AI Tools Resource

Video editing with Claude — a checklist

The steps for cutting a raw clip in Claude Code — from loading the skills, through trimming and animation, to render and fixes. Open it when you sit down with an actual clip.

This is the version to keep open while you edit. Open it when you have a raw clip in front of you and work down the list in order: trim first, then transcribe, only then animate and render. The order is fixed, and it decides the result — do not skip a stage.

0. Before you start — what you need

Check all of this is in place before you drop in the first file.

  • Install Claude Code and pick the variant: the desktop app (simpler interface) or the code editor (shows every project file). For editing, the app is enough.
  • Have links ready to two repositories Claude Code will load skills from: Video Use (trimming, and optionally animation through Remotion plus render) and HyperFrames (a second way to build animations — cards, captions, transitions).
  • Pick a transcription tool: OpenAI's Whisper (runs locally, free), a local tool, or the ElevenLabs service. All three work fine.
  • If you go with ElevenLabs, create an API key (a private string that authenticates your account) and paste it into a separate .env settings file, never into the chat.
  • Have one short raw clip ready for the first run. Treat the first clip as learning the tool, not as the finished result.

1. Load the skills into Claude Code

  • Paste both repository links (Video Use and HyperFrames) into Claude Code.
  • Ask it to review the repositories and load the skills, for example: "review these repositories and load the skills I need, so I can hand you a raw file and you edit it."
  • Confirm Claude Code has acknowledged loading the skills — only then does it know what both tools can do.

2. Trim the footage

  • Drop in the raw clip and run the trim through Video Use.
  • Review what the tool proposes to keep and cut (false starts, stumbles, filler, repeated takes, silence).
  • Answer the taste calls it asks you about — for example, whether to leave a trailing half-word in as a natural breath or cut it.
  • Check that the cuts sit tight against word boundaries with a small margin, so they sound clean.

3. Transcribe with timestamps

Do this step after trimming and before animation — skip it and the animations will not land on the right words.

  • Run the transcription with whichever tool you picked (Whisper, a local tool, or ElevenLabs).
  • Check that the transcript carries a timestamp on every word — the second, down to a fraction, at which that word is spoken.
  • That timestamp is what lets an animation trigger at the exact moment you say the thing it illustrates.

4. Plan the animation before it gets built

  • Describe exactly what should appear and when — for example, a card on the left with karaoke-style captions sliding in, or an animation that shows the error cuts themselves.
  • Switch Claude Code into plan mode, so it lays out the plan first: which card it will build, what goes on it, at which second it appears — instead of starting work right away.
  • Review the plan and add anything missing at this stage (an outro scene, for instance).
  • Approve the build only once the plan checks out. A plan catches a misunderstanding before the tool renders something wrong, and building animation costs tokens and time.

5. Render and fix the first pass

The first pass is never perfect — that is normal, so budget a round of fixes.

  • Render the first pass and watch it for problems (a card covering a face, an unwanted grid in the background, a different crop at the end).
  • Describe the fixes concretely, for example: "shrink this card and trim its right edge so it stops covering the face," "remove the grid from the whole clip."
  • Reach for the built-in timeline when you need it — drag, shorten, or delete elements by hand, and the change reflects into the code, which Claude Code will pick up.
  • Ask the tool for screenshots of each scene, so it checks the result itself instead of declaring it done blind.

6. Lock in the style for the next clips

  • Once you have edited a few similar clips, write their style down in a separate guidelines file.
  • Point back to that file on every clip after that — that is when "drop in the raw file and the rest happens on its own" starts being true.

Watch for

  • Keep the API key in .env, not in the chat. In the chat it would sit in your history — a bad habit from a security standpoint.
  • Do not skip transcription before animation. Without timestamps there is no way to trigger an animation at the exact moment a word is spoken.
  • Do not approve animation blind. The planning stage limits the risk of the tool going the wrong direction and burning tokens and your time.
  • Expect real token spend. In the example described here, the whole run — prompts, successive animation passes, generated files — used roughly 238,000 tokens. The more precisely you steer the tool, the less gets wasted.
  • Do not treat this as a button that does everything for you. It shifts the work: manual trimming and animating gets replaced by precise instructing and correcting. The real time savings show up once you're working through repeat clips.