Descript Tutorial For Beginners - Get Started FAST

Summary

This 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

00:00

🎥 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.

05:01

🧹 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.

10:03

🎙 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.

15:05

⏱ 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.

Keywords

💡transcript

The transcript refers to the text version of the spoken audio in a video. Descript auto-generates transcripts by transcribing the audio. Transcripts are important for editing captions, improving accuracy, publishing text alongside a video, and more. The video focuses heavily on using and correcting the transcript.

💡scene

Scenes allow you to divide a video into logical sections. Any edits made to one scene won't affect other scenes. Scenes are useful for granular control, like when you only want captions to appear during certain sections.

💡publish

Publishing refers to exporting and sharing the final video when you are done editing in Descript. You can publish to a web link, YouTube, podcast services, and more. Export settings like resolution and audio quality can be customized.

💡timeline

The timeline shows a visual representation of the video layers over time, much like other video editors. However, Descript focuses more on transcript editing than timeline editing.

💡captions

Captions refer to on-screen text of the transcript's words. They are useful for accessibility. Descript captions stay in sync with the voice and transcript automatically.

💡aspect ratio

The aspect ratio is the proportional relationship between the video's width and height. Common ratios like 16:9 landscape are used for YouTube, while vertical 9:16 is best for TikTok.

💡layer

Layers allow you to stack visual and audio elements on top of each other. The main video clip sits on the base script layer. Titles, captions, and more are added as layers.

💡AI

Descript uses AI for many automatic editing features like transcription, filler word removal, studio sound effects, and eye contact.

💡correct

The correct feature lets you manually fix any transcription errors by editing the text. This improves caption accuracy.

💡export

Exporting allows you to download the video file to your computer. You can choose what media to include and customize settings like resolution.

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