The first three seconds decide everything else.
Most short videos lose people before the point arrives. Six ways to open that make stopping the scroll the obvious thing to do.
Markers (6)
Someone is scrolling with one thumb, and your video gets about as long as that thumb takes to decide. Most short videos that lose people lose them early. The good part is usually there. It just turns up after the viewer has gone.
Here are the six things we do to the opening of almost every short form edit. None of them need a new camera. Most are a few trims.
Start in the middle
The first draft of most videos opens with a run up. A hello, a name, a “so today”, a breath while the speaker finds the thought. It feels polite on the day of the shoot. On a phone it is three seconds of nothing happening, and nobody has ever stayed for the greeting.
Find the sentence where the video actually starts: the first one that says something only this video says. Cut everything before it. In most editors that is a ripple delete: the clip goes and everything after it moves up to close the gap.
Nobody has ever stayed for the greeting.
Then watch it back. It will feel abrupt to you, because you remember the run up. The viewer never heard it. To them it just feels like a video that knows where it is going. If the greeting matters to your channel, move it to the end, or put your name on screen for a second over the good part.
Live demo·opener_v1
Ripple delete the warm up
Pick a clip with an amber stripe and ripple delete it, or just press the button and it takes the next one. The rest of the opener slides left to close the gap.
Example opener
00:00:06:10
Starts on a greeting. The point arrives at 00:00:04:06.
- Warm up
- The point
Or select a clip and press Delete.
Say the promise out loud, and put it on screen
Within the first line, the viewer should know what they get for staying. Not a topic, a promise. “Phone video tips” is a topic. “The one setting that ruins your phone videos” is a promise, and it has a gap in it that only the video can fill.
Say it in the first sentence and put the same words on screen as text, large, inside the title safe area. Some people will hear it and some will read it, and the ones who do both will be sure. Keep the on screen version short. Four to seven words usually carries it.
The usual worry is context: surely people need the background first? They need it eventually. They do not need it before they have a reason to care.
If you cannot write the promise in one line, that is a script problem, and it is cheaper to fix before the shoot.
Move in the first second
A talking head that holds perfectly still reads as a photograph for the first moment, and a photograph is easy to scroll past. Give the first second some change, so the eye knows this is a video before the brain has decided anything.
It does not need to be big. A slow push in over the first two seconds is often enough. What it needs is to be there from the first frame, not after the intro graphic has finished.
- A scale or position change on the opening shot, eased so it does not lurch.
- A cut inside the first second or two, even if it is only to a tighter framing of the same take.
- Real movement in the frame: a hand, the product arriving, the speaker leaning in. It beats any movement added afterwards.
Movement that means nothing is still nothing, only faster.
Open a loop
A loop is a question the video raises and does not answer yet. “By the end of this you will know why your footage looks soft” is a loop. So is showing the finished result first and then going back to how it was made. People stay to close it.
Two rules keep it honest. Close the loop you opened, in this video, not in part two. And close it late enough to matter. If the answer arrives at second five, the loop held for two seconds. Put the payoff near the end and let the middle earn the wait.
Nobody minds waiting for something. They mind waiting for nothing.
Let the first word land on the first frame
Look at the very first frame of your edit and listen to the very first sound. In a lot of drafts there is a gap: a beat of room tone, an inhale, the speaker’s mouth opening. That gap is the video not starting yet, and it is the easiest trim in this whole list.
Trim the head of the first clip so the first word begins on frame one. If the word starts soft, leave a frame or two in front of it so it does not click. If there is music, start it on the same frame rather than fading it up under the speech.
Do the same with the first caption: on screen from frame one, not a beat later. A video that starts mid sentence feels like walking in on something interesting, which is exactly the feeling you want.
Check it muted, at arm’s length
Before you export, watch the first three seconds the way most people will meet them: on a phone, held at arm’s length, with the sound off. Then watch them again with the sound on. In that order.
- Muted, at arm’s length. Does the text say the promise, is it big enough to read, and does something move?
- Sound on. Does the first word land on the first frame, and does the promise sound like a promise?
- Only then, the big screen, to check the details nobody on a phone will ever see.
Watch for text sitting under the app’s buttons, too. The edges of a vertical frame are busier than they look in the editor.
If all three pass, the opening is done. If one fails, it is usually the fix you were hoping to skip.