Descript Tutorial For Beginners - Get Started FAST
Summary
TLDRThis video tutorial walks through how to use Descript's video editing software. It covers the interface and workflow, demonstrating how to import media, edit the transcript, apply audio effects, enable AI tools to refine the audio, add graphics and text like titles and captions, manipulate clips on the timeline, divide a project into scenes, export the final video, and publish straight to platforms like YouTube. The goal is to provide creators an overview of Descript's key features and capabilities to help them produce high-quality, professional videos with as little effort as possible.
Takeaways
- 😀 Go to 'New' button to start a new video or audio project
- 🎥 Insert media files into the script layer to have them automatically transcribed
- ✂️ Use scenes to divide up the video and apply edits to specific sections
- 📝 Correct the auto-generated transcript to improve accuracy
- 👀 AI tools can remove filler words and shorten gaps in the audio
- 🌟 Apply effects like eye contact and studio sound to polish the video
- 📺 Set aspect ratio based on intended platform - landscape for YouTube
- 🗣 Add captions synced to transcript for accessibility
- ⏯ Use freeze frames by clicking and dragging words in transcript
- 👋 Publish video via web link or directly to platforms like YouTube
Q & A
What are the different ways to add media to a Descript project?
-You can use the plus button to insert project files like video, images, audio, text, and shapes. You can also drag and drop files into the media bin or directly onto the canvas.
How do you correct transcription errors in Descript?
-Highlight the word or phrase and click the 'correct' button. Then type in the correct transcription text and hit enter to lock in the change. This will update the transcript without affecting the original audio.
What is the benefit of dividing a video into scenes in Descript?
-Breaking up your video into scenes allows you to apply edits and effects to specific sections rather than the whole video. For example, you can have captions only appear during certain scenes.
What does the 'ignore' function do when editing the transcript?
-Ignoring a word in the transcript removes it from the video timeline but keeps it visible in the transcript text. This allows you to keep a reference to that word while omitting it from the final video.
How can you export files from Descript?
-Go to the publish menu and choose 'export'. Here you can select to export just the current video or audio composition, a section, or custom file types like MP3, GIFs, transcripts, etc.
What is the benefit of the studio sound effect?
-Studio sound removes background noise from your audio recording. It isolates the speaker's voice to make it sound clearer as if it was recorded in a professional studio.
How do freeze frames work in Descript?
-You can click and drag a word in the transcript timeline to split it. This will create a freeze frame which is a still image taken from that moment in the video.
What does the media bin allow you to do?
-The media bin provides easy access to stock assets Descript provides like video, audio, images, and GIFs. You can also use it to upload your own files to the project.
What are the benefits of the eye contact effect?
-Eye contact uses AI to make it look like the speaker is maintaining eye contact with the viewer even if they were looking elsewhere when filmed. This creates more engaging videos.
How do you publish a completed Descript project?
-Go to the publish menu. You can get a shareable web link, export the file, or publish directly to platforms like YouTube. Publishing generates the final video using Descript's backend for faster processing.
Outlines
🎥 Adding and Editing Video in Descript
This paragraph explains how to create a new video project in Descript, add media files, make edits like cropping, use built-in stock assets, transcribe audio, and label speakers. It also covers the script layer, canvas, timeline, and media bin.
🧹 Cleaning Up Transcripts with AI Tools
This paragraph demonstrates Descript's AI tools to clean up transcripts, like automatically removing filler words and shortening long pauses. It shows how to review and accept/reject each change before applying it.
🎙 Improving Audio Quality
This paragraph covers how to improve the audio quality using Descript's Studio Sound feature to reduce background noise and apply audio effects like compression. It also shows how to make it look like the speaker has constant eye contact using AI.
⏱ Adding Captions and Dividing into Scenes
This paragraph shows how to add animated captions synced to the voice track and transcript. It also explains Descript's scene feature to divide the video into sections and change settings differently across scenes.
💻 Exporting and Sharing the Final Video
The last paragraph focuses on publishing options - exporting to a shareable web link, YouTube, podcast platforms, and local file formats. It also covers exporting just the transcript or captions.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡transcript
💡scene
💡publish
💡timeline
💡captions
💡aspect ratio
💡layer
💡AI
💡correct
💡export
Highlights
To create a video, go to the New button and choose a video, audio, quick recording, or remote recording project
Insert media by dragging and dropping files, using the media bin, or inserting project files
The script layer contains the automatically generated transcript
Use the AI tools to remove filler words, shorten gaps in speech, and apply studio sound
Add text elements like titles, subtitles, and captions
Divide your video into scenes to apply edits to specific sections
Correct transcript errors by selecting text and choosing the Correct option
Export your final video or just the audio/transcript for other uses
Set the aspect ratio based on your video orientation - landscape, square, or portrait
Apply audio effects like compression and noise removal
Use the eye contact effect to make it look like you're always looking at the camera
Drag words together or apart to remove/add time between words
Ignore words to remove them from the video but keep them visible in the transcript
Create freeze frames by dragging a word to split it at that point
Publish directly to sites like YouTube or get a web link to share your video
Transcripts
if you're new here I do a descript
tutorial every single month because the
software is always changing things are
moving and getting new UI updates and
new features first to create a video you
just go to the new button in the top
right from your workspace view you can
choose a video project an audio project
a quick recording which is like a loom
video and remote recording which is the
squadcast integration where you can
record remote podcasts we're going to
mostly focus on the video project so
click that to start a new project the
first thing it wants you to do is title
it let's call this tutorial October 2023
the first thing you're going to want to
do is Click into the transcript this is
where your transcript will go once we
add a video and the way that we add a
video is you can hit this plus button
here and insert project files you can
insert videos descript comes with
built-in stock videos stock images still
images stock gifs stock audio both music
and sound effects text if you just want
to write something captions if you want
it to put your transcript on the screen
and shapes which is to like add a square
or a circle or anything else you want to
your video that's one way to add it the
other way is this media bin in the top
middle of your screen if you've used
other editors you're probably familiar
with the media bin you click that and
then once again we have our video GIFs
images audio and then files on the left
you can click here to add files and
browse through your computer or you can
drag and drop something into descript
which I'm going to go ahead and do I'm
just dragging this off of my hard drive
and
release takes a moment to load and it
gives you a preview so you can go ahead
and watch what you got there on Mac and
for most purposes you're just going to
insert this into script the script is
your base layer you you can change it to
a new layer a supporting layer if you go
to that arrow on the right and hit add
new layer but again we're just going to
insert it into our script
and by inserting it into our script it's
going to transcribe it automatically so
this is the first thing that it prompts
me says it's transcribing it I can label
who the speaker is this gets useful if
you have multiple speakers especially
and if you have overdub the AI voice
trained in different people's voices and
then you hit done then it's just going
to take a moment to process that and in
the meantime we can click on this layer
and let's say I don't want that top bar
to show of this screen recording just
like with a PowerPoint or other software
that you might be used to you can click
the edges of this layer and drag it to
resize it like so or you can crop it by
double
clicking and then bringing
in the
corners I don't want those files to show
like so and then you hit this little
save button and it locks that change
into place and then we can resize it to
fill our canvas this is our canvas this
is our transcript and this bottom layer
is our timeline timeline is what you're
probably used to if you've come from any
other editor like Premiere or Final Cut
or even iMovie those all are timeline
based editors descript tries to get us
to use the transcript as much as
possible so we can highlight words and
we can hit the letter c to correct it so
if we want to change what the transcript
says we can simply add it into there by
typing it in but the first thing I'm
going to do the first thing in my
workflow is I go to this star at the top
right corner of our transcript and this
is our AI tools we have a remove filler
word button so if I click that it found
three filler words and if you click this
part that says all filler words here's
what it's looking for it looked for
times where I repeated a word twice in a
row or words like well
H where is it a sort of right things
like that like filler words that you
shouldn't be
saying and it tells us where every
instance of it is and then we can click
it on the right side here here well
first of all and it plays it in context
to see if that's something you want to
get rid of it plays a second before
plays the word itself and then a second
after to see if that is a change you
want to make if it is you can hit this
here actually that'll remove the result
that didn't remove the word to remove
the word you have to hit this remove
button here in this menu so let's play
the next one where I repeat myself if
you can you can do these little things I
said you can you can I repeated it so
I'm going to go ahead and make that
change I'm going to hit remove which is
sort of like Studio sound and this was a
short recording it was only two and a
half minutes but you can imagine if I
had an hourong just free flowing
conversation there might be 600 ums in
there and you could simply hit the
remove all button and it would get rid
of all of them with the click of a
button let me just play this one which
is sort of like Studio sound sort of
like I'm going to keep that in there and
the way I do that is I just don't make a
change I don't hit remove I just close
out the next thing I would do is go to
the shorten Gap words and this is going
to look right now it's looking for
anything that's 1.2 seconds or more
where there's no sound so and same sort
of layout here where we see the results
on the right side so let me play the
first
one descript has some new and that's the
opening of the video before I start
talking so I'm going to go ahead and hit
shorten and right now it's set to
shorten to 0. 2 seconds I could change
that to zero which I'll do for this
first one and it's
gone and the third way you can and I'll
get rid of that one it's ability to move
it move it around and I'm just going to
to to get rid of all the remaining four
and they're gone and I could have
changed it to a half-second pause or
whatever else but you get the idea of
how that looks and functions the next
thing in my workflow is I would select
the canvas once again to make sure we
have our main layer selected and I'm
just going to hit this studio sound
button and Studio sound makes it so it
sounds like I'm recording in a studio it
takes out background noise if there's
dogs barking cars honking anything like
that it'll be gone and it'll isolate my
voice very handy I I would also hit this
plus button under audio effects go to
Dynamics
compressor I usually use the classic
voiceover since it's just me talking if
you're doing music or anything else
you'll have a different set of
considerations but you can change the
threshold ratio attack release and knee
or you can just use one of these presets
here the next thing I'm going to do is
apply the eye contact feature so if I
hit this effects button I hit the plus
and then ey contact this uses AI to make
it look like I'm always looking at the
camera so even though I'm looking down
at my keyboard I'm looking down at my
screen it's going to make it look like
I'm looking right at the camera and it
makes it much more engaging and
professional and the next thing I'm
going to do this would have actually
been the very first thing I would do but
I'm just going to mention it here is set
my aspect ratio So currently it's in a
custom ratio if I want landscape which
is 16 by9 this is the standard thing
that's used in YouTube videos then that
where I would do it it's right here in
the top left of my canvas pane so
landscape is 16 by9 square which is
better for advertisements Instagram
certain other social medias or portrait
which is best for YouTube shorts and
tick talk that's like the vertical mode
so that is where you would set all that
if I was doing portrait I would take my
layer my canvas here and resize this to
fill the screen it would make more sense
if it was a talking head video and you
saw me now filling the screen but I'm
going to go ahead and undo all those
changes and go back to how I had it
where it's filling out my whole screen
the next thing I would do is add
captions so I'm going to go to this T at
the top which is for text we can do
titles and there's some presets here
there's a title subtitle and text
they're just different sizes and weights
and they're static so if you apply this
it's not going to change if I if I apply
this like this it's going to stay
exactly the same and just say title but
I can click in there again similar to
PowerPoint you can just click in there
and change the name to name whatever you
can change the color with this fill
option let's make it red just so it
stands out you can give it a border so
it's got that little black border around
it you can change the weight of that
border just made it a little bit thicker
you can do a background there's a black
background around it and so on you can
you can do all sorts of stuff change the
font the size normal text editing type
of features there and then if we has
some new screen recording options for us
it's just going to stay there it's
static it doesn't change compared to
captions if we go back to our T we go
down to captions and there are our
captions on the bottom and once again we
can move it around the screen we can
change the size the color everything
that we did before but being in the
bottom middle is a standard place to put
it so I'm going to leave it there and
this is synced with our voice and synced
with our transcript so let's play it and
the way that we get to it is you can
access it in the so it changes with the
with the words being spoken so pretty
cool very handy very common use in
shorts Tik toks things like that the
next thing we can do is break our video
up into scenes so if I click somewhere
on the transcript like let's say right
here
the the paragraph that starts with well
if I hit this button right here it adds
a scene and what a scene is if you saw
right here on my left these are scene
thumbnails so this is the first frame of
the first scene this is the first frame
of the second scene and changes that I
make to a scene won't apply to the other
scenes so this is a way to divide up our
clip and make more granular changes so
for example if we go down into our
timeline line you can see that right now
my captions are spanning the entire clip
well I can resize
this I can resize it however I want I
can make it end right there but for the
sake of organization you can end it
right at the end of a scene and it will
snap into place and now when that scene
ends the captions end and I got
different options here well first of all
this is more so there we go and I can do
the same thing with this
title anything you add will become a
layer like this whether it's title
captions audio video everything will be
a layer on top of once again our bottom
layer is called our script layer the
script layer the thing that makes it
unique is that it's
transcribed and one other way we can we
can manipulate with
transcription is if we zoom in and I'm
holding command and using the scroll
wheel on my mouse to zoom in and out
like this quickly is you can click on a
word word and simply drag it closer to
tighten up a gap or let's say I want to
get rid of the word and right here I can
click
then and drag it to get rid of it now if
I drag the opposite direction click and
drag right you can see this little
asterisk here this is created a freeze
frame so it took the frame at that point
where I made the split and it made it so
there's it's not there's no motion it's
just a still IM image and there's no
audio looks like this down and so that
is a freeze frame and I'm going to go
ahead and delete it just by selecting it
and pressing delete on my keyboard if
transcript is important to you either
because you're going to publish on your
blog or because caption accuracy is
important then let's talk about some
ways we can correct the transcript
because descript does make errors from
time to time so if I click on a word and
highlight it then this menu pops up I
can I can do things like make it bold
make it italics I can do this strikeout
which ignores it if I ignore it it gets
rid of it from my timeline but it keeps
it there so it's different than deleting
because it keeps it visible in my
transcript even though this won't be in
the video it's just there so you can see
it and if you want to bring that word
back you can put your mouse on the the
scene boundary where it was cut and
drag and restore it like that but and
you can see it's now on our transcript
twice because we have the ignored one
and then the one that we just brought
back but the other thing is so if you
select a word or even an entire sentence
or a big chunk of text as much as you
want you can hit this correct button
that brings up this menu and then let's
say something was spelled wrong then you
could just type it or delete it re spell
it the correct way and hit correct to
lock in that change and it doesn't
affect the audio it only affects the
transcript which then affects the
caption the final thing to know is how
to publish this thing once you're done
you go to the publish button and by
default it's going to go to a web link
which is a descript Cloud link so as
soon as you hit publish it's going to
generate a link for this project and
that is the recommended way to publish
your video because it processes quickly
on drips back end and then you can
download it from from that link or if
you want to just go straight directly to
your hard drive you can hit this export
and then you can change your settings if
you want to be just the current
composition which is just this video or
if you want it to be just a current
selection or something else line breaks
all compositions Etc you can change the
resolution whether you want the audio
quality low medium high and so on and
then you hit export and that'll save it
to your hard drive you can also export
just the audio as an MP3 or a do wave
that's good for audio podcast you can
export it as a gift that is no volume
just the video you can do a timeline
which allows you to import it into other
tools like Premiere Final Cut Pro Tools
Da Vinci resolve Etc or you can export
just the transcript again if you're
going to put this on your blog publish
this to LinkedIn anything else that is
how you would do that you can do it as
a.txt
dooc or you can publish the subtitles
this is with a transcript timestamped so
this is what you would upload to Youtube
if you wanted to allow people subtitles
to turn on closed captions while they're
watching your video the last thing is
back to the publish option in addition
to the web link you can publish straight
to Youtube or any of these particular
podcast streaming services that is it
for October's tutorial I'll be back next
month
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