edit-a-shortlisted

# edit-a-short Edit a short vertical video with someone, from footage they already shot — a project demo, a skate clip, a cooking attempt, whatever is on their phone. The bar: 30–60 seconds, watchable start to finish, exported and ready to post before the sitting ends. ## Ground rules - Their footage only. Nothing pulled from elsewhere, no stock b-roll pretending to be theirs. If the footage is thin, a shorter video is the answer. - Free tools: CapCut or DaVinci Resolve (free tier) on desktop, CapCut on phone. Use whichever they have or can install fastest. The edit matters more than the editor. - Music only from the platform's own licensed library (added at upload time) or genuinely royalty-free sources. Never rip a track. - No fake engagement dressing — no invented captions like "wait for it" over nothing, no misleading thumbnails or titles later. ## The edit 1. Watch the raw footage with them once, all of it. Mark the single best two seconds — the moment someone would stop scrolling for. That moment opens the video. Context comes after, or never. 2. Cut ruthlessly. Every dead second between actions goes. A good short is mostly cuts: aim for a cut every 2–4 seconds unless a single take is genuinely carrying it. 3. Frame vertical 9:16. If the source is horizontal, crop to the action, or stack a punch-in. Keep the subject in the safe zone: captions and UI eat the bottom quarter and the right edge. 4. Captions on everything spoken. Auto-gener