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Craft guide

4 min read Source on GitHub

What a senior video editor works on, in the order they usually handle it. The numbers are common working ranges, not fixed rules. Each section ends with how the kit helps.

1. Story

  • One promise per video. If you cannot say it in a sentence, the video is two videos.
  • Hook in the first 5 seconds: the viewer's problem, not your logo.
  • Show only the two or three interactions that prove the promise. A tour of every screen proves nothing.
  • End with one clear next step.
  • Length follows the promise: 60 to 120 seconds for one idea, up to about 3 minutes for a full walkthrough in chapters.

In the kit: hookCard for the opening, endCard with cta for the close, target to hold the length.

2. Pacing and transitions

  • Cut every second where nothing happens.
  • Never show a blank screen, a white flash, a spinner or the word "Loading".
  • Hold text long enough to read it twice.
  • A change of screen is a dissolve, and the wait for a slow screen happens somewhere the viewer does not feel it: behind a chapter card, or while the previous line is still being spoken.

In the kit: stage.cut, stage.dissolve, stage.chapter; the holds check.

3. Motion

  • Nothing moves at constant speed. Things entering slow down as they arrive; things leaving speed up.
  • Small interface moves last 150 to 300 ms. Camera moves last 400 to 800 ms.
  • Items in a list arrive 40 to 80 ms apart.
  • One thing moves at a time. Motion pulls the eye, so use it only where the viewer should look.
  • One motion language for the whole video: the same easing, the same distances.

In the kit: the pointer, spotlight, labels and cards share two easing curves (EASE_OUT for arrivals, EASE_IN_OUT for moves).

4. Camera

  • Zoom in to the area of action, hold, then back out.
  • Keep the pointer's path smooth and direct.
  • Highlight or dim to direct attention.
  • Keep anything messy or irrelevant out of frame.

In the kit: stage.focus and stage.release.

5. Graphics and type

  • One type system: a text face (best: the app's own), a display face for cards and titles, a mono face for small labels and data.
  • Display type is heavy and tightly tracked (about -0.03em). Small overlines are mono, uppercase, widely tracked (about 0.2em).
  • At most three sizes on one card.
  • A callout label says why a thing matters, not what it is.
  • Captions are at most two balanced lines and stay clear of the thing being shown.
  • Title, chapter and end cards share one design.

In the kit: theme.type; captions are split at 92 characters and balanced.

6. Sound

  • The voice leads. Level the whole mix to a standard loudness (about -16 LUFS for online video).
  • Use one fixed gain for that. An automatic leveller turns the music up in every pause.
  • Music sits at least 15 dB under the voice and drops further while the voice speaks.
  • Effects are soft and low. A sound that plays twenty times in a video is judged far more harshly than one that plays once.
  • No dead silence between scenes.

In the kit: the encoder does all of it; sound.lufs and sound.musicGain adjust it.

Learned the hard way. The first version played a bright interface sound, with most of its energy near 4.7 kHz, on every highlight. The first reviewer called it a squeak. The replacement sits near 400 Hz. Before adding a sound that repeats, measure it: ffmpeg -i sound.wav -af "aspectralstats=measure=centroid,ametadata=print:key=lavfi.aspectralstats.1.centroid:file=-" -f null - and keep the centroid under about 1 kHz.

7. Finish

  • Watch it once with the sound off, and once with your eyes closed.
  • Export 1080p H.264 with AAC, and keep the caption file with it.
  • Pick a thumbnail frame that states the promise.

In the kit: the checks after every render. They measure the file; they do not watch or listen to it.

A checklist for review

  • The first 5 seconds state a problem the viewer has
  • Every scene makes one point, and its line is one or two sentences
  • No loading state, blank frame or white flash anywhere
  • Every spotlight has a label that says why
  • Captions never cover what is being shown
  • No real customer name or data on screen
  • The end card has one next step, and says if the data is fictional
  • Someone has listened to it from start to end