Learn Descript in 15 Minutes [Full Tutorial]

Summary

This tutorial offers a rapid introduction to Descript, a versatile audio and video editing tool. It guides users through creating a new project, importing media files, and utilizing Descript's transcription feature. The script highlights the platform's text-based editing capabilities, which simplify video editing as if it were a text document. It also covers adding visuals, scenes, and templates, as well as adjusting the timeline for precise edits. The video concludes with exporting options and a call to action for feedback, aiming to equip viewers with the skills to efficiently edit their multimedia content.

Takeaways

• 😀 Descript is a video and audio editing tool that can be used to create and edit projects in a text-based interface.
• 📂 To start a project in Descript, you need to create a new project and choose between a video or audio-based project.
• 🔍 The interface consists of a composition area, media library, recording options, text and shape additions, and template application.
• 📚 The composition acts like a text document where video edits are made by adjusting the text, making the process as simple as editing text.
• 🎥 When videos are imported, Descript automatically transcribes them, turning the video content into an editable text format.
• ✂️ Editing the video is done by manipulating the text; deleting text removes the corresponding video segment, and vice versa.
• 📑 The transcript can be proofread and corrected directly within the text document to ensure accuracy for captions or final exports.
• 📐 Users can adjust the video's aspect ratio and settings, such as for social media platforms like TikTok, directly from the settings.
• 🎬 Scenes are marked within the script to indicate different sections of the video where specific visuals or b-roll should appear.
• 🌟 Descript offers a variety of media resources, including stock footage, images, GIFs, music, and sound effects, built into the platform.
• 📝 Templates can be applied to scenes for quick styling and can be saved as custom templates for future use.
• 📈 The timeline feature allows for fine-tuning of edits, adjusting the length of video clips, and adding effects or captions.
• 📊 Dynamic captions can be added and customized within Descript, making it easy to create engaging and accessible video content.
• 🚀 Once the project is complete, it can be published directly to various platforms or exported as a video or audio file with metadata included.

Q & A

What is the first step to start a new project in Descript?

The first step to start a new project in Descript is to click 'New project' and then select whether the project will be video-based or audio-based.

How does Descript handle video and audio files by default?

By default, Descript automatically uploads and transcribes video and audio files, turning them into a text document for easy editing.

What is the purpose of the composition area in Descript?

The composition area in Descript acts like a text document where you can edit the video by adjusting the text, and it automatically reflects the changes in the video.

How can you adjust the video settings in Descript, such as for social media?

You can adjust the video settings in Descript by going to the top left and changing the settings to match the desired format, like selecting 'portrait' for a TikTok video.

What is the timeline feature in Descript and when would you use it?

The timeline feature in Descript is a visual representation of all video clips and moments, used for more finely detailed edits, such as cutting out silence or adjusting where edits are made.

How do you add a new scene in Descript?

To add a new scene in Descript, you mark a start and end point in the script by adding a forward slash, which creates a new thumbnail on the side indicating a new scene.

What is the function of the 'Ignore' or 'Strikethrough' feature in Descript?

The 'Ignore' or 'Strikethrough' feature in Descript allows you to temporarily remove parts of the script without deleting them, so they can be reviewed or reused later.

How can you add visuals to your video in Descript?

In Descript, you can add visuals to your video by marking a section as a scene and then dragging and dropping media such as stock footage, images, or GIFs onto the corresponding scene.

What are templates in Descript and how can they save time?

Templates in Descript are pre-designed styles that can be applied to scenes to quickly add a consistent look to your video, saving time on manual design work.

How does Descript handle dynamic captions and what customization options are available?

Descript allows you to add dynamic captions that display the transcribed text in real time. You can customize the appearance, animation, and display style of the captions to fit your video's needs.

What are the different ways to publish or export a project in Descript?

In Descript, you can publish your project directly to most major platforms, share it as a link, or export it as a video, audio file, or transcript with various resolution and quality settings.

Outlines

00:00

😀 Getting Started with Descript

This paragraph introduces the tutorial on using Descript in 15 minutes. The speaker guides viewers to create a new project, choosing between a video or audio project, and then provides an overview of the Descript interface. It explains the composition area, media options, recording features, text and shape additions, and template applications. The process of importing and transcribing video files is covered, including how to handle multiple speakers and settings adjustments for different video formats like social media videos.

05:01

🎬 Editing with Text in Descript

The speaker demonstrates the text-based editing process in Descript, showing how to cut and adjust video by simply editing the text. They explain how changes in the text document automatically reflect in the video, and how to use the ignore function to temporarily remove parts without deleting them from the source. The paragraph also covers the use of the timeline for a real-time playback representation and how to proofread and correct the transcript for better video accessibility and quality.

10:03

📹 Adding Visuals and Scenes in Descript

This section focuses on adding visuals to the video project by creating scenes. The speaker explains how to mark sections for different visuals, such as b-roll or screen recordings, and how to use the forward slash to denote new scenes. They discuss the process of adding stock footage and other media, like GIFs and music, to enhance the video. The paragraph also touches on the use of templates to save time and customize the look of the video, emphasizing the non-destructive nature of editing in Descript.

15:05

🔧 Advanced Editing and Publishing in Descript

The final paragraph covers advanced editing techniques in Descript, including the use of the timeline for fine-tuning edits and adjusting media layers. The speaker shows how to manually adjust the length of media display and how to match edits more precisely with the audio using the timeline. They also discuss the customization of dynamic captions, offering options for style, animation, and display. The paragraph concludes with instructions on how to publish or export the final video, including sharing to platforms or saving as a file, and invites viewers to engage with the content.

Keywords

💡Descript

Descript is a versatile audio and video editing software that allows users to edit media as easily as a text document. It is central to the video's theme, demonstrating its features and capabilities. For example, the script mentions creating a new project in Descript and using its interface for various editing tasks.

💡Transcription

Transcription in the context of the video refers to the process of converting spoken language into written text, which Descript does automatically. It is a key feature that facilitates video editing by allowing users to edit the video as they would a text document. The script illustrates this with the automatic transcription of uploaded video files.

💡Project

In the video, a 'project' is a workspace within Descript where users can manage their media files, text, and edits. It is foundational to the video's content, as the script guides viewers through creating and working within a new project to demonstrate Descript's functionality.

💡Composition

The term 'composition' in the script refers to the main text-based workspace in Descript where the video's transcript is visible and editable. It is integral to the video's message, showing how Descript simplifies video editing by treating the composition like a text document.

💡Scene

A 'scene' in the video script denotes a specific section of the video that has a start and end point, often associated with a change in visuals. The concept is crucial to the video's theme, as it explains how to mark and edit different sections of a video within Descript for a cohesive narrative.

💡Timeline

The 'Timeline' in the script is a feature within Descript that provides a visual representation of the video clips and moments, allowing for precise editing. It is relevant to the video's theme, illustrating the software's capability for detailed video editing.

💡Template

Templates in the video are pre-designed formats or styles that users can apply to their projects in Descript for a quick start or to maintain consistency. They are part of the video's narrative on efficiency, showcasing how templates can save time and provide a professional look.

💡Non-destructive editing

Non-destructive editing, as mentioned in the script, is a method of editing where the original media files remain unaltered, and changes are applied non-permanently. It is a key concept in the video, emphasizing Descript's flexibility and the safety of editing with the software.

💡Dynamic captions

Dynamic captions are captions that update in real-time with the spoken words in a video, as demonstrated in the script. They are an important aspect of the video's content, highlighting Descript's feature for adding engaging and accessible captions to videos.

💡Export

Exporting in the video refers to the final step of saving or sharing the completed project from Descript. It is a critical part of the video's message, showing the various options available for sharing the final video, including direct publishing to platforms or exporting as a file.

💡Media

In the context of the video, 'media' encompasses all the video, photo, and audio files that users work with in Descript. It is a fundamental concept, as the script discusses importing and managing media files for editing within the software.

Highlights

Learn how to use Descript in only 15 minutes.

Create a new project and choose between video or audio-based project type.

Descript's interface includes a composition area, scene thumbnails, and settings.

Media files, including videos, photos, and audio, can be uploaded and transcribed automatically.

Transcripts can be proofread and corrected directly within the text.

Edit videos as easily as editing text documents using Descript's transcription feature.

Use the Timeline for a visual representation of video clips and moments.

Descript allows non-destructive editing, keeping the original video content intact.

Add scenes to mark specific sections for different visuals.

Utilize stock footage, images, GIFs, backgrounds, music, and sound effects within Descript.

Templates can be applied to scenes for quick styling and can be saved for future use.

The Timeline is essential for fine-tuning edits and adjusting media display duration.

Dynamic captions can be added and customized for social media videos.

Publish directly to major platforms or export the video and transcript.

Descript supports exporting in various resolutions and audio settings.

Explore Descript's advanced features for more complex video editing tasks.

The video provides a comprehensive guide to getting started with Descript.

Ask questions or share feedback in the comments for further assistance with Descript.

Transcripts

In this video, let's learn how to use Descript in only 15 minutes.

Clock's ticking so let's jump into it.

All right.

So inside Descript, first thing you want to do is you want to make a new project.

So we're going to click New project.

Don't worry about New Classic project.

It's going to ask you what kind of project you want to make.

And you can always change this after you make it, but is your

project going to be a video-based project or an audio-based project?

So we're going to select video project.

Click Done.

And now we're inside Descript, and we've got our interface up.

So let's go over what each thing does so you can get a brief overview of how this

all works and how it all plays together.

So inside here, we can see we've got our composition, which

basically acts like a text doc.

Up here, we can't see anything because we don't have any videos loaded, but this

is where our video playback would be.

Over on the left side is going to be where our scene thumbnails are going to be, and

we'll go over that a little bit later.

And then over on the right side, it's empty because nothing's selected,

but that's where our settings will be if we need to adjust a clip.

Up here on the top is going to be our different options.

So we've got our media.

This is going to be where all of our media files are going to

be, our videos, photos, audio.

Over here, if you want to record something new, we can record directly.

This is going to be if we want to add some text inside our composition, but

honestly, it's a lot easier just to do it directly inside the composition.

The shape button is if we want to add some shapes inside our video.

And then lastly, we've got our template option, and this is going to be where

we can apply custom templates to scenes, which we'll go over a little bit later.

So easiest way to figure this all out, let's just import some video files.

That's the best way to learn how this works.

But let's just say I want to upload a file.

And now it's going to add this file and then it's also going to upload this file

to the Descript server in the background so I can access this on any other computer

or share with the team in any location.

And then if I just either click add or just drag and drop this

file over here, you can see that it's going to add it to the spot.

And if you drop it in that purple box or if you drop it here, it's going to

automatically start transcribing the file.

You can go into settings if you don't want it to transcribe every single file.

Maybe you had the file transcribed somewhere else and you want to import

it, which we'll go over in future video.

But by default, it's going automatically transcribe your files.

And then this window will pop up where you could select what file

is in and how many speakers it has.

If you're not sure, you could also say unsure, and will it

try to detect the speaker names.

But for right now, since this is a new project, no, we don't

have speaker names loaded.

Now we've got our video loaded, one other thing we could also

do is we come up here to the top left, we can change our Settings.

So by default, it'll use whatever settings your video is at.

But let's say we wanted to reframe this or create a social media video, TikTok

video, we could come over here, select portrait, and if we just tap our video

and come over to layout and come over to the width and height, and we could

just scale this video all the way up.

I am just going to undo that for this case.

We've got our video loaded in.

It automatically transcribes it.

And as you can see, it basically has turned our video into a text document.

So now to edit this video, it is as easy as editing a text document.

So if I click anywhere and I can either press the space bar, or

if I hold down the option button and click, it will automatically-

... ChatGPT's paid tier

... Start playing.

... and James Clear

... So also one thing you'll notice is this new thing popped up on the bottom.

So this is the Timeline, and I'll talk about this a little bit later,

but it is basically a real-time playback of wherever our cursor

is in the script during peak time.

This is a visual timeline representation of all of the video clips and moments.

And you could also see that it shows a rough version of the transcript down here.

This is going to come into play if you need to do more finely detailed edits.

But for right now, we don't need to worry about the timeline.

We're just going to focus on the text part.

So in this part, you can review your text, and you can run through

it and proofread it if you need to.

So like over here-

... ChatGPT

... I'm talking about ChatGPT, but it writes it out as two words and

sort of spells out chat G p t.

So if you need to make a correction as you're reviewing through your

transcript, you just highlight the text and then you just click correct, and

then you just type out the new word.

So you could run through your transcript, proofread it.

I'd say if you were just editing this video for yourself, this is just

for your reference, you don't really need to have a proofread transcript.

But I would advise doing a final pass if you want to, once you publish

your video so that you can export the transcript as captions and upload the

captions to YouTube or wherever you embed this video for accessibility reasons.

And in that case, after you whittle this down, it would be good to do

a pass and adjust your transcripts.

Now let's talk about editing our video slash text.

Let's say I just want to cut out this line.

So if we play this-

... Joey Daoud.

Each week, twice a week, we send out Video Signals, a new

... And I just want to go straight to-

... so let's jump into

... I'm Joey Daoud.

Let's jump into the 5 links.

So if I highlight this text and I just press delete, you'll see there's

a little icon here that indicates that there's a cut in the video.

This little dashed vertical line.

So now if I hit Play this back.

... everyone, I am Joey Daoud.

So let's jump into the 5 links

... It automatically made that edit for me.

I didn't have to like mess with any video timelines or anything.

I just adjusted the text and it automatically made the cut.

And that's pretty much the riff of what you would do with this.

You would just run through this, adjust your text, and make all of

the edits that you want to make.

And I'm just on one video clip.

You could add as many video clips as you want and you can pull whatever

excerpts or sound bites you want from those video clips and mix and

match and incorporate them inside the script, and it will automatically

edit that video in real time.

So in this example from a video we did about James Clear's newsletter, we are

pulling from multiple podcast sources.

And then I was writing out inside Descript.

You could just write out text.

And we'll cover it in a different video, but you could also turn

this text into AI voice text.

But in this case, this was just to write out a script and incorporate

it with podcast clips that we had.

So we can see here in the beginning, we have scripted part for an intro

line and then multiple video files being pulled and then multiple lines

from different videos all edited into this one composition, this one video.

So if we click over here, we can see that this project has multiple compositions.

So in one case, we downloaded different clips from CBS News, had it transcribed.

And then let's say I just want to use this section.

I could just highlight this text, copy it, come back over to my main project.

Let's say I want to add it after this Tim Ferriss clip.

If I just press enter, add a new line and paste it.

It automatically pulls that extra clip in, adds it in here, and I'm

able to edit with multiple video clips by simply copying and pasting.

So when you're editing the script, as I noted, you can just delete parts.

... that issue.

You also get fast

... ... You also get fast response

... Okay, so let's say I want to remove that part.

But let's say for the sake of this video, I'm like, hmm, I don't know,

maybe I want to bring that back later.

I don't want to fully delete it.

I want to remember what was there.

So if I highlight it, instead of pressing delete, I can press

Strikethrough, which they call Ignore.

You could also access this by doing command backspace.

And that will strike this out.

And so we can see visually here, I can still see that this text is here,

but I can see that we'll be ignored.

So if I play this back-

... at that issue, you also get fast response times and

... It skips it.

It acts like it's a cut.

It's act acts like it's not there.

But when you're reviewing the script, you can still see that that text is there.

So this is more useful for ideas or like longer sentences or paragraphs

where you're like, hmm, I feel like I need to cut this out for the sake

of the video, but maybe I'll come back to it or maybe I'll reuse it.

I don't want to fully delete it and forget about it.

And by the way, nothing is actually deleted.

This is non-destructive.

So anything you remove it is still in your source video file.

You can still bring it back.

So let's say we've run through our video.

We have condensed everything that we want to condense.

We have all of the spoken word is what we want to say.

The next step we're going to do is add the visuals.

And the way we do that in Descript is we add scenes.

So scenes are basically a way to think of, hey, in this section here, I want

to mark a start and an end point, and I want some sort of visual to happen here.

So when I come in and I drop a b-roll, another video clip, or a screen recording,

I just wanted to show up for this section.

And we're just going to mark out each section inside our script that

we want to have a new visual happen.

And the way we do that is we add a forward slash.

So let's jump into another project.

Let's say we're editing this social media clip, this TikTok video.

It starts off with the intro.

... number 54.

Stop manually posting social media post with Publer.

So I'm going to want to add scenes.

So with each of these shots, I'm going to want to show something different.

So I'm going to want to make each of them a scene, and it's going to

get a lot easier to add a visual exactly where I want it to be.

So I added these returns, but I need to add a forward slash, if I just type in a

forward slash, we could see over here on the side, it just added a new thumbnail,

which indicates, oh, this is a new scene.

So you can see it's highlighting everything in the rest of the

video because that's a scene.

But if I just come over here to this next line, add a forward slash, new scene.

And so now, if I click on 2, this line of text is a scene.

First line.

... business number 54.

This is the scene.

And then I want to add another scene here.

And I could add a forward slash, or also I could just click this slash

button if you don't want to use keyboard shortcuts for whatever reason.

So let's say I want to show a visual, and let's say maybe I want to use

like, I don't know, some stock footage.

So if I just come over here to Media,

we can see I have all the files that I imported.

But if we come over here, we can see that these are freely available

stock footage clips that I can use.

And you could search.

So let's say, I just want something that is- let's see

what social media pops up with.

Cool.

Some flying through social media icons.

So if I just click this, it will download it.

And you can see it just highlighted this whole little

section that I marked as a scene.

And down here in the timeline, it marked over this scene section.

Hey, this is the video that we're displaying over this entire section.

And now I'm going to want to click on it and scale this up

so it fills the entire frame.

And now if I play it back, we could see scene 1 still remains unchanged.

And now we've got our video.

And then we go back to our regular shot.

And so you could just run through this and apply any visual you want

to any starts, and then whatever section you just marked out.

Now, I just mentioned that yes, you could grab stock video from here.

But also, you can get stock images, stock GIFs.

You can get stock backgrounds, music, sound effects.

So there are tons of free tools and resources already built into Descript that

you can pull in and add to your projects.

Now let's talk about another time-saver.

Templates.

All right, so if we come over with the Templates, and let's say we just

add this vertical template style.

Might not be the best, but it saves you time.

You see the bottom part uses dynamic captions, which shows whatever

we transcribed here in real time.

Now, this style might not be fit for you, but what is useful is if

you build out your own custom looks, either using the shapes from over here

or text features or other templates.

If you just right click on the scene, you can save this template

to be your own custom template so that you can use it in the future.

Like some of these templates that we have here.

And lastly, let's talk about the Timeline.

The timeline, you'll need to use if you need to fine tune your edits a

bit more or if you need to cut out moments of silence in the video.

Or if you want to show media across multiple scenes or have a

bit more control over it, you're going to need to use the timeline.

Now real quick, let's jump into a project that is a bit more polished and completed.

So we can see here, it has a bunch of scenes, a lot more

scenes, a lot more visuals added.

So easy enough to mark out a scene, drop in a visual, and also drop

in different screen recordings.

So if we stretch up this timeline, like I said before,

this is a visual representation.

Also, if you've used any other video editing tools, this is a more classical

view of how you would edit your video.

So, if we expand the timeline view, we can see all of the layers here.

And these layers correspond to all of the layers inside our video.

And so if we want to manually adjust, let's say we need the background to

display longer than a scene, we can just grab the layer of the background and

drag it across as long as we need to.

And now we can manually adjust the layer of the scene.

And we can manually adjust how long that background image or

whatever image, whatever layer you want, how long it stays on screen.

The timeline also comes in handy if you need to fine tune where an edit is made.

So when we're editing in the document or the word view, Descript does a

pretty good job of matching up the edits of the video to the words, but

sometimes it might misjudge where a word actually ends on the audio.

So it might cut off a word or it might leave a little extra gap after

we stopped saying the word, which we want to trim up so the video's

a little bit tighter and cleaner.

So if you come over here at the end of the clip, we can just manually drag the end of

the clip and have it end where we need to.

And we could use the audio wave forms as a guideline to see where we stopped

speaking and where we want the edit to be.

Now, there are a lot of effects and features, and we're not going to

cover them in this video, but the one thing that you will probably want to

know how to use and be interested, especially if you're doing social media

videos, is adding dynamic captions.

So if we just come over here, click the text, click add captions.

We can see that it's highlighted down here with captions.

And it is showing our captions in real time, but it is not

the most interesting looking.

So if we come over here, we can change different options, like

how live techs are displayed.

So if we have a style for the active word to highlight it, if we want to change

the style of future words, and what we want to change the current text, too.

So there's a lot of customizable options here, changing the font.

Adding a background so it's more legible.

Adding a border.

So we can really customize it and customize how it animates.

So you can see here, we now have one word highlighting at a time.

And then also we could even do things like if we want to display

more text at once, we could stretch this out and make it bigger.

Or if we want to display only a few words at a time, we can make it smaller.

So it's really flexible and really easy to add animated

dynamic captions to our videos.

And then once we're done with everything, we're going to want to Publish it.

So if you come over here to Publish,

we can either share this composition as a shareable link, which is most likely

not what you're going to want to do.

You could also publish directly from Descript to most major platforms,

or you could publish it directly to YouTube, to Buzzsprout if you've

got a podcast, Restream, Wistia.

So most major platforms are supported here.

Or if you just want to export the video file, you come over to export.

You can choose if you want to export it as a video, audio file.

Or if you want to export the transcript as its own, you just indicate

what section you want to export.

Most likely it's just going to be the current composition, everything

you see here, and that you edited.

What resolution you want to export it at.

And it'll also note if your composition was in a different size, what kind

of quality you want to export it at and some specific audio settings.

And then if you want to include any metadata, like some of the text here.

And then you just click Export.

And choose where you want to save it, and it will export your file.

And you are good to go.

And that's it.

You've exported your video and now you're good to go.

Now we just kind of scratched the surface of what you can do with Descript, but

this should get you up and running.

But if you have specific questions or things that you're trying to

accomplish with Descript, let us know in the comments below.

Also, if you found this video useful, please hit the subscribe button

and give this video a thumbs up.

Thanks for watching.

I'll catch you in the next video.