How to Edit Talking Videos for TikTok

Work in this order. Cut the warm-up so the video opens on your point, take out the mistakes, ums and long pauses, add captions placed clear of TikTok’s buttons and text, and watch the result on your phone before you post. A free phone editor can do all of it, and you can add music or a sound in TikTok when you post.

Open on the Point

Talking videos often start with a warm-up, like “Hey guys, so today I want to talk about…” Cut it, and start on the first sentence that says what the video is about. If you say something surprising later in the take, consider moving it to the front. Plenty of people use TikTok as a search engine, so say the words someone would type to find the video in your first few seconds, and use them again in the post’s description.

Clean Up the Take

Go through the rest of the take for slips, filler sounds and dead air, splitting and deleting each one in your editor. Separate guides cover cutting out mistakes, removing ums and filler words and removing pauses.

Then look at length. Let the video run as long as the point needs and no longer. If a take keeps going because it holds two ideas, it may work better as two videos.

Captions That Stay Clear of TikTok’s Buttons

Captions help anyone watching with the sound low or off, and they let people follow along when you talk quickly. TikTok also lays its own controls over your video. The like, comment and share buttons run down the right edge, and your username and description sit along the bottom, so captions placed low in the frame end up underneath them. Set yours a little below the middle of the screen and keep them away from the right side.

Use one set of captions. TikTok can add its own auto captions to a post, and if your video already has captions in it, turning TikTok’s on as well can show every word twice.

Before You Post

• Watch the whole video on your phone with the sound on, the way a viewer will.
• Check that the first frame shows you talking, with no reach for the phone.
• Add any music or sound in TikTok and keep it low under your voice.
• Write a short description that says plainly what the video answers.

How Picado Handles the Cleanup

For videos of one person talking to the camera, Picado covers the cleanup and captions above. Upload your take and it cuts the restarts, the long pauses and filler words like um and uh, then adds captions. Your opening still needs your judgment. If a warm-up is still there on the review page, tap its words to take them out.

Turn on the TikTok overlay while you check the edit to see where your captions land, and set their size, height and highlight color in Settings. Each video has its own Show Captions switch, so you can turn Picado’s captions off if you’d rather use TikTok’s.

Recordings over 3 minutes come back as a 3-minute version that keeps your main points and drops the side stories, unless you change that in Settings. To keep the whole recording, switch the video to Full on its page, which never counts as another video. When the edit looks right, press Looks Good. Once the file is ready, Save Video on an iPhone opens the share menu, where you can pick TikTok. Picado doesn’t post for you yet, so you add a sound and post from TikTok as usual.

How It Works has every step, and the FAQ covers limits, posting and who sees your videos.

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