The apps worth using, the cuts that hold attention, and why subtitles are proofread by hand.
The five-step flow
Five steps, always in this order.
Select the takes, before touching the edit.
Assemble the structure: opening, body, ending, with no effects and no music.
Clean the sound: level, silences, stray noises.
Add the subtitles, then proofread them.
And export in the requested formats, by hand.
One note on method: never mix two steps. Adding subtitles while still choosing shots wastes a great deal of time, because every change in the edit forces the subtitles to be redone.
Where the subtitles go
Three rules, often discovered too late.
Do not place them right at the bottom of the image: the platform's interface covers that area, and part of the text becomes unreadable.
Keep a margin at the top too: automatic recropping for another format cuts the edges.
And limit yourself to two lines, with one idea per line.
One check taking ten seconds: watch the finished video on the phone, in the app where it will be published, before delivering it. What you see is what the viewer will see, not what your editing software shows.
The cuts that hold attention
Four principles, valid whatever the app.
The first second is never cut: it decides everything else.
Cut the silences, keep the breaths: a video with no pause at all is exhausting.
Change shot when the idea changes, not to the beat of a metronome.
And leave half a second after the last word, or the ending seems accidental.
One quick test: watch the video without sound. If the sequence stays understandable, the edit holds.
Why subtitles are proofread by hand
Three systematic errors of automatic transcription.
Brand names, replaced by the nearest common word.
Numbers and units, written out in letters and unreadable at small size.
And sentence breaks, made at random breathing pauses rather than by meaning.
One simple consequence: always proofread, checking first the product name, then the figures. Five minutes of proofreading separate an amateur video from a professional one.
What not to do
Four habits to abandon.
Animated transitions, which date the video and break the pace.
Music under the voice, which masks more than it helps and raises rights questions.
Added sound effects, which give the editing away.
And the introduction: naming the brand before showing anything loses half the audience.
What can be done on a phone without loss
| Task | Doable on mobile | What stays difficult |
|---|---|---|
| Cutting and assembling | Yes | Nothing |
| Subtitling | Yes, automatically | Proper nouns |
| Colour correction | Partly | Fine grading |
| Exporting several formats | Yes | Batch naming |
What is settled before editing
Exporting at full quality, one project per order, and clear naming from the start. Finding a file three weeks later costs more than the edit itself.
What is checked before sending
The readability of subtitles on a small screen, the absence of the editing app's logo, and the file weight against what the brand can receive.
Always keep a bare version
Three reasons, all economic.
A version with no burned-in text allows the statements to be adapted for another market, with no re-editing.
A version with no music allows the video to be republished when a track's rights expire.
And a version with no subtitles allows a second language to be produced in a few hours.
That version is kept with the project, not only the exported file. A lost project is worth a new production.
One last marker, valid for everybody editing on a phone: perceived quality does not come from the power of the tool. It comes from three things checkable in five minutes: normalised sound, proofread subtitles and an intact first second. All the rest is comfort.
Sources
Checked on 4 September 2026. Thresholds and rates change: where this guide and the official source disagree, the official source is right.
