How to Edit an AI Film: Sound Design, Color Grading and Export

0:04The Edit is where your film is actually made. Every shot so far is raw material. In this lecture, you'll assemble it, find the rhythm, build the sound in layers, unify the look and export for wherever the film is going.

0:20First, get the material out. Screenweaver produces your shots and your scenes, but it doesn't edit the film. You download each video and cut it in your editor of choice, like DaVinci Resolve, Premiere or CapCut. Name every file by scene, shot and take before you import anything. You'll thank yourself at 2 in the morning.

0:43Then assemble, and only then cut for rhythm. Lay the shots in script order, watch the whole thing once and start trimming. Cut on in motion, not on clip length. Use J cuts and L cuts. Let the sound of the next shot start before its picture, or let a line carry over the cut. Those overlaps are what make AI shots feel like one continuous scene.

1:10A useful habit. Watch the cut once with no sound, and once with your eyes closed. The first tells you whether the pictures tell the story, the second tells you whether the sound does.

1:22Now, sound in layers. First an ambience bed under every scene. Rain on the roof, a city far away. Then the effects that the action needs. A door, a breath, paper between fingers. Then the dialogue, clean and in front. And music last, and lower than you think. Pull it down under every line, and let silence work. Always fade the sound out at the end of a scene, never stop it dead.

1:53As a starting point for the levels, dialogue on top, effects a few decibels below, the ambience lower still, and the music lowest of all, whenever someone speaks.

2:04Then grade. Shots from different takes, and sometimes from different models, never match perfectly. Grading pulls them into one world. When Lost Gardens' first episode was cut and graded in DaVinci Resolve, pulling every shot into the same cold blue was what made it feel like a single film. Match the skin tones first, then the overall look.

2:26Finally, export for the destination. For online platforms, a 1080p or 4K H .264 file, with the loudness around minus 14 to minus 16 luffs. For festivals, read each festival's technical specs. Some ask for ProRes files or subtitle files in a given language. Keep a full quality master and make every delivery from it.

2:52Make a subtitle file too. Many viewers watch without sound, and festivals often require English subtitles for non -English films. The photos online is spoken in French, so its English subtitle is part of the film.

3:25Your exercise? Edit your short from your generated shots. Build the sound in four layers, grade it into one world, and export a master. That's the end of section six. Take the quiz, and in the last section, we'll put your film in front of an audience.