink. The cut lands as clips on a timeline, not a baked file. If you just want the video, an MP4 renders in the cloud too. For the full round trip in your editor, including relinking to camera originals, see the [Premiere Pro](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/adobe-premiere-pro), [DaVinci Resolve](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/davinci-resolve) and [Final Cut Pro](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/final-cut-pro) workflows. ![Third interview from the barbershop shoot](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/how-to/barbershop-interview-3.png) ### The honest limitations Worth knowing before you plan a job around this: - **ChatGPT does not watch your footage frame by frame.** It reads the transcript and can sample frames on request. It will not notice that a take is soft, or that someone walked through the background — you still watch the cut. - **Interview and dialogue footage works best.** The story lives in what people say, so transcript-driven editing has something to work with. Silent b-roll montages are possible but you are steering much more. - **It is a first cut, not a final cut.** Colour, sound mix, titles and the last 10% of taste still happen in your NLE. That is why the export path matters more than the render. ### FAQ **Can ChatGPT edit a video by itself?** No. It has no access to your media and cannot output a timeline. Connected to an editing tool over MCP, it can direct an edit that a human then finishes. **Do I need to paste my transcript into ChatGPT?** No — and you should not. A pasted transcript loses timecode, so nothing you decide can be turned into a cut. Connecting the tool keeps the timing attached. **Does this work with Claude too?** Yes. The same connector works in Claude — see [how to edit video with Claude](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-claude). **What happens to my original camera files?** Nothing. The edit references them; the export relinks to them. You finish in Premiere, Resolve or Final Cut with your real media. **Is this good enough for client work?** For the assembly and selects pass, in our experience yes — it removes the logging slog. The finish is still yours. --- Want to try it on the same barbershop footage rather than your own? It is the demo project inside Eddie — [open it and prompt it](https://app.heyeddie.ai/new). ## How to Edit Video with Claude (Step by Step) URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-claude Published: 2026-07-25 > **In Summary** > Claude is unusually good at reading a long interview and finding the story in it. It still cannot open your rushes or produce a sequence. Connect it to an editor over MCP and a plain-language prompt becomes a real timeline. This walkthrough uses a genuine 1 hour 4 minute shoot. ### The short answer Claude cannot edit video by itself. It has no access to your media, no timecode, and no way to write a sequence your NLE can open. What it is very good at is the part editors actually spend their time on: reading an hour of talking, working out what the story is, and deciding which twelve of four hundred sentences belong in the cut. Give it a tool that holds the footage — Claude supports MCP connectors natively — and that judgement turns into an actual edit. Eddie is an [AI video editor built for pros](https://www.heyeddie.ai/ai-video-editor); the connector gives Claude hands inside it. ### Where Claude stops, precisely | Task | Claude alone | Claude + an editor tool | | ---------------------------------------------- | -------------------------- | ----------------------- | | Read a 14,000-word transcript and find the arc | Yes — it is strong at this | Yes | | Choose the better of two similar takes | Only from wording | Yes, with frames | | Know when a line was said | No | Yes — to the frame | | Assemble a sequence | No | Yes | | Hand off to Premiere / Resolve / FCP | No | Yes | The failure people hit is subtle: paste a transcript into a chat and Claude will give you an excellent paper edit. Then you discover a paper edit is a _document_, and turning it into a timeline means finding every one of those lines by hand. The connector removes that step, because the timing never gets detached in the first place. ### The footage in this walkthrough Three interviews with Jessica Hernandez and her daughter Alizé, who run Simply Men's Barbershop in West Chester, PA — a mother-and-daughter business that came together during covid. ![Jessica and Alizé Hernandez during the interview shoot](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/how-to/barbershop-interview-3.png) As it arrived: - **3 interviews** — 8:20, 24:59, 30:38 — **1 hour 4 minutes** total - **13,675 words** of transcript - **3 speakers**, plus interviewers, separated automatically This is the demo project that ships inside Eddie, so you can run every step below on the identical footage instead of trusting a screenshot. ### Step 1 — Add the connector to Claude Claude reaches external tools through MCP. Eddie's connector: - **Name:** Eddie AI - **URL:** `https://mcp.heyeddie.ai/api/mcp` - **Auth:** OAuth — you sign in with your Eddie account the first time you connect, no token to paste Custom connectors work on every Claude plan, including Free (capped at one custom connector), so there's no upgrade to make first. Claude's exact settings path moves around as the product changes, so the current version lives on our [install page](https://www.heyeddie.ai/mcp) rather than in this article. Easiest path — paste this into Claude: > Read https://www.heyeddie.ai/mcp to install the Eddie AI MCP connector in Claude and set up a new task for me. ### Step 2 — Import once Claude can read and cut a project through the connector; it does not carry your rushes. Import happens once in Eddie — local drag-and-drop, or from Google Drive, Dropbox, Frame.io or iconik. Import transcribes and diarises every file. On this shoot that is where the 13,675 words and the speaker split came from. Nothing is cut yet — import makes the footage searchable, not edited. ![Second camera setup from the same shoot](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/how-to/barbershop-interview-2.png) ### Step 3 — Describe the video you want With the transcript and its timing in reach, the prompt does real work. On this footage: > Create a story about Alizé's journey as a female barber in a mostly male field. No timecodes, no clip names, no shot list. Claude reads all three interviews, finds the moments that carry that specific story, and lays them out in an order that builds. Where Claude is particularly strong on interview material: - **Thematic pulls.** "Find everything about opening during covid" works across all three files at once, not one at a time. - **Ordering for meaning.** Ask it to open on the strongest line and it will usually pick a genuinely good one, because that is a reading-comprehension problem. - **Ruthlessness on request.** "Cut this to 90 seconds and lose anything that repeats" is the kind of instruction it follows well. [How to Prompt Eddie AI v4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R14Aggk6jT0) ### Step 4 — Treat the first cut as a first cut You get a timeline you can play. Then you give notes, exactly as you would to an assistant: - "Too slow out of the gate — start on her first day at the shop." - "You used the same anecdote twice. Keep the better read." - "Take 30 seconds out of the middle." Every note is another prompt. Nothing is destructive; you are not re-rendering to change your mind. ### Step 5 — Get it into your NLE properly The step that decides whether any of this was worth it. Export a **timeline** — FCPXML for Final Cut or Resolve, XML for Premiere, or OTIO — and your original camera files relink. You open a sequence of real clips, not a flattened MP4 you cannot revise. An MP4 render is there too when the deliverable really is just a video. For the full round trip in your editor, including relinking to camera originals, see the [Premiere Pro](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/adobe-premiere-pro), [DaVinci Resolve](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/davinci-resolve) and [Final Cut Pro](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/final-cut-pro) workflows. ### What it will not do - **It does not watch every frame.** It reads the transcript and samples frames when asked. Soft focus, a boom in shot, someone crossing behind — you catch those, not the model. - **Dialogue-led footage plays to its strengths.** Interviews, podcasts, testimonials: excellent. A wordless b-roll montage: possible, but you are doing much more of the steering. - **The last 10% is still yours.** Colour, mix, titles, the taste calls. Which is exactly why the export path matters more than the render. ### FAQ **Can Claude edit video on its own?** No. It cannot access media or output a timeline. Connected to an editing tool over MCP, it can direct an edit that you finish. **Should I just paste my transcript into Claude?** It gives a good paper edit — but the timecode is gone, so nothing it decides can be cut without you hunting for every line by hand. **Claude or ChatGPT for this?** Both work with the same connector. Claude tends to be stronger at holding a long transcript together and reasoning about structure. See [how to edit video with ChatGPT](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-chatgpt). **Does it change my original files?** No. The edit references them and the export relinks to them. **How long does it take?** The slow part is import, and it scales with footage length, not with how complicated your prompt is. The prompting itself is conversational. --- Rather try it on the same barbershop interviews than your own footage? It is the demo project inside Eddie — [open it and prompt it](https://app.heyeddie.ai/new). ## How to Export an AI Edit to Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve or Final Cut URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-export-an-ai-edit-to-premiere-resolve-final-cut Published: 2026-07-26 > **In Summary** > An AI edit is only worth anything if you can keep working on it. Eddie exports five formats, and the NLE timelines relink to your original camera files. The single most useful thing on this page is the DaVinci Resolve import setting that makes a perfectly valid timeline appear to do nothing at all. ### The short answer This is the step where AI editing usually collapses. You get a flat MP4, the client asks for one change, and you start again from the rushes. Export a **timeline** instead. Your original camera files relink, the cut arrives as clips you can trim, and the last 10% happens where it always happened: in your NLE, with your plugins, your LUTs and your keyboard shortcuts. All NLE exports are free. So are cloud MP4 renders. ### EddieU export walkthroughs [Exporting to Adobe Premiere Pro | EddieU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YQqke6rSIk) [Exporting to DaVinci Resolve | EddieU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTcOYwl8_fk) ### The footage in this walkthrough Three interviews with Jessica Hernandez and her daughter Alizé, who run Simply Men's Barbershop in West Chester, PA: **1 hour 4 minutes**, **13,675 words** of transcript, **3 speakers** separated automatically. ![Interview from the barbershop shoot](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/how-to/barbershop-interview-3.png) ### The five formats, and what each one carries | Format | For | Carries | | --- | --- | --- | | FCPXML | Final Cut Pro | Cut, crops, grades, b-roll, vertical layout, multicam clip | | FCPXML (Resolve flavour) | DaVinci Resolve | Cut, crops, grades, b-roll, multicam clip. **Not** the vertical layout | | Premiere XML | Premiere Pro | Cut, crops, grades, b-roll, layout, alternates stacked under each clip | | OTIO | OpenTimelineIO pipelines | Cut, with layout as metadata | | MP4 | A finished video | Everything, baked in | The NLE files are generated server-side from the edit itself, not from a render, which is why the crops and grades arrive as adjustable parameters rather than burned-in pixels. ### The Resolve import setting nobody tells you about If you take one thing from this page, take this. It cost us a day, we pinned it on Resolve Studio 21 in July 2026, and it is the single most common reason a Resolve import "does not work". **Resolve's FCPXML importer is all-or-nothing about media resolution.** With the Load XML dialog's default option "Automatically import source clips into media pool" switched **on**, a timeline whose media references do not resolve to real files on this machine is rejected **silently**. No error dialog. No timeline. File > Import > Timeline simply appears to do nothing. Cloud projects always hit this, because their media is referenced by bare filename for relink-by-name rather than by a path on your disk. So the import that appears broken is in fact a valid timeline being discarded without a message. Import it like this instead: 1. File > Import > Timeline, choose the file. 2. In the Load XML dialog, **uncheck "Automatically import source clips into media pool"**, then click Ok. The timeline appears with offline (red) clips. 3. Add your camera files to the Media Pool, right-click the offline clips and Relink. Resolve matches them by filename. Eddie ships those instructions inside the file itself, as a comment at the top of the XML, and repeats them in the response when you export. We would rather the fix travel with the file than live in a support article you find an hour later. Fully local projects never see the comment, because they never hit the problem. For the wider Resolve workflow, see [editing interviews in DaVinci Resolve with AI](https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-interviews-in-davinci-resolve-with-ai). ### What Premiere and Final Cut receive - **Final Cut Pro** gets a real multicam clip where the take was multicam: the chosen angle written as the video source, the group's reference angle as the audio source, kept as separate entries so audio does not scatter across tracks. - **Premiere Pro** gets the chosen angle on the timeline, with every alternate angle stacked on the lanes directly beneath it in group order, video enabled but hidden behind the top clip and audio muted. Revealing another angle is a visibility toggle, not a re-sync. More on both in [how to cut a multicam interview or podcast automatically](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-cut-a-multicam-interview-automatically), and the per-NLE guides: [Premiere Pro](https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-interviews-in-adobe-premiere-pro-with-ai) and [Final Cut Pro](https://www.heyeddie.ai/how-to/edit-interviews-in-final-cut-pro-with-ai). ### When you just want the video The MP4 is a real cloud render from your **original** files, not a re-encode of a preview, with crops, grades, b-roll overlays, titles, captions, motion graphics, music with auto-ducking and voice-over all baked in. The rules, so you can plan around them: - **1080p by default**, or source quality up to 4K. - **Output capped at 10 minutes.** Longer cuts: render in the Eddie desktop app, or export a timeline. - **30 renders per workspace per day**, one at a time. - **An unchanged edit re-downloads from cache** without using quota. - **A render takes a minute or two.** Ask again for the link if it is not ready. - **Free.** The quota above is the limit, not the price. ### Documents, not timelines Some deliverables are neither. A transcript, a shot log, a CSV of segments and speakers, an SRT or VTT subtitle file, a summary as a PDF or Word document: all of those are built as files with a download link, for free. Those links last 30 days. The subtitle case is the important one, because captions do not travel into NLE timelines. See the next section. ### What will not survive the handoff - **Captions do not go into an NLE timeline.** They are baked into MP4 renders and they render over the player. Premiere, Final Cut, Resolve and OTIO do not receive a caption track. If you are finishing in an NLE, export an SRT alongside the timeline and style it in your project. More in [how to add captions to a video automatically](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-add-captions-to-a-video-automatically). - **The vertical layout does not go to Resolve.** The Resolve flavour deliberately hands over the full-frame cut. If the deliverable is vertical and you finish in Resolve, take the MP4 or rebuild the reframe there. - **You still need your media.** A timeline is a set of references. Relinking needs the original camera files on a disk you can reach. - **Colour, mix and titles are still your job.** That is the point. The export exists so the machine hands you an assembly and then gets out of the way. ### FAQ **Do exports cost credits?** No. NLE timelines and cloud MP4 renders are both free. The MP4 daily quota still applies. **Are my original files modified?** No. The edit references them, and the export relinks to them. **Which format for Avid?** There is no file to pick. Eddie does not export an EDL. Avid Media Composer is supported in beta through the Eddie desktop app, which writes the cut into your open project as a new sequence. **Why is my Resolve import doing nothing?** Almost certainly the "Automatically import source clips into media pool" setting. See above. **Can I export straight from ChatGPT or Claude?** Yes, over the same [MCP connector](https://www.heyeddie.ai/mcp), and the download link comes back in the chat. See [how to edit video with ChatGPT](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-chatgpt) and [how to edit video with Claude](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-claude). **What if my cut is longer than 10 minutes and I need an MP4?** Render it in the Eddie desktop app, or export a timeline and render from your NLE. --- The barbershop project ships inside Eddie, so you can build a cut and export it to your own NLE without importing anything first. [Open it and prompt it](https://app.heyeddie.ai/new). ## How to Make Vertical Clips for Social from a Podcast or Interview URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-make-vertical-clips-from-a-podcast-or-interview Published: 2026-07-26 > **In Summary** > A vertical clip is three decisions: which 45 seconds, what shape the canvas is, and what part of the frame you keep. Eddie handles all three from a plain-language prompt, gives you a real 9:16 canvas with per-segment layouts, and bakes the crops into the FCPXML and Premiere XML as calibrated transforms. What it does not do is track anybody's face. ### The short answer Most "make a vertical clip" tools give you a square-ish crop of the centre of the frame and hope your subject stands still. That is fine for a talking head shot on a tripod at the centre of frame, and it is a mess for anything else. The useful version has two halves. **Finding the moment** is a reading problem, which a language model is genuinely good at once it can see a transcript with timecode attached. **Framing the moment** is a geometry problem, which needs the real pixel dimensions of your footage, not an assumption that everything is 16:9. Eddie splits it exactly that way, and both halves are free. ### The footage in this walkthrough Three interviews with Jessica Hernandez and her daughter Alizé, who run Simply Men's Barbershop in West Chester, PA. ![Second interview setup from the barbershop shoot](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/how-to/barbershop-interview-2.png) - **3 interviews**, 8:20, 24:59 and 30:38, **1 hour 4 minutes** total - **13,675 words** of transcript - **3 speakers**, plus interviewers, separated automatically An hour of interview is around six to ten decent vertical clips, and the whole difficulty is that they are scattered across three files. ### Step 1: Find the moment Search the transcript rather than the timeline. You can look for a phrase inside one source without pulling the whole transcript back, which matters on a long podcast: the search returns matching segments with their index and timestamps. In practice you ask for it in words: > Find the moment where Alizé talks about her first day cutting hair, and cut it as a 45 second vertical clip. Prompts that work on interview and podcast footage: - "Pull three clips that each make sense with no context." - "Find the strongest 30 seconds about starting the business during covid." - "Cut this so it opens on the sharpest line, not on the question." The clip itself is built as an ordinary edit: soundbites in an order, which means you can argue with it afterwards. ### Step 2: Give the edit a vertical canvas This is where it becomes a real 9:16 piece rather than a letterboxed 16:9 one. The canvas is set per edit, from a preset (`vertical` 9:16, `square` 1:1, `portrait` 4:5, `landscape` 16:9) or from explicit pixel dimensions. On the canvas you place video layers: - **V1** is the edit's A-roll spine and owns the audio. - **V2** is an optional second layer showing another camera angle at the same moment, visual only and muted. Each layer takes a **crop** (which part of the source frame you keep) and a **placement** (where it sits on the canvas), both as normalised rectangles. That gives you the layout everybody actually wants from a two-camera podcast: the guest on the top half, the host on the bottom half, stacked, full bleed, no black bars. ### Step 3: Get the aspect maths right, or let Eddie complain The renderer maps your crop rectangle into its slot **verbatim**. It does not letterbox for you and it does not politely fix a mismatch, because either behaviour would silently change your framing. So a distortion-free layout has to satisfy: `(crop.w * sourceAspect) / crop.h == (placement.w * canvasWidth) / (placement.h * canvasHeight)` Two things stop this being a chore. First, Eddie returns the real per-layer source aspects with the result, and warns you when a layer's numbers do not line up. Second, and more important, you should never guess the source aspect: ask for it. Sources report **rotation-aware display dimensions**, so phone footage shot in portrait but encoded landscape reports as 2160x3840 with a rotation flag rather than lying to you at 3840x2160. Cinema cameras ship 1.9:1, not 16:9. Trust the reported dimensions, never the raw encode. ### Step 4: Vary the layout by segment A split screen held for 45 seconds is exhausting. The better shape is: full frame on whoever is speaking during their answer, split screen for the back and forth. That is a per-segment override on top of the edit-level layout, and an empty layer list on a segment means plain full-canvas V1. This is the same idea as cutting angles on a landscape multicam edit, and it uses the same angle information. See [how to cut a multicam interview or podcast automatically](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-cut-a-multicam-interview-automatically). ### Step 5: Captions, then export Vertical clips are watched muted, so captions are not decoration. The animated word-by-word style is the default and is built from the edit's own transcript. See [how to add captions to a video automatically](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-add-captions-to-a-video-automatically). Then get it out: - **MP4** renders in the cloud from your original files with the crops, layout, captions and any music baked in. 1080p by default, or source quality up to 4K. Renders are capped at 10 minutes of output, which no vertical clip should ever hit. - **FCPXML and Premiere XML** bake the canvas and every crop and placement as calibrated transforms, so the vertical framing arrives in your NLE as adjustable parameters rather than a burned-in picture. - **OTIO** carries the layout as metadata. - **The DaVinci Resolve FCPXML flavour deliberately drops the layout** and hands Resolve the classic full-frame cut. If your deliverable is vertical and you finish in Resolve, take the MP4 or rebuild the reframe in Resolve. ![Third interview from the barbershop shoot](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/how-to/barbershop-interview-3.png) ### What it will not do - **Nothing here tracks a face.** There is no subject detection and no auto-reframe. The model can look at real frames from your footage and choose a crop rectangle from what it sees, and that is a genuinely good static framing decision, but nobody is following your subject across the frame shot by shot. If your subject moves, keep the crop wider or set it yourself. - **It does not score clips for virality.** It picks moments by reading what was said. It has no view on what the algorithm wants this week, and any tool that claims otherwise is guessing with more confidence than we are willing to. - **It will not rescue a wide two-shot.** Cropping 9:16 out of a wide means throwing away most of your pixels. A 4K master survives this; a 1080p wide does not. - **Layouts do not reach Resolve.** See above. This is a real limitation, not an oversight, and it is the reason to check your export target before you build the layout. ### FAQ **Do I need a second camera for the split-screen layout?** Yes. The V2 layer shows another angle of the same take, so it needs a real multicam group. One camera gives you a full-frame vertical crop instead. **Does the vertical layout cost credits?** No. Setting the canvas, the layers and the crops is free, and so are the NLE exports. **Can I do this from ChatGPT or Claude?** Yes, over the same [MCP connector](https://www.heyeddie.ai/mcp). See [how to edit video with ChatGPT](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-chatgpt) and [how to edit video with Claude](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-claude). **What if my podcast cameras were never grouped at import?** Group them yourself with a reference camera and an offset per camera. It is free and it is covered in [the multicam guide](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-cut-a-multicam-interview-automatically). **Can I get several clips out of one interview in one go?** Yes. Each clip is its own named edit, with its own canvas, layout and captions. --- The barbershop project ships inside Eddie, so you can build these clips on the same footage rather than trusting a screenshot. [Open it and prompt it](https://app.heyeddie.ai/new). ## How to Remove Filler Words from an Interview URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-remove-filler-words-from-an-interview Published: 2026-07-26 > **In Summary** > You remove filler by naming it, not by finding it. Ask for every "um" in a source and Eddie cuts every occurrence at word level, reversibly, for free. The parts worth knowing before you start: it will not decide what counts as filler, word cuts leave jump cuts on a single camera, and cutting a source does not shorten an edit you already built from it. ### The short answer Filler removal is a search-and-cut problem, and the search is the expensive half. In a 30 minute interview an "um" might appear a hundred times, and every one of them costs you a scrub, a zoom, two trims and a ripple. The workflow that removes the scrubbing is: address the filler **by its text**, in the transcript, and let the tool find every instance and cut it at word level. In Eddie that is one call, and it is free. Through the MCP connector you never see the call at all, because you just say it: > Cut every "um" and "you know" out of the second interview. ### The footage in this walkthrough The same shoot as the rest of these guides: three interviews with Jessica Hernandez and her daughter Alizé, who run Simply Men's Barbershop in West Chester, PA. ![Jessica and Alizé Hernandez during the interview shoot at Simply Men's Barbershop](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/how-to/barbershop-interview-1.png) - **3 interviews**, 8:20, 24:59 and 30:38, **1 hour 4 minutes** total - **13,675 words** of transcript once processed - **3 speakers** separated automatically, plus interviewers That word count is the useful number here. 13,675 words is roughly a 55 page script. Reading it for filler is not a task; it is an afternoon. We are not going to tell you how many "um"s are in it, because we have not counted them and a number we made up would be worth nothing to you. ### Step 1: Read before you cut Filler is addressed by the exact wording in the transcript, so look at the transcript first. Ask for the source list, then the transcript, or search inside one source for a phrase without pulling the whole thing back. The point of reading first is that filler is not a fixed list. "You know" is filler when it punctuates a sentence and it is not filler in "you know what she told me". Which is why the next step matters. ### Step 2: Name the filler, not the timecode The cut targets text. A phrase like `um` with occurrence set to **all** removes every instance in that source in one pass. That is the mode you want for genuine verbal tics: `um`, `uh`, `like`, `you know`, `I mean`, and the stutter starts such as `I, I think`. Three behaviours are worth knowing, because they are the difference between a tool you can trust with a client's interview and one you cannot: - **Ambiguity stops the cut.** If you name a phrase that appears several times and you did not say "all", Eddie returns the list of occurrences with their timecodes and context, and changes nothing. You choose, then it cuts. - **Implausible matches are refused.** If the matched span is far longer than the phrase could physically take to say, the cut is rejected with the measured span and the expected maximum. This guard exists because of a real failure: a short phrase once resolved to scattered words across a 30 second stretch, and cutting it would have removed 30 seconds of the interview. It now refuses and tells you to narrow the target. - **Everything is reversible.** The same target with restore set un-cuts it. The original media is never touched. ![Second interview setup from the same shoot](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/how-to/barbershop-interview-2.png) ### Step 3: Deal with the jump cuts This is the part most "AI removes filler" claims skip. Cutting words out of the middle of a shot removes time from the picture as well as the audio, so on a single locked-off camera you get a jump cut at every removal. That is fine, and often invisible, for a fast social cut. It is not fine for a sit-down interview intended to look untouched. Your options, in order of how much work they are: 1. **Cover with another angle.** If the interview is multicam, switch angle on the segments where you cut. Covering a jump cut is the single best use of a second camera. See [how to cut a multicam interview or podcast automatically](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-cut-a-multicam-interview-automatically). 2. **Cover with b-roll.** A cutaway over the cut hides it completely. 3. **Leave it.** Jump cuts are a house style now. Own it rather than half hiding it. There is also the opposite problem: cut too tight and people start talking over each other's breaths. Eddie can put a pause back into a specific spot when a cut lands too close. ### Step 4: Know what happened to your existing edits The one genuinely surprising behaviour, and the one we would rather you read here than discover on a deadline. **Filler cuts apply to the source. They do not retroactively shorten an edit you already built from that source.** An edit is a curated snapshot: you chose those soundbites, in that order, and Eddie will not silently re-cut them underneath you. So the response to a filler cut includes an impact report covering every saved edit that references that source, and flags the ones that still contain material you just removed. Rebuild those, or run the same removal on the edit. The order that avoids the problem entirely: **clean the source first, build the edit second.** Captions behave correctly either way. The caption track is built from the edit's transcript with word cuts applied, so a filler you removed does not reappear as a caption word. See [how to add captions to a video automatically](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-add-captions-to-a-video-automatically). ### What it will not do - **It will not decide what filler is.** There is no "clean this up" button that reads taste. You (or the model, on your instruction) name the words. That is deliberate: an automatic pass that quietly deletes every "like" will eventually delete a real one. - **It does not remove breaths, lip smacks or room tone.** This is transcript-driven and works on words. Non-verbal noise is a job for your NLE or your mix. - **It does not fix pacing.** Removing filler makes an interview tighter, not better. A rambling answer with the "um"s gone is a rambling answer. - **It does not touch your original files.** Nothing is destructive, which is also why you can undo any of it. ### FAQ **Does removing filler cost credits?** No. Removing content is free, and so is restoring it. **Can I remove one specific "you know" and keep the rest?** Yes. Name the surrounding words as context, or pass the occurrence number, or scope the cut to a single transcript segment. **Will the cuts survive into Premiere or Resolve?** Yes. Word cuts are part of the edit that gets serialised, so the exported timeline is already tightened. See [how to export an AI edit to Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve or Final Cut](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-export-an-ai-edit-to-premiere-resolve-final-cut). **Can I do this from ChatGPT or Claude rather than in the app?** Yes, over the same [MCP connector](https://www.heyeddie.ai/mcp). See [how to edit video with ChatGPT](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-chatgpt) and [how to edit video with Claude](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-edit-video-with-claude). **Is there an undo?** Yes. Repeat the same target with restore, and the words come back. --- Want to try it on the same barbershop interviews rather than your own footage? It is the demo project inside Eddie, [open it and prompt it](https://app.heyeddie.ai/new). ## Import dirty multicams (aka synced timelines) URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/import-edit-dirty-multicams-aka-synced-timelines Published: 2025-12-16 > **In Summary** > Eddie AI now supports dirty multicams (synced timelines) from Premiere and DaVinci Resolve. Import timelines created natively or with tools like Syncaila and Tentacle Sync and start editing immediately—no flattening, re-syncing, or prep required. #### Eddie AI Now Supports Dirty Multicams (Synced Timelines) Editors don’t always work with clean multicam clips. In practice, many workflows rely on **synced timelines**—often called _dirty multicams_—that were assembled quickly to align cameras and audio, make early switches, and preserve context before editorial decisions begin. These timelines are commonly created: * Directly inside **Adobe Premiere Pro** or **DaVinci Resolve,** manually * Using dedicated syncing tools like **Syncaila** (waveform-based) or **Tentacle Sync Studio** (timecode-based) Until now, those timelines had to be flattened, rebuilt, or re-synced before they could be used with Eddie. **That’s no longer the case.** #### What’s New Eddie AI now supports importing **synced timelines (dirty multicams)** from: * **Adobe Premiere Pro** * **DaVinci Resolve** Eddie reads the timeline structure as-is and enables editing workflows on top of it—without requiring users to reconstruct multicams or re-align source media. This update reads clips on v1, v2, v3, vX, a1, a2, a3, aX, etc. And preserves this structure all the way to Eddie and its AI video editing through to export of the sequence back to Premiere/Resolve. #### Why This Is Important Synced timelines are often the _first meaningful editorial artifact_ in post-production. By supporting dirty multicams, Eddie can now: * Generate selects from real editorial timelines * Create rough cuts that respect existing structure * Apply scripted mode workflows without breaking sync * Eliminate redundant sync and prep steps This was the **most requested feature** from Eddie users over the past month, particularly among editors working in documentary, interview-heavy, and multicam environments. #### Typical Workflow A common workflow now looks like this: 1. Sync footage using Premiere, Resolve, Syncaila, or Tentacle Sync 2. Make a rough synced timeline 3. Import that timeline/sequence into Eddie using the Eddie helper extension for [Resolve](https://help.heyeddie.ai/en/articles/11272954-install-and-enable-eddie-s-davinci-resolve-extension) and [Premiere](https://help.heyeddie.ai/en/articles/10952472-how-to-install-and-use-the-eddie-extension-for-adobe-premiere-pro) 4. Use Eddie to accelerate selects and rough cuts 5. Round-trip the result back to your NLE No re-syncing. No flattening. No workaround timelines. #### Availability Dirty multicam import is available now for subscribers on the requisite plan and who use: * **Adobe Premiere Pro** * **DaVinci Resolve** If you’re working with synced timelines and previously couldn’t bring them into Eddie, this update should remove that limitation entirely. ## Logging v2: Tell Eddie What to Look For URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/logging-v2-tell-eddie-what-to-look-for Published: 2026-06-10 > **In Summary** > Eddie's Logging v2 adds topic steering, so you can direct what it listens for, and backgrounder documents, so it understands the context of your footage, making the first logging pass sharper and more in your control. Eddie has been logging A-roll and B-roll on its own for a while — transcribing dialogue, tagging visuals, grouping clips by topic, generating stringouts you can drop into your NLE. It works when the footage speaks for itself. But editors don't usually walk into a project blind. You know the angle. You know who the subject is. You know which scenes carry the film and which ones are filler. Until now, that context lived in your head — or in a Slack thread with the director — and Eddie had to figure it out from raw material. Logging v2 changes that. You can now tell Eddie what to focus on, clip by clip, before it starts. ### What's new **Topic steering — up to five per clip.** When you bring footage into Eddie, you can specify what to look for on a per-clip basis: topics or themes, key characters or speakers, product names, recurring locations, specific objects, actions, or visual moments. The bins, stringouts, and searchable transcripts come back organized around what you told Eddie matters, not what it guessed. ![](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/framer/40bc264a-8RuxTGKTpttzJj8L2t6fzuxWo.png) **Backgrounder documents.** Attach a Google Doc, PDF, or Word file at import — a brief, a treatment, a director's note, an interview outline — and Eddie reads it before logging. Story intent goes in at the front of the workflow instead of arriving later as corrective prompts in chat. ![](https://www.heyeddie.ai/images/framer/f2fcd082-m7t3D0Ih2A37dnT1hzU4aOLn5E.png) **Stills support for B-roll.** Photographs get logged alongside video clips. Useful for documentary, archival, and brand projects where stills carry real story weight. **20 hours of source material on Pro+.** Docs/Stringouts mode now handles up to 20 hours per project. That covers documentary scale, multi-day interview shoots, conference coverage, and the kinds of long-form projects where logging is the bottleneck. ### Why this matters AI assemblies are only as good as the brief. If Eddie has to infer the story from raw footage, you'll spend the back half of your session prompting it toward what you actually wanted. Topic steering and backgrounders close that loop earlier — less corrective prompting, cleaner first-pass logs, stringouts that already lean toward your edit. It's the same principle as briefing an assistant editor: the more they know going in, the less you have to redo later. ### How to use it 1. Open Eddie and start a new project in **Log A-Roll / B-Roll** mode. 2. Upload your footage. 3. For each clip (or batch), add your topics — up to five. Keep them specific to your story (e.g. "post-fire recovery," "Sarah's testimony," "drone exteriors of the warehouse"). 4. Optionally, attach a backgrounder doc — your treatment, brief, or shot list. 5. Let Eddie log. The bins, transcripts, and stringouts that come back will be shaped by what you told it to care about. Export to Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, or Final Cut Pro as usual. Multicam and Dirty Multicam handling are unchanged. ### Private beta: B-roll-driven edits If you cut event sizzles, wedding videos, brand pieces, or anything else where the visuals drive the story — we have a private beta open. You'll get early access to a B-roll-first edit experience built on top of Logging v2. Reach out and tell us about a project you'd test it on. ### What's next We're extending the topic-steering and backgrounder context capability to the dedicated A/B-roll logging mode in a future release, so editors who stay in pure logging workflows get the same upfront control. ### Try it now Logging v2 is live. Topic steering, backgrounders, and stills support work on every tier. The 20-hour Docs/Stringouts cap requires Pro+. [Download Eddie](../#desktopapp) or [open the app](https://heyeddie.ai/) and start a new project. _Coverage:_ [_CineD_](https://www.cined.com/eddie-ai-logging-v2-announced-topic-steering-20-hour-pro-tier-and-backgrounder-documents/) _·_ [_RedShark News_](https://www.redsharknews.com/eddie-ai-logging-v2-topic-steering-stills-support) ## Best OpusClip Alternatives URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/opusclip-alternative Published: 2026-02-20 > **In Summary** > If you want to replace OpusClip, choose a tool in the same lane. If you want to reduce how often you even need OpusClip, choose a tool upstream that makes raw footage searchable and assembly faster. The best OpusClip alternative depends on what you actually want to replace: clip selection, captions, publishing, or the upstream rough-cut and logging work. OpusClip is optimized for “turn long-form into shorts,” so the strongest alternatives are other highlight and clipping systems or tools that make the source edit easier so clips are cheaper to produce. | **Tool** | **Best alternative when you need** | **Why it is different** | | --- | --- | --- | | Eddie AI | NLE-ready rough cuts plus clips | Built for pro workflows and exports back to NLEs | | Riverside Magic Clips | One-click highlights from podcasts | Clip generation inside a recording and editing platform | | Descript | Transcript-first editing + publishing | Edit by editing text, plus recording + captions | | Gling | Talking-head cleanup before clipping | Removes retakes/silences/fillers, then finish elsewhere | | VEED | Browser editor + captions + dubbing | All-in-one online suite for social edits | | Submagic | “Scroll-stopping” captions styling | Caption-first tool with templates and engagement styling | | InVideo AI | Prompt-to-video content generation | Stock-based generation with voiceover, music, transitions | ## OpusClip vs Eddie AI URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/opusclip-vs-eddie-ai Published: 2026-02-20 > **In Summary** > Opus is “clip factory.” Eddie is “assistant editor.” If you only need social clips, start with Opus. If you need a pro rough cut that survives the last-mile craft in an NLE, Eddie is the closer match. OpusClip is the better choice if your primary goal is turning long videos into short, social-ready clips and publishing them fast. Eddie is the better choice if your primary goal is building a coherent rough cut from raw footage, organizing it, and then finishing inside Premiere/Resolve/Final Cut. | **Category** | **Eddie AI** | **OpusClip** | | --- | --- | --- | | Best for | Editors and teams finishing in NLEs | Creators and social teams shipping shorts | | Core output | NLE sequence + MP4 exports | Multiple short clips + captions + layouts | | Publishing workflow | Not positioned as “publish in one click” | Explicitly positioned around publishing | | Captions and layouts | Captions exports + vertical exports | Caption animations + dynamic layouts | | Multicam editing | Explicit multicam support | Not positioned as multicam editor | | Pricing meter | Credits per unique project export | Processing minutes + tiers | ## Pick your B-roll on the timeline: stock or generated, before it lands URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/pick-your-b-roll-on-the-timeline Published: 2026-09-02 B-roll has always been the part of the edit you did on trust. You asked for a cutaway, something went and found one, and the first time you saw it was when it was already sitting over your interview. If it was wrong, you asked again and hoped. That is no longer how it works in Eddie. The cutaway is now something you choose, on the timeline, from clips you can watch, before a single frame is imported. And if the shot you need does not exist in your footage or in any stock library, Eddie can make it. ### The ✨ on a clip Open an edit, switch to the timeline, and hover any clip. A small ✨ appears in its corner. Click it and you get a compact prompt box scoped to just that clip, with a row of one-tap chips underneath. Two of those chips are the whole feature: **Cover with b-roll** and **Generate AI b-roll**. Either one opens a picker titled *B-roll for this beat*, and under the title is the line your speaker actually says on that clip. That sounds like a small detail. It is the detail: you are not describing a shot into a chat and hoping the description survives, you are looking at the sentence the shot has to cover, and Eddie has already read it and gone looking. Select a run of clips first, Shift-click or Cmd-click, and the same ✨ covers the whole stretch. [Pick b-roll from the timeline →](https://www.heyeddie.ai/help/broll-from-the-timeline) ### Stock first, and free The moment the picker opens, Eddie searches stock footage for that beat. Free clips from Pexels, plus your own Shutterstock catalogue if you have connected a key. The candidates come back as tiles that play when you hover them, filtered to your project's orientation and to clips long enough to cut with. Nothing costs anything at this point. Searching is free, importing is free, and the strip says so: *free to add*. If you want something other than what the line suggests, type it in the shot box and search again. If no stock matches the moment, Eddie says that, rather than padding your cut with a hallway. Pick the tiles you want and press **Add**. They transfer in the background and land on the B-roll track over the beat you pointed at, with your speaker's audio running underneath. Chosen clips go onto the timeline, not into a bin you then have to go and find them in. [Stock B-roll →](https://www.heyeddie.ai/help/stock-broll) ### When nothing has the shot, generate it Some lines have no footage. Nobody filmed the thing your speaker is describing, and stock does not have it either, because it is specific to this story. That used to mean holding on the talking head and moving on. Now the same picker can render it. Choose a quality tier, Best, Standard or Budget, and press one button: **Generate 3 previews**, with the price printed on it. Eddie writes the shot from what the clip says, one filmable image rather than a keyword, and renders three takes so you are choosing between options rather than rolling once. Takes stream into the picker as each finishes. Close it and keep editing; a small pill at the bottom of the editor tracks progress and brings you back when they are ready. Worth being direct about the money, because this is the first thing in Eddie where one click is real dollars at a vendor: - **The price is on the button before you press it.** Nothing is charged until you do. - **All three takes are paid for**, whether you keep one, two or none. Adding a take you like costs nothing more. - **Regenerating is a new, full-price round.** There are no free retries. - **Refunds happen when a take fails to render**, including when the model refuses the prompt. Not when you dislike the result. A clip that renders is a clip you bought. Generated clips are short, silent, and match your project's orientation. Eddie adds no visible watermark, but a generated clip, and a cloud MP4 export that contains one, carry the standard IPTC "AI-generated" metadata (the digital source type, in the file's XMP). Desktop MP4 exports and NLE project files do not. C2PA content credentials are available through enterprise agreements; [contact sales](https://www.heyeddie.ai/contact-sales) to get them. Disclosing synthetic footage on the platforms you publish to is your responsibility, not something a tool can do for you. Stock is still the first thing Eddie reaches for; generation is for the shot nothing else has. [Generate AI b-roll →](https://www.heyeddie.ai/help/generative-broll) ### Eight shots, not one One cutaway covers a line. A sequence covers a stretch, and picking eight clips one at a time is how you end up with eight clips that each matched the brief and collectively look like eight different shoots. Select several clips and ask to cover them, and Eddie lays the stretch out as a shot list: a board of slots, each anchored to the moment in your cut it covers, each with a shot size and a job to do. You fill them from stock. Where a slot has nothing suitable, Eddie offers to generate that one shot, priced on its own. And once the strip is picked, it is judged as a set: a shot that reads as a different shoot gets flagged, and you swap it or keep it. [Plan a b-roll sequence →](https://www.heyeddie.ai/help/broll-sequences) ### What it does not do The picker needs edit access; viewers of a shared link see the timeline but not the ✨. Sequences are switched on per workspace, so a multi-clip selection may open the single picker for now. And generation appears in the picker only when it is available to you; the stock strip is there either way. The chat has not gone anywhere. "Cover the jump cut at 0:45 with b-roll" still works, and both paths edit the same cut. The ✨ is for when you know exactly which moment you mean and would rather point than describe it. As always, just tell Eddie what you want and it will do it. — The Eddie AI team ## Premiere Pro Text-Based Editing vs Eddie AI: Which One Builds Your Rough Cut? URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/premiere-pro-text-based-editing-vs-eddie-ai Published: 2026-10-25 > **In Summary** > Text-Based Editing is built into Premiere Pro and is the right tool when you already know which lines you want: transcribe, select text, put it in the sequence, clean up pauses and filler words. Eddie AI is for the step before that, when there are hours of interviews and nobody has chosen the lines yet. Eddie reads all of it, builds the first cut from a brief, and sends the sequence back to Premiere, where Text-Based Editing is still there for the fine trim. Most editors who try both end up using both. ### The short answer Premiere Pro's Text-Based Editing turns a transcript into an editing surface. It is fast, it is included in Premiere, and for a single interview it may be all you need. What it does not do is choose. Every soundbite in the sequence is one you found and selected. With four interviewees and three hours of footage, the finding is the job, and the transcript only makes the reading faster. Eddie is an [AI video editor](https://www.heyeddie.ai/ai-video-editor) that does the finding. You describe the story, and it proposes a structured cut across every clip, with speakers identified and b-roll logged. The cut comes back to Premiere as a sequence pointing at your original media. ### Side by side | | **Premiere Pro Text-Based Editing** | **Eddie AI** | | --- | --- | --- | | What it is | A transcript panel inside Premiere Pro | An AI editor that connects to Premiere through a panel | | Who picks the lines | You do, by selecting transcript text | Eddie proposes them from your brief; you revise by chat | | Several interviews at once | You read and select from each clip in turn | Reads every clip in the project and cuts across them | | Pauses and filler words | Finds them and removes them, one by one or in bulk | Removes them as part of the cut, on request | | B-roll | You place it | Logs b-roll by what is in the shot and can lay cutaways | | Multicam | Edit the multicam as usual | Syncs angles and cuts to whoever is speaking | | Transcription languages | The languages Premiere's Speech to Text supports | 100+ languages, detected automatically | | Cost | Included with Premiere Pro | Pay-as-you-go credits; 500 free to start, packs from $10 | ### When Text-Based Editing is enough - **One interview, a clear brief.** If you already know the story, selecting lines in the transcript is the fastest route. - **Cleanup on a finished structure.** Removing pauses and filler words from a locked cut is exactly what the Transcript panel is for. - **Captions inside Premiere.** The same transcript feeds Premiere's captions. ### When Eddie saves the day - **Lots of footage, no selects yet.** Eddie reads every interview, finds the speakers and the lines that carry the story, and proposes an order. You review a cut instead of building one. - **A brief from a producer.** Paste the brief or the script. Eddie follows the structure and picks the best take of each line ([scripted edits](https://www.heyeddie.ai/features/scripted)). - **Several versions.** A 90-second, a 30-second and a vertical cut are each a message, not a re-edit. - **B-roll and multicam in the first cut.** Eddie [logs b-roll](https://www.heyeddie.ai/features/broll-logging) and [syncs multicam](https://www.heyeddie.ai/features/multicam), so the first pass already looks like an edit. ### Using both The two do not compete. A typical round trip: 1. **Send the bin to Eddie** from Premiere through the Eddie panel, which the [desktop app](https://www.heyeddie.ai/downloadapp) installs. 2. **Ask for the cut** in plain language: "Three minutes, open on the founder, end on the customer, no jargon." 3. **Revise by chat** until the structure is right. 4. **Send it back to Premiere.** The sequence relinks to your original camera files. 5. **Fine-trim with Text-Based Editing.** Tidy pauses, swap a word, polish. Then colour, sound and titles as usual. Every click of steps 1 to 4 is in the [Premiere Pro AI rough cut guide](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-build-a-rough-cut-in-premiere-pro-with-ai), and the whole route is on the [Premiere Pro workflow page](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/adobe-premiere-pro). ### FAQ **Does Premiere Pro have an AI rough cut?** Not one that builds the structure for you. Text-Based Editing makes cutting from a transcript fast, but you choose every line. Eddie proposes the cut from a brief and sends it back to Premiere. **Do I have to leave Premiere?** Only to write the brief. The panel sends clips to Eddie and brings the sequence back. You finish in Premiere. **Will the sequence point at my original media?** Yes, when you send from the panel. If you upload in a browser instead, the export points at Eddie's proxy media. **What does it cost?** A new account starts with 500 free credits. Import is 250 credits per hour of footage and a timeline export is 100 credits. Packs start at $10 and never expire. See [pricing](https://www.heyeddie.ai/pricing). **Does it work with DaVinci Resolve or Final Cut Pro?** Yes. See the [Resolve](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/davinci-resolve) and [Final Cut Pro](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/final-cut-pro) workflows. --- Got a bin full of interviews? [Start a project for free](https://app.heyeddie.ai/new) and let Eddie propose the first cut. ## Simon Says Alternative: When You Want the Rough Cut, Not Just the Transcript URL: https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/simon-says-alternative Published: 2026-10-25 > **In Summary** > Simon Says is a transcription tool with an assembly editor: you read the transcript, pick the soundbites and drag them into order, then export the sequence to your editing app. Eddie AI starts one step later. It transcribes and logs the footage, then builds the first cut from a brief you write in plain language, and sends it back to Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve or Final Cut Pro. If you want a better transcript, Simon Says does the job. If you want the assembly done for you, that is what Eddie is for. ### The short answer Most editors who look for a Simon Says alternative are not unhappy with its transcripts. They want the next step done too. Choosing every soundbite from four interviews is still the slow part of the job, even when you are doing it in text instead of on a timeline. Simon Says Assemble makes that manual step faster: you highlight lines in the transcript and drag them into a sequence. Eddie is an [AI video editor](https://www.heyeddie.ai/ai-video-editor) that proposes the sequence itself. You tell it the story, the length and the speakers to favour, and it returns a structured cut you can review, change by chat, and send to your editing app. ### Side by side | | **Simon Says** | **Eddie AI** | | --- | --- | --- | | Core job | Transcription, translation and subtitles | AI rough cuts from interviews and b-roll | | Building the cut | You highlight soundbites and drag them into order | Eddie builds the cut from a written brief; you revise by chat | | Export | XML to Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Avid | Round trip to Premiere Pro, Resolve and Final Cut Pro; Avid in beta | | Languages | Many languages for transcription and translation | Transcribes 100+ languages and detects the language automatically | | Pricing | Per hour of transcription or a monthly plan; check their current pricing | Pay-as-you-go credits from $10; 500 free credits to start; packs never expire | ### Where Simon Says is the better fit - **You need transcripts, captions or translations as the deliverable.** Simon Says was built for that, and its exports cover Word, SRT and the main editing apps. - **You want to pick every line yourself.** If the selection is the creative work you want to keep, a transcript-first assembly tool fits the way you already think. - **Your team reviews in a browser.** Simon Says describes Assemble as a shared web editor where producers can comment and sign off on a string-out. ### Where Eddie is the better fit - **You have more footage than time.** Eddie reads all of it, finds the speakers and the lines that carry the story, and proposes an order. You start from a cut, not a blank sequence. - **The story needs b-roll and more than one camera.** Eddie [logs b-roll](https://www.heyeddie.ai/features/broll-logging) by what is in the shot, [syncs multicam](https://www.heyeddie.ai/features/multicam) and switches to the speaker, so the first cut already looks like an edit. - **You finish in Premiere, Resolve or Final Cut.** The cut comes back as a sequence pointing at your original media. Colour, sound and titles stay where you do them now. See the [Premiere Pro](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/adobe-premiere-pro), [DaVinci Resolve](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/davinci-resolve) and [Final Cut Pro](https://www.heyeddie.ai/workflows/final-cut-pro) workflows. - **You work from a script or outline.** Give Eddie the script and it follows your structure, picking the best take of each line ([scripted edits](https://www.heyeddie.ai/features/scripted)). ### How the switch works 1. **Bring the footage in.** Send it from your editing app with the Eddie desktop app, or upload the files. Eddie transcribes and logs everything. 2. **Write the brief.** For example: "A three-minute story about why the team moved to four-day weeks. Open on Priya, end on the customer quote, keep the jokes out." 3. **Review and revise.** Ask for a shorter version, a different opening or more of one speaker. Each change is a message, not a re-edit. 4. **Send it home.** Export the sequence to your editing app and finish as usual. The [step-by-step Premiere guide](https://www.heyeddie.ai/blog/how-to-build-a-rough-cut-in-premiere-pro-with-ai) walks the round trip with every click. ### What Eddie will not do - **It will not finish the film.** Grading, mixing and the last pass of taste stay in your editing app. - **It does not replace watching the cut.** Eddie edits from the transcript and what it logged in the footage. You still review it. - **It is not a captioning service for its own sake.** Eddie writes captions and SRT files for your edits, but if a transcript or translation is the only thing you need, a transcription tool is the simpler buy. ### FAQ **Is Eddie a transcription tool?** It transcribes everything you import, in 100+ languages, because the edit is built from the words. You can export the transcript as SRT. But its job is the cut, not the transcript. **Can I still pick soundbites by hand?** Yes. Ask Eddie to find lines on a topic, keep or drop specific moments, or rebuild the cut around the soundbites you choose. **Does it work with Avid Media Composer?** Avid support is in beta, through the Eddie extension in the desktop app, with access from a waitlist. Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro are fully supported. **What does it cost?** Eddie is pay-as-you-go. A new account starts with 500 free credits, packs start at $10, and credits never expire. About an hour of footage imported and edited fits in the $10 pack. See [pricing](https://www.heyeddie.ai/pricing). --- Have interviews waiting for a first cut? [Start a project for free](https://app.heyeddie.ai/new) and give Eddie the brief.