Take something from every clip, and list the ones you cut with a reason
A rule for cutting someone else's footage, or your own from a year ago: each clip was filmed because it mattered, so each gets a chance, and the rejects get a written reason the person can argue with.
After the cut is proposed, produce the CLIP ACCOUNT. For every source clip in the folder, one row: Clip | Shooting time | Used (in/out, where in the film) or NOT USED | Reason. Rules for the reason column: - 'Not used' needs a reason a person can check: duplicate of {clip} (same scene, worse frame), no usable speech (wind), nothing visible (lens cap, pocket), covered by a better shot of the same object, the story does not pass through this place. - 'Boring' is not a reason. If the only reason is boring, find the 2 seconds in it that are not: a face, a gesture, the object of the day. - Count: used clips, not-used clips, seconds used of seconds filmed. - If more than {30} percent of clips are not used, go back to the cut and find one shot in each of the rejects to use as a cutaway before finalising. Source clips: {paste clip list with durations and shooting times} Proposed cut: {paste cut.json or the EDL}
In Claude Code, paste the prompt as a message, or run /video-edit which does this end to end.
Steps
- Generate the clip list from the folder with shooting times from container metadata, not file names.
- Run the account after the first cut, before the critic pass. Fix the rejects first; the critic will have other notes.
- Send the not-used list with the film. The person who filmed it will tell you which reason is wrong, and that is a one-line edit.
Tips
- The person filmed it, so it mattered. A clip you cannot place is usually a clip you did not understand, not a clip without value.
- Life2Film's per-segment scores tell you which 2 seconds of a dull clip are the sharpest and steadiest; pick the cutaway from there.
| works with | Claude Code: Runs as a skill or a prompt in the terminal; can read your files and write the result. · Life2Film: The montage app: analysis, segment scoring and cuts on your device. · CapCut / any editor: A manual recipe for any editor. · By hand: No tool needed: a checklist or a technique. |
| skill | npx skills add fortunto2/solo-factory/video-edit · source |
| cost | Free. No API, no key. |
| status | Unverified: written from the technique, not yet run end to end by us. |
| license | CC BY 4.0 for the text here; skills are MIT. |
| updated | 2026-11-01 |
| for agents | take-something-from-every-clip.md |
Related
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The critic pass: repeats and sagging scenes first, mid-word joins second
A two-pass review prompt for a subagent or a second session: pass one on structure (repeats, sagging scenes), pass two on joins (mid-word cuts, audio seams). One read finds one kind of problem.
The day as one text file: an agent reads the speech and proposes the story
The step before any timeline: the day's speech in shooting order, numbered by clip and sentence, read by an agent like a scriptwriter. It proposes story, scenes, hook and cutaways; you argue in text.
The cutaway rule: what is said, same place and time, never over moving lips
Three constraints for every cutaway in a talking film, and the agent prompt that applies them to a transcript. Kills what viewers read as broken: a picture from elsewhere, a face out of sync.
Read the film as text before rendering: the last check that costs nothing
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Scenes, not best phrases: keep the lead-in, the talk and the reaction
Why a reel of good lines confuses everyone who was not there, and the checklist for keeping a scene whole: the lead-in, the talk, the reaction, with filler trimmed only at the ends.