How to turn long videos into Shorts and Reels that get views

Step by step

1. Mark the moments that stand alone

   Go through the transcript and mark lines that make sense to someone who has not seen the rest: a clear tip, a strong opinion, a number, a short story. Skip moments that depend on "as I said earlier".

2. Open on the payoff

   Cut the warm-up. The short starts on the sentence with the answer or the surprise. If the viewer needs one fact of context, put it as text over the first second.

3. Reframe to 9:16

   Crop the wide shot to vertical and keep the speaker's face in the upper middle of the frame. When two people talk, cut to whoever speaks. Leave room in the middle third for captions.

4. Cut the pauses and filler

   Remove the "um", the long breaths and the repeated starts. A short moves faster than the original. Every second must add something.

5. Add captions and visuals

   Big captions word by word, with key words larger. When the speaker says a number or names a thing, put it on screen. Add a cutaway every few seconds when the original is one static shot.

6. End clean and point to the full video

   Stop the moment the point lands, so the short loops. Put the full video's title in the caption or pin it in the comments.

7. Test hooks and post the winners

   Make two or three versions of the best short with different first lines. Post them across the week and keep the hook style that holds viewers longest.

Which moments make good shorts

The best short is the part of the long video that needs the least context. A new viewer has no idea who you are, so the first sentence must explain itself.

• Answers to a question people search for.
• Strong opinions that people will agree or argue with.
• Numbers and results said out loud.
• Short stories with a clear twist or lesson.
• Step-by-step tips that fit in under a minute.

Long videos you can turn into shorts

• YouTube videos: each chapter often holds one short.
• Webinars and live streams: the questions from the audience make strong shorts.
• Interviews and podcasts: one speaker, one thought per short.
• Courses and talks: one lesson per short, with the key point on screen.
• Product demos: one feature per short, with an automatic zoom on the screen recording.

How Vidova makes one

Give your AI video team the long video and say who the shorts are for. It finds the moments that stand alone, writes the hook for each one and plans every shot. It builds each short on a real timeline in 9:16, adds word-by-word captions, titles, numbers, charts and stock footage or generated clips as cutaways. On screen recordings, it zooms in on each click automatically. It checks each cut before it hands it to you.

Ask for several hook versions of one short, or a 16:9 version of the same project. Change anything in plain words: a different start, a shorter end, a new caption style.

Frequently asked questions