Edit a talking-head video with clean cuts and captions

A talking-head video has one subject, one microphone and a lot of small flaws to remove. The edit is mostly subtraction: take out the false starts, the pauses and the flat patches of light and sound, then add only what helps the viewer follow along.

Record the take

1. Open the Record menu in the top bar and choose Record camera.
2. Allow camera and microphone access when the browser asks. Use the two pills under the preview to pick a camera and a microphone. The level meter moves when the microphone hears you.
3. Press the red button to start, and the square button, Stop and use recording, to finish. The preview shows a mirror image of you, and the saved video shows you as viewers will see you. The take lands on the timeline.

A file from your phone works the same way. Open Media and press Upload.

Cut the mistakes

1. Play the take and press S where a mistake starts. Move to where it ends and press S again.
2. Select the piece between the two splits and press Backspace. When the main track is the only video track, deleting a clip closes the gap.
3. Press the up and down arrow keys to jump to the next or previous clip boundary and check each joint.
4. At a jump cut the speaker's head can shift slightly. Select every second clip, open Framing and raise Zoom a little. The change in size reads as a deliberate edit.

The Agent can do a first dead-air pass. Press ⌘J, ask it to find silent stretches and tighten the cuts, then review the result. It runs on hosted models (Gemini, GPT or Sonnet), which spend credits, or on your own Claude Code or Codex login through the Mac app. ⌘Z reverts the whole turn in one step.

Fix the picture and the sound

• Color. Select a clip, open Color and press Auto. Adjust Exposure, Temperature and Contrast from there. The live histogram shows where the brightness sits.
• Level. Open Volume and set Clip volume so the voice sits at a comfortable level, especially if you plan to add music underneath.
• Background noise. On the Projects page, Isolate voice under Quick tools keeps the speech and drops music and noise. It spends credits and gives you a cleaned file to upload back into the project.

Add captions and a title

1. Open Subtitles, press Generate subtitles and correct the text in the Content tab. Transcription spends account credits.
2. In Styles, choose a preset. In Options, turn on Highlight spoken word if you want the active word marked.
3. Press T to add a title. Replace "Your text", then open Behind in the right panel and switch on Behind speaker. The text sits behind you in the shot. It needs a clearly separated subject, and with no person detected it shows as a normal title.
4. Open Animate and choose an in animation so the title arrives with a small motion.

Export

Open Details to write the Caption and Tags. Then open Export, choose a preset and press Export video.

Put it to work

Record a short take in DepCut and make your first cuts.