How to turn a long video into Shorts and VK Clips with subtitles

Platform limits

Start with the constraints so you do not have to redo clips after upload. The figures below come from YouTube Help and posts by the VK team.

Picking the moments

Clips are watched by people who never saw the full video. Each one has to stand on its own: an idea with a setup and a conclusion, a story with a payoff, a tip someone can use. Drop segments where the speaker refers to "what I said earlier".

• A bold claim or a challenge to common wisdom
• Concrete numbers, examples and personal experience
• Emotion: laughter, surprise, a heated argument
• A short how to with a few steps
• A story with an unexpected ending

A hook in the first seconds

Viewers decide whether to keep watching within the first seconds. Open with the strongest line and cut greetings and warm up. If the best idea lands in the middle, pull it to the front as a teaser or an on screen title.

• "I lost six months on this, here is why"
• "Three mistakes almost every beginner makes"
• "It sounds strange, but it works"

Clip length

There is no perfect length, only the length of the idea. Under 30 seconds suits jokes and punchy lines, 30 to 60 seconds suits tips, 60 to 90 seconds suits stories. Trim pauses and repetition but never cut the conclusion.

9:16 framing

You cannot just squeeze a horizontal frame. In vertical the crop has to follow whoever is speaking and switch between people in a conversation. Blur the faces of bystanders.

Platforms place captions, buttons and tab names along the bottom and sides of the screen. Keep important text and subtitles away from those areas, closer to the center.

Subtitles

Subtitles help people who watch with the sound off and hold attention. Use one or two short lines, a large font and strong contrast. Highlighting the current word makes speech easier to follow.

Check names, terms and numbers, since even accurate speech recognition stumbles on rare words. Burned in subtitles show everywhere, while an SRT file is handy when the platform renders its own captions.

How to do it in Solistra

Speech is transcribed by GigaAM, an open model for Russian with word level timing. Every clip gets a title, a hook, a score from 0 to 100 and a reason why it may work. Only cut videos you own or have the rights to.

• Open Clips and upload a file of up to 3 hours and 4 GB, or paste a link to VK Video, RuTube, Twitch or Yandex Disk
• Choose the clip length (auto, under 30, 30 to 60 or 60 to 90 seconds) and a subtitle style
• Review the clips found, adjust the boundaries by transcript and the framing
• Download 1080 × 1920 clips with burned in subtitles or an SRT file