Claude Video Reel Editor

Note: Setup is one paste into Claude Code. After that you film, hand it the file, read a storyboard and say go.

You film yourself talking, flubs and all. Claude keeps your last clean take of every line, cuts the pauses, captions every word, puts your screen recordings up behind you, builds the motion graphics and adds sound effects, and it shows you a storyboard before it renders anything.

It's a free, open-source skill for Claude Code. I made it, and I tested it by editing one of my own raw takes and comparing it frame by frame against the version I'd already posted.

Get it on GitHub: github.com/amegally/claude-video-reel-editor

What you need

A Mac (it's only been tested on Mac so far)
Claude Code
Python 3.10 or newer, Node 22 or newer, and ffmpeg. If you don't have them, Claude can install them with Homebrew.
About 2.5 GB free, for the speech model, the model that cuts you out of the background, and a headless Chrome that does the rendering

Install

Open Claude Code and paste this:

Install the Claude Code skill at https://github.com/amegally/claude-video-reel-editor. Clone it into ~/.claude/skills/claude-video-reel-editor, then run python3 ~/.claude/skills/claude-video-reel-editor/scripts/setup.py and keep going until it prints READY. If it needs Python 3.10 or newer, Node 22 or newer, or ffmpeg, install them with Homebrew (macOS's own python3 is too old), and ask me before you install anything.

Setup takes 5 to 20 minutes, mostly downloads, and ends with a one-second test video. When it prints READY, start a new Claude Code session so it picks up the skill.

By hand it's two commands:

git clone https://github.com/amegally/claude-video-reel-editor ~/.claude/skills/claude-video-reel-editor
python3 ~/.claude/skills/claude-video-reel-editor/scripts/setup.py

Your first video

In Claude Code:

Edit this video: ~/Movies/my-take.mov

The first time, it asks about your style. Send it 2 or 3 videos in a style you like (links or files) and it works out the fonts, the colours, the caption size and how fast they cut, or say "show me styles" and pick from a menu rendered on your own face. You approve one frame and every video after that starts from it. (Instagram links usually need a login, so save the video and send the file.)

Then it cuts your takes, plans every beat and opens a storyboard: a frame for each beat, what you say, what's on screen and what you'll hear. It also tells you anything it needs from you, like a screen recording of your dashboard. Type a note under any beat, press Copy notes and paste them back in. It fixes them and shows you the storyboard again.

Nothing renders until you write go. Then it renders, checks the lip sync, the loudness and the spelling of every word on screen, and hands you the mp4.

Say "new style" whenever you want a new look. When a note is about your taste in general ("bigger captions, always"), it saves it into your style, so you only say it once.

Sound effects

It doesn't come with any. Point it at a folder of sound effects you like and it sorts them into pops, whooshes, clicks and typing and saves that with your style. Without a folder you get the video with no sound effects, and you can add them in CapCut or Edits when you post.

Mine are a pack another creator gave away for free. If you don't have any yet, Mixkit and Pixabay both have free ones (download the pops, whooshes and clicks you like into one folder).

How to film for it

Keep rolling when you mess up a line and just say it again. It keeps your last clean take of each line and cuts every pause over 0.2 seconds, so you don't have to be smooth.

Leave some room above your head! Captions and graphics go in the space around you, never over your face.

A plain wall and even light give the cleanest cutout, and the cutout is what lets your screen go up behind you.

For anything you talk about, record your screen. Recordings play full size behind you, and when you introduce an app ("here's what it looks like") it shrinks you into the bottom corner and plays the app full screen. Put your phone down before that line, because the cutout can't keep things you're holding.

How long it takes

On an M1 MacBook Air, running in the background at low priority, a 53-second video took about 25 minutes to render, plus about 15 minutes for the cutout. It runs Claude Opus at max effort.

What it's built on

HyperFrames renders the video from HTML, GSAP animates it, faster-whisper writes the transcript, yt-dlp downloads your style examples, and Robust Video Matting cuts you out of the background. That matting model is GPL-3.0, so setup downloads it from its own release page instead of the skill shipping it.

The skill itself is MIT licensed: github.com/amegally/claude-video-reel-editor.