Make A Preview Teaser for YouTube Video

THE ULTIMATE FOMO EDIT

There is a winning recipe on YouTube for long vlog and GoPro video: 1. Pack the first seconds with highlights, 2. Add a pre-produced show intro and, 3. Polish and categorize what's in the video. You show people what's coming up so they don't want to miss out. 

Teasers are perfect for long Riverside Interviews, Zoom team meetings, GoPro action video, podcast commentary, and YouTube reaction videos. Basically any video over 10 minutes in length you expect viewers to sit back and watch.  

You won't be first to make a video teaser, but you will be done first. 

Markers Unlock the Power of Stitch

The utility of Stitch is far more than tacking on an intro / outro. Combine with Markers and pack the first 30 seconds with intrigue, stitch to the front of your fully polished timeline, and  export up to 4k video in less time than it takes to record.

The purpose of this video is to show you how to create a preview teaser in TimeBolt. 

 Our brand promise is a fully polished timeline, faster than you record it live. This includes the ability to stitch a teaser onto the front of your video.

To showcase Stitch, I use my own GoPro video I make with my dog on YouTube called DougsDog. I strap a camera to his back and go to dog parks for frisbee and dog drama.

Since action video has nothing to do with sound, I put 'Ignore Detections Shorter Than' to 10 seconds so no cuts are automatically made.

FOLLOW THESE STEPS

1. You need a paid version of TimeBolt.

2. On the first pass:

• Set default preview speed to 1.5x.
• Dead-air is auto detected—AI can't touch the speed and accuracy of sound detection. You get a 20x more precise start to a cut. Ends of words don't get cut off.
• Mark key scenes—press the 'M' key to highlight any scene on the timeline.
• Track time—as you add a new marker, you can see time adds up here.

3. Don't forget to:

• Run Umcheck if unscripted.
• Sculpt with keys S-O-B.
• Type YouTube chapters.
• Punch in and zoom around.
• Fast forward silence, in less time than it took you to record it live as well.

4. Save cuts:

• Save your primary timeline (JSON). Rename it to 'timeline' so you know which JSON to apply in Stitch.

5. Isolate the marked cuts:

• Select 'Keep Only Marked Cuts'—only marked clips are kept to isolate your selections.
• You can now preview the marked cuts (press Shift then the down arrow key to get to the start of your timeline).
• If you're previewing and want to remove a marker, get back to your main timeline with CMD+Z. At this point, you can remove an existing marker or make a new one.
• Go back to 'Keep only marked cuts'.
• Save marked clips—the file saves as a new JSON. I rename it to JSON_teaser to identify it in Stitch.

6. Open STITCH:

• Find it on the left-hand menu.
• Add files—First, I add the primary GoPro source video. These are the cuts for the preview teaser.
• I add a show intro video that's pre-produced.
• I again add my GoPro source video, but now I apply the main timeline JSON.

7. Preview the results:

• In preview, only the marked clips are shown, including any enhancements we added in TimeBolt.
• Drag to reorder.

8. Prepare for rendering:

• Before I render, I type custom YouTube chapters. The teaser JSON still has the YouTube chapters. The chapters start with the main timeline, so click remove on the teaser timeline.
• Apply Turbo Mode—If your video is mostly commentary, increase the rate of speech with Turbo Mode. Who doesn't want to talk 12% faster?
• Click export.

9. Download chapters txt file:

• Before I render, download the chapters txt file to copy/paste into the YouTube description. Whatever additional video you stick in front, all math and time is accounted for. Just copy and paste it.

10. Export:

• Select resolution, orientation, frames per second, and render as a single MP4.
• While my watchable video is rendering, I shoot more GoPro video, walk the dog, or do chores, and in less time than it took to record live.

What I learned while making this video and putting every feature to the test in TimeBolt:

- How you setup audio and video recording is key. Make sure levels are correct at production phase. Takes so much time to fix in post, and will require multiple renderings.

- No matter if you hire and editor or not, you control the timing of both what's important to Mark in a teaser, and how much time you take of your viewers. If you hire a designer export a teaser and share the cut XML as well.  

To learn more about TimeBolt: