How to cut a trailer from your own footage
Upload your footage to Vizard Agent, say what the trailer is for and name a mood. Vizard Agent finds the strongest shots, builds them into a structure that escalates, cuts them to music and adds title cards. A trailer is a pacing problem more than a footage problem, and the pacing is what you are handing over.
What is the short version?
Three moves, and the mood word does more than the other two together. A trailer is not a shortened version of something — it is its own form, built to withhold. What makes it hard by hand is that every cut has to land against the music, and that is precisely the part Vizard Agent takes.
- Go to Vizard Agent and upload the footage.
- Say what it is a trailer for, name a mood, and give a length.
- Say what the last card should ask the viewer to do.
The rest of this page is what goes into each of those, and where the approach stops working.
What do you need before you start?
Footage with range, and a decision about tone. A trailer needs contrast — quiet then loud, wide then close — so a set of shots that are all the same energy gives Vizard Agent nothing to escalate through, however good each individual shot is.
- Everything, including the b-roll. Establishing shots and quiet moments are what make the loud parts land. Send them.
- A mood.
dark and moody,epic,minimal. The same footage cuts into three genuinely different trailers. - What it is for. A product, a film, a brand, an event. Vizard Agent structures a trailer around what it is selling.
- The ending. A date, a name, a call to action. This is the card the whole thing builds to.
- A length. Thirty seconds for social, sixty to ninety for a landing page or a screening.
What do you type into Vizard Agent?
Vizard Agent ships this as a template, and the bracket after the dash is the one that changes the output most. Mood is not a filter applied at the end — it decides shot order, cut length, music and how long Vizard Agent holds before the reveal, which is the entire craft of the format.
Prompt
Three variants worth keeping:
When it is a product launch
When you want it to withhold
When there is a line worth using
What are the steps inside Vizard Agent?
Three, and the second is where the format lives. Vizard Agent watches everything, picks the shots that carry weight, orders them so the energy climbs rather than sits flat, cuts them against the music, and puts the title cards where a trailer puts them — as one request, so you judge a finished trailer.
- Upload the footage to the Vizard Agent chat with the prompt above.
- Pick the tier that matches the job. For anything fronting a launch the product recommends Max; the free Flash tier is built for quick, simple edits.
- Watch it once for the build, not the cuts. Whether it escalates is the only question. If it plateaus, telling Vizard Agent so is a sentence.
What does the result look like?
A trailer with a shape: an opening that sets something up, a middle that raises it, a peak, and a card at the end. Music-led, cut to the beat, in the aspect ratio you named. Vizard Agent keeps the footage in the project, so a thirty-second social version costs a sentence rather than a second upload.
It is not instant. Advertising and promotional work — the closest measured category — runs a median of 28 minutes end to end, with the middle half between 15 and 47 minutes, and a median of 82 credits (middle half 48–251). Across all projects the median cost by tier is Flash 47, Pro 55, Max 242, Ultra 263 credits.
When does this not work well?
A trailer promises that something is worth your attention. Vizard Agent can build the promise out of footage that supports one; what it cannot do is manufacture stakes, and an over-cut trailer for something ordinary is worse than no trailer.
- Footage with no range. Twenty shots at the same energy gives a trailer that starts at its peak and stays there. Contrast is the raw material.
- Nothing to withhold. Trailers work by not showing you something. A product with one feature and one shot has nothing to build to.
- Promising more than exists. The commonest failure, and it is a judgement call, not an edit. A trailer that oversells is a trailer that costs you trust.
- Music rights. A trailer is the most music-dependent format here, and one on a brand or monetised channel needs music you are licensed to use.
- Spoilers. Vizard Agent does not know which shot is the ending. Name the shots that must not appear.
- Faces and releases. A promotional trailer is commercial use. Confirm you have the rights to the people in it.
- Legal claims in the title cards. Dates, prices and superlatives on a card are claims. Check them before it ships.
If you cannot say in one sentence what the trailer is promising, that is worth resolving before you cut, not after.
How do you fix a result that came back wrong?
Reply in the same Vizard Agent conversation instead of starting over. The footage and everything Vizard Agent already built are still in the project, so you never re-upload and you are not billed again for work already done — only for what the change costs.
| What you see | What to say next |
|---|---|
| It plateaus | "Start quieter — hold the first fifteen seconds back, then build" |
| It shows the ending | "Drop every shot from the last scene" |
| Wrong feeling | "Darker and slower, fewer cuts, no bright shots" |
| The end card is weak | "End on black, then 'Pre-orders open 4 March' alone" |
| It is too fast to read | "Hold the title cards a second longer each" |
How does Vizard Agent compare to cutting it yourself?
By hand, a trailer is a music edit: find the track, map its beats, then place shots against them and adjust every cut by frames until the whole thing breathes. Editors are good at this and it still takes a day, which is why most footage never becomes a trailer at all.
| Vizard Agent | Cutting the trailer by hand | |
|---|---|---|
| Choosing the shots | Part of the same request | A full pass at real time |
| Structuring the build | Automatic, steerable | The craft, done by hand |
| Cutting to the music | Automatic | Frame by frame |
| Title cards | Part of the same request | Built separately |
| Time to a first cut | Tens of minutes | A day, once scheduled |
Neither replaces the other. Vizard Agent wins on getting a competent trailer out of footage that would otherwise sit unused; a human editor still wins when the trailer is the thing being judged.
Common questions
Can it cut a trailer without a voiceover?
Yes, and say so explicitly — "no voiceover". Music-led trailers with title cards are the more common form for products and brands, and Vizard Agent will otherwise sometimes add narration where the format does not need it.
How do I stop it showing the ending?
Name the shots. Vizard Agent has no way to know which moment is your reveal, so "do not use anything from the final scene" is the instruction that works, and it is worth being specific about which files those are.
Can I use my own music?
Upload the track and say to cut to it. That is the safest route for anything commercial, because you already know what you are licensed for — a trailer is the format where music rights bite hardest.
Can I get a vertical version for social?
Ask Vizard Agent in the same conversation. The footage is already in the project, and it is worth asking for a different opening too, because a vertical trailer has about two seconds to earn the next twenty.
What if my footage is all one mood?
Say so and ask for the minimal treatment. Vizard Agent cannot build contrast that was never shot, and a restrained cut is far better than a dramatic one straining against footage that does not support it.