A long, a short and a snippet from one film

Why one length is rarely enough

The same message is watched in very different ways. On your website, people choose to press play, and the full film has room to finish its thought. In a feed, people scroll, and a shorter cut that gets to the point is watched to the end far more often. As a teaser in stories, or before a longer video, a few seconds is all the room there is.

So a campaign usually wants three lengths of one film: the long one, a short one of about half, and a snippet of a few seconds. Making three films costs three times as much. Cutting one film three ways does not.

What makes a good short cut

• It starts on something clear. The first second has to make sense without anything before it. Start on a scene where the picture or the words stand on their own.
• It ends on the name. If the film closes on your name or your logo, let the short cut end there too, and cut from the start or the middle stretch instead.
• A snippet says one thing. Pick the single scene that carries the message, and let it be the whole snippet.

Which length suits which place is its own question, and one film, every format goes through it platform by platform.

How Nine does it

In the chamber, Cuts shows the film as it was made as one lane, with two handles: where it starts and where it ends. Drag them, and the film plays only that stretch. The rest of the film is kept, so you can widen it again at any time. You can also say it in the box under the film, for example "cut the intro".

When a length looks right, press Save. It is kept as a version, and the chamber describes it in plain words, such as "0:04 to 0:19, calm music". The film's page and its video file now show that version. Save the next length, and the next, and switch between them in the list of versions under Cuts. Every version is kept.

Pace is the second tool. Under Motion, Livelier plays the whole film faster, so it gets shorter without losing a scene, and Calmer makes it longer. Sometimes a slightly livelier full film is a better short version than a cut.

The sound follows. Music in the chamber is made to the length and pace of the film, so a cut version gets music that fits it. If the film has its own sound, that follows the pace and the cuts too.

You can combine it all in one version: a tall, livelier, twelve-second cut for stories is one save. See one film in three shapes for the frame.

Honest limits

• A cut is one stretch. It has a start and an end. The chamber does not move scenes around or join two parts of the film together.
• The long version has a ceiling. The longest film is 30 seconds on Film and Film + Transparent, 90 seconds on Production and 3 minutes on Studio. Longer is by agreement.
• A different story is a new version. If the short film should say something the long one does not, describe it in the box, and Nine can make a new version of the film from the same material. That is paid from your credits, the price is shown before it starts, and the film you have is kept.

Cutting, pace and music in the chamber cost nothing on your plan. You can try all of it on the films on our front page for free, before you have a film of your own. More about the chamber in editing a film yourself.

How to do it in Nine

1. Open your film from Your films and press Edit in the chamber.
2. Open Cuts. Drag the start and end handles to the stretch for your short version. Play it through.
3. Press Save. On the film's page, press Get the video file.
4. Back in the chamber, drag the handles to a few seconds for the snippet. Save, and get that file.
5. For the long version, choose As it was made in the list of versions under Cuts, press Use it as it was made, and get its file.