Build a video from chat and generated clips
Describe the film in chat, let the scenes land on the timeline, then add more from chat or the More menu.
✦ Course · Intermediate
Build and export a film in the Video editor
Generate scenes from chat, trim, split and order them, grade and mix each clip, add transitions, a voice-over and captions, then render the film on a computer or a phone.
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By the end you will have cut, graded and narrated a film and rendered it as one MP4 with its transitions and any captions.
Build a film from generated scenes Edit, grade, caption and narrate clips Render the complete film
8 min
Trim, split, delete and order clips
Cut each clip to its best seconds, remove the ones you don't need and put the scenes in story order.
Join scenes with transitions
Replace hard cuts with a fade, dissolve or wipe that renders with a matching audio crossfade.
Crop, grade and mix each clip
Set the film's crop, then give each clip its own filter, colour, speed and sound levels for the render.
Add a voice-over at the right moment
Write a script that fits the film, generate the voice and start it at the second you choose.
Caption the film and steady a shaky clip
Turn speech in the clips into timed captions, then swap a handheld clip for a steadied copy.
Choose export settings and render the film
Render one stitched MP4 with a resolution, frame rate and quality that suit the footage.
Render a film on your phone
Generate scenes in the phone's Video Editor and render them as one MP4 from the Export sheet.
What each lesson covers
The course, lesson by lesson.
Build a video from chat and generated clips
Describe the film in chat, let the scenes land on the timeline, then add more from chat or the More menu.
This course uses the Video editor in the desktop workspace on a computer, apart from lesson 8 on the phone. Click the Video chip in an empty chat, which starts your message with Make a video of, and describe the scenes. Oppermind generates a clip and opens it in the pane. Ask for more than eight seconds and it plans a storyline and generates a chain of shots, while a storyboard card in the chat marks each one as planned, generated and ready. Chat usually makes 16:9 clips whatever shape you name. Duration (3s, 5s or 8s) and Aspect in the pane set the length and shape of scenes you add later. To grow the film, send a message with the editing chip showing, or use Extend +5s or Extend to 30s in the More menu. Oppermind decides how each scene looks, so watch every clip before you cut. Make video in the Image editor starts a film from a picture instead, opening Animate image here to describe the motion.
Practice. The examples follow Luke, who runs Derwent Valley Bike Hire, as he makes a spring promo. Ask for a 20-second video with four scenes you describe. Watch the storyboard card in chat while the shots arrive, then press Space in the pane to play the timeline and note which clips need trimming.
Make a 20-second 16:9 video for Derwent Valley Bike Hire in spring: riders on the river trail at dawn, the hire fleet lined up outside the shed, a family riding between apple orchards, and a helmet handed back across the hire counter.
Trim, split, delete and order clips
Cut each clip to its best seconds, remove the ones you don't need and put the scenes in story order.
The Clips panel lists every clip with its length, and the timeline holds them on V1, with V2 above for text and A1 below for sound. Space plays and pauses, J and L jump ten seconds, and comma and full stop step one frame. To shorten a clip, drag either end on V1, or choose Trim and type Start (sec) and End (sec) in that clip's own seconds. Razor splits the clip under the playhead. Delete clip on the toolbar, the Delete key or the right-click menu removes the selected clip, but the last clip can't be removed. Drag a clip along V1 to reorder it, and the pane confirms, such as Moved to scene 2. Undo covers the last 50 steps until you open another video. With the editing chip showing, chat makes the same edits, as in split clip 2 at 5.5 seconds or move clip 3 to the start. A trim asked for in chat counts in the clip's own seconds too.
Practice. Drag the start of a slow clip inward, split another with Razor where the action changes, and delete a clip you don't need. Press Ctrl+Z once to bring it back, then drag your strongest shot to second place.
Select the fleet clip, choose Trim and set Start (sec) to 0.5 and End (sec) to 4.5. Then drag the orchard clip along V1 until it sits second.
Join scenes with transitions
Replace hard cuts with a fade, dissolve or wipe that renders with a matching audio crossfade.
Drag the playhead near a join between clips, then choose Add transition in the More menu. Type offers Cut, Fade, Dissolve and Wipe, At (sec) starts at the playhead's time and Duration (sec) defaults to half a second. The transition snaps to the nearest cut and the pane confirms it, such as Transition: fade at the cut at 0:05 (0.5s). Chat can add one too, as in add a crossfade between clip 2 and clip 3. In the render the picture and sound crossfade over the same span, overlapping the two clips, so the film comes out that much shorter. Captions, text and sound on A1 keep their times, so after the cut they run a little late against the picture. Transitions aren't drawn on the timeline or shown in the preview. Undo takes the last one out, and a Cut at the same join replaces it. Add them last, because each keeps its time and lands on whichever cut is nearest when the film renders.
Practice. Add a Fade at the join between your first and second clips and a Dissolve before the last clip. Press Ctrl+Z to take the Dissolve out, add it again, and check both when you render in lesson 7.
Drag the playhead to 0:05, where the dawn clip meets the orchard clip. Choose Add transition, keep Fade and set Duration (sec) to 0.8.
Crop, grade and mix each clip
Set the film's crop, then give each clip its own filter, colour, speed and sound levels for the render.
Crop in the More menu trims the whole film to part of the frame. X and Y set the top-left corner and W and H the size, all as percentages, so X 22, Y 0, W 56 and H 100 keeps a square from the middle of 16:9 footage. Filters opens eight Clip filters, from Original to Faded, and each clip keeps its own. Colour opens Colour grade, where Exposure, Contrast, Saturation, Temperature, Tint, Highlights and Shadows tune the selected clip. Speed sets it from 0.25× to 2×, keeping the audio's pitch. The Audio dialog holds Muted, a Gain slider from 0 to 2, and Fade-in and Fade-out in seconds. Mute, Volume up, Volume down, Fade in and Fade out in the More menu change the same settings, and those fades act on the sound, not the picture. All of this reaches the rendered film. The Speed and Loop items in the View group only change playback in the editor.
Practice. Give each clip a filter, move Temperature a little on one clip in Colour grade and set another to 1.5×. Lower the gain on a noisy clip, add a one-second sound fade-out to the last clip, then set the crop back to 0, 0, 100 and 100.
Select the dawn clip, open Colour and set Saturation to about 1.2 and Temperature to about -15. Then select the fleet clip, open Audio, drag Gain to 0.5 and click Apply.
Add a voice-over at the right moment
Write a script that fits the film, generate the voice and start it at the second you choose.
Choose AI voice-over… in the More menu to narrate the film. Narration script starts out filled with your clip prompts, so replace it with the words you want read, up to 5,000 characters. Speech runs at about 150 words a minute and the dialog shows the timeline length beside that rate, so 17 seconds of film fits about 40 words. Pick a Voice, type the second the narration should begin in Start at (sec) and click Apply. The pane shows Generating voice-over…, then adds an AI voice-over block to the A1 track from that second, and the stitched film plays it there. Undo takes it off again. Send to Video in the Voice editor puts its ready lines on A1 too, end to end. Every block on A1 plays, so a second voice-over talks over the first. Add audio track… in the Audio dialog uploads a music file of up to 25 MB onto A1 from 0:00.
Practice. Write a script of 35 to 40 words, open AI voice-over…, paste it in, set Start at (sec) to 2 and apply. Check that the AI voice-over block starts a little way into A1. Then add a music file with Add audio track… and press Ctrl+Z to take it off again.
Replace the Narration script with: Roll out at dawn along the river trail, ride the orchard lanes with the kids, then pick your bike from our fleet. Derwent Valley Bike Hire, open every day from eight. Set Start at (sec) to 2 and click Apply.
Caption the film and steady a shaky clip
Turn speech in the clips into timed captions, then swap a handheld clip for a steadied copy.
Auto-caption sits at the end of the toolbar, or in the More menu when the pane is narrow. It sends each clip's sound to the speech service, groups the words into short lines timed to the film and places them on V2, and they are burned into the exported film. The status row then reads ● auto-captioned, and Undo removes them. Running it again replaces its earlier captions but keeps your Text layer lines. Captions depend on the speech service returning word timings. When it sends plain text, the pane says it could not place captions and adds none. The transcription is automatic, so read every line before you export. Stabilise clip under ◆ Lato in the right panel, or Stabilise in the More menu, sends the selected clip to the server for a steadied copy. That can take a minute. The copy replaces the clip on the timeline, and Undo brings the original back.
Practice. Run Auto-caption on a film with speech and read each line on V2. Then select your shakiest clip, choose Stabilise clip and compare it with the original by pressing Undo and Redo.
Click Auto-caption, then select the orchard clip and choose Stabilise clip under ◆ Lato.
Choose export settings and render the film
Render one stitched MP4 with a resolution, frame rate and quality that suit the footage.
The finished film comes from Export MP4 in the More menu. Export / Download on the toolbar saves only the clip in the preview, unchanged. With two or more clips, Export MP4 opens Export scenes. Keep One stitched MP4 (all scenes, captions and voice-over), click Apply, and Export complete film asks for Maximum resolution, Frame rate and Quality. The maximum caps the size and never enlarges footage, so a film of 720p clips stays 720p, and 4K only helps with 4K sources. Render film sends the job to the server, which can take a minute or two, then the MP4 downloads. It carries the order, trims, speed, crop, filters, colour grades, each clip's sound settings, transitions, captions, text and every block on A1. Separate files per scene gives each scene's file without any of that. A high resolution and frame rate shorten the longest film you can render, and the pane tells you when you go over.
Practice. Render your film at 720p, 25 fps and Balanced. Play the MP4 and check the fade, the colour on the dawn clip, the quieter fleet clip, the captions and the voice-over starting at 0:02.
In More, choose Export MP4, keep One stitched MP4 (all scenes, captions and voice-over) and click Apply. In Export complete film, set Maximum resolution to 720p and Frame rate to 25, keep Quality on Balanced and click Render film.
Render a film on your phone
Generate scenes in the phone's Video Editor and render them as one MP4 from the Export sheet.
The Video Editor in the phone app renders a film too. Open Create New... and choose Video Editor, or tap Open Fullscreen on a video card in chat. Pick a Style Preset, a Duration and an Aspect Ratio, describe the scene and tap Generate Video. + Scene adds the next scene, seeded with the last frame of the one before, and it stays empty until you generate it. Tap a tile in the Scenes strip to select it, or the cross on it to delete it. When every scene has a clip, tap Export and choose Export Video (.mp4). The same Export complete film settings open, the scenes render in order on the server, and the MP4 goes to your phone's share sheet as Complete film. A scene left empty makes the render fail, so generate or delete it first. The phone Video Editor has no trims, transitions, colour grades, captions or voice-over, so a film made there renders its scenes as they were generated.
Practice. On your phone, generate a first scene in the Video Editor, add two more with + Scene and generate each one, then export the film at 720p and save it from the share sheet.
In the Video Editor on your phone, choose Documentary, 5s and 9:16, type Close-up of a bike bell on a handlebar, apple blossom behind, morning light, and tap Generate Video. Tap + Scene, type A rider rings the bell and pedals away down the orchard lane, and tap Generate Video again.
Keep going
Make the learning stick
Start with one real piece of work.
Open Oppermind beside the lesson, apply each step, and leave with something you can use.