The short-form video checklist: 14 things to check before you post a clip

The short answer: before you post a clip, check the hook (the first two seconds), the ending (a complete sentence), the framing (the subject in the window the whole time), the captions (readable, one line, clear of the app's buttons), the file (1080x1920) and the sound. It takes about a minute per clip, and it catches most of what makes a clip die at a few hundred views.

We make GetClipMachine, which turns long videos into clips, so we check a lot of them. Every item below is here because we have watched it go wrong, in our own output or in clips customers sent us.

The content checks

1. The first two seconds give a reason to stay. The scroll decision is made almost immediately. A question, a bold claim, a reaction already in progress: something that only makes sense if you keep watching. The eight hook types we look for are a good list to test an opening against.

2. It makes sense to a stranger. Watch it as if you had never seen the creator. If it needs the previous ten minutes, it is a clip for existing fans and it will not travel.

3. The setup is still there. Tools and editors both tend to start a clip on the punchy line and cut what made it punchy. On one real job a model clipped seconds 56 to 62 out of a joke that started at 49. If the payoff lands without its setup, put the setup back.

4. It ends on a complete sentence. A clip that ends mid-word feels broken, and viewers swipe before the loop. This is the most common fault in AI clips, and the cause is specific: transcripts time words, not the ends of thoughts.

5. The length fits the moment. 20 to 45 seconds for most clips, up to 60 for a full answer. Below about 10 seconds the context is gone. How long a short-form clip should be has the reasoning and our own measurements.

6. The score is not the decision. If your tool gives clips a score, use it to sort, not to decide. Scores from AI tools tend to cluster in a narrow band, which makes the difference between an 84 and an 87 meaningless; why every AI clip scores 85 explains it. Read the reason instead.

The picture checks

7. The subject is in the frame for the whole clip. Scrub through it. A vertical crop keeps about 32% of a widescreen frame, and when the crop sits in the wrong place you get a knee, a sofa or the gap between two people. The ways auto-reframing gets this wrong are worth knowing.

8. The frame does not jump around. A camera that pans for no reason reads as a mistake. Moves should happen on cuts, or slowly.

9. Screens, games and slides are shown whole. If the shot is a screen recording, a chart or gameplay, a crop throws away the part that matters. Fit the whole frame instead; vertical gameplay clips covers the layouts.

10. It is sharp. Look at it on a phone at full size. If it is soft, check the source resolution first: a 360p source enlarged to 1080x1920 cannot look sharp. Why clips look blurry has the five causes in the order to check them.

The caption checks

11. Captions are readable with the sound off. Most people watch muted first. Large, high-contrast, one line at a time, timed to the words. Two- and three-line blocks are hard to read at scrolling speed, which is why our captions are always one line.

12. Names and terms are spelled right. A transcript can be 98% accurate and still misspell the guest's name in every caption. That one error is the most visible one there is; auto captions for clips covers how to catch it.

13. Captions are clear of the app's buttons. TikTok, Reels and Shorts each cover a different part of the screen with their own captions, buttons and progress bar, up to the bottom 30% on TikTok. The safe zone by platform shows exactly where.

The file check

14. It is 1080x1920 and the sound is level. Vertical 9:16 at 1080x1920 for all three apps, even when the picture inside is letterboxed. Then listen once on a phone speaker: a quiet guest next to a loud host, or music over speech, is easy to miss on headphones.

Making the checklist fast

Fourteen checks sound slow. In practice most of them are one look: play the first two seconds, play the last two, scrub the middle with the sound off. That is the minute.

What makes it fast is not having to fix much. If you are clipping by hand, fix the source of repeated problems once (a caption style, a caption position, an export preset) instead of clip by clip. If you use an AI clipper, check what it already handles: ours cuts at sentence ends, widens short picks to include the setup, keeps captions to one measured line and places them by what is on screen, and fits screens and gameplay whole. Then the checklist is mostly items 1, 2 and 12, which are the ones that need a human anyway.

Turning a whole YouTube video into clips rather than checking one? How to turn a YouTube video into Shorts walks through it.