You've probably just watched a 35-second clip explaining that Claude killed video editors. The clip is short on purpose — this is the long version. The actual setup, the edge cases, and the one gotcha that sends most people back to Final Cut after 90 seconds. Read it once, follow it once, and you'll never timeline-edit by hand again. Estimated read: 8 minutes. Estimated time to your first AI-edited render: 10–15 minutes.
What you'll have at the end
- Claude Code installed and signed in (desktop app or terminal — your call).
- The Remotion skill/MCP wired up so Claude can write video timelines on demand.
- A project folder where dropping a clip and one sentence produces a finished MP4.
- A workflow loop that takes minutes, not hours, per revision.
Total time to set up: ~10 minutes if Node is already installed, ~15 if it isn't.
Before you start
You need exactly four things. Anything else this guide tells you to install, you'll install along the way.
| Requirement | What for | How to check |
|---|---|---|
| Node.js 20+ | The Remotion CLI runs on Node | node -v should print v20.x or higher |
| A terminal | Where you'll run Claude Code | Terminal.app, iTerm2, Windows Terminal — any TTY |
| A Claude account | API access for Claude Code | Sign up at claude.ai if you don't have one |
| A folder of footage | The video you want edited | Anywhere on disk; we'll point Claude at it |
If node -v errors out, install via nvm — don't use the system installer, you'll want to switch versions later.
Read this first
In the desktop app, don't paste the npx command.
The one rule: In the Claude desktop app, never paste the
npxcommand from the Remotion site. Describe the install in plain English instead and let Claude handle it. (In Claude Code in a terminal, pasting is fine — the terminal can drive the interactive wizard.)
Visit remotion.dev and you'll see the install command shown right on the page — something like npx create-video@latest. It's tempting to copy that straight into Claude's chat in the desktop app. Don't.
That command is interactive. It expects you to answer questions with arrow keys — what to name your video, which template to use. Pasted into the desktop app's chat, this stalls silently. The sandboxed shell underneath is waiting for keystrokes that will never arrive — and the app's chat has no way to send them.
The fix: ask, don't paste
Instead of the raw command, type a sentence:
Install Remotion and scaffold a portrait video project here.
Use the TypeScript template.Claude runs the install on your behalf, drives the wizard, picks the template, and waits out npm install. You walk away for two minutes and come back to a working folder. This is the path the video shows.
Power-user note — if you're running Claude Code in your terminal instead of the desktop app, this rule doesn't apply — your terminal can drive the interactive wizard, so pasting the npx command works. Either way, the safest approach is to describe the install and let Claude pick the right path.
Step 01 — Install Claude
One download. Same on Mac and Windows.
- Go to claude.ai/download in any browser.
- Download the Claude desktop app for your OS — Mac or Windows. Run the installer.
- Open the app and sign in with your Claude account. (If you don't have one yet, sign up at claude.ai first — it takes 30 seconds.)
You're done when the app opens to a chat window. That's where the next two steps happen.
For power users — if you'd rather use Claude Code in your terminal, install via
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bashon macOS / Linux. Then runclaudeto sign in. The rest of this guide works in either interface.
Step 02 — Install the Remotion skill/MCP
Don't go to remotion.dev. Just ask Claude.
A. Open Claude (the app, or terminal) and start a new chat. Pick a fresh chat so Claude has a clean working context.
B. Tell Claude what you want. One sentence does it:
Install Remotion's skill/MCP for me, then scaffold a new portrait
video project in a folder called my-first-video. Use the
TypeScript template.Claude will create the folder, install the Remotion skill, run the install wizard, pick the TypeScript template, and finish with npm install. Walk away for two minutes.
C. Verify it worked. Ask Claude to show you what landed: "Show me what's in the my-first-video folder." You should see roughly:
package.json remotion.config.ts src/ public/ node_modules/If you see those five things, you're in business. If you don't, ask Claude what went wrong — the answer is almost always "an npm step failed; let me retry."
The gotcha — don't paste. If you visit remotion.dev, you'll see the npx install command sitting right on the page. In the desktop app, don't copy-paste it into chat.
npx create-video@latestis interactive, and the app's chat can't drive arrow keys. Describe the install instead — Claude will run it correctly.
Step 03 — Edit your first video
Now the part that actually feels like magic.
A. Drop your footage into the project's public/ folder. Open the project folder in Finder (or Explorer on Windows) and drag your video file into the public/ folder. That's it. If you'd rather use the terminal:
cp ~/Downloads/raw-clip.mp4 my-first-video/public/raw-clip.mp4public/ is special: anything in there can be referenced by Remotion at render time.
B. In your Claude Code session, describe the edit. Be specific:
I have a video at public/raw-clip.mp4. Cut out every filler word
("um", "uh"), trim any pause longer than 0.6 seconds, and add
word-by-word captions. Render to final.mp4 at 1080x1920 portrait.Claude will probe the video for duration and resolution, generate a transcript, write the Remotion timeline as TypeScript in src/Composition.tsx, run npx remotion render, and hand you back final.mp4 — usually in 1–3 minutes. The first render is always the slowest because it has to bundle; subsequent renders cache.
Tip — be specific about the output. "Cut filler words" is vague; "remove every 'um' and 'uh' but keep all 'like' uses" is actionable. The more concrete the description, the less iteration.
C. Iterate. This is where the workflow flexes. From the same session:
The captions are too small. Double the font size.
The first cut at 0:14 should actually be at 0:18.
Add a slow-mo from 0:32 to 0:36, half-speed.
Re-render at 60 fps.Each prompt is seconds, not minutes. Claude edits the timeline file and re-runs the render. This is the loop that kills traditional editing — not because the AI is smarter than a human editor, but because the iteration cost drops to near zero.
Tips & tricks
A handful of things you'll wish you knew on day one.
| Trick | Why it works |
|---|---|
Keep raw footage outside public/ until you actually use it. | public/ files get bundled into every preview, slowing startup. |
| Render previews at 30 fps before going to 60. | 4× faster iteration; bump only the final pass. |
| Ask Claude to leave inline TSX comments explaining each scene's intent. | Next time you edit, Claude reads its own notes and skips re-deriving context. |
git init on day one — each Claude edit becomes a commit. | Lets you say "go back to two prompts ago" with surgical precision. |
| For clips longer than 10 minutes, ask Claude to chunk first. | Monolithic renders OOM; chunked renders are faster and concatenate cleanly. |
| Bake captions early, not last. | Captions inform pacing decisions; adding them last means re-cutting. |
Use the --concurrency=4 render flag. | Most modern Macs render 3–4× faster with parallel encoding. |
Drop a CLAUDE.md in the project root. | Claude reads it on every session — encode preferences once. |
Free prompts — the Showcase
Remotion publishes a Prompt Showcase — community-built timelines you can clone with one click. Each card has a small Claude icon; click it and the prompt is handed to Claude Code directly — no copy-paste, no manual translation. From inside Claude Code you can also ask:
Open the Remotion showcase. Find the "News article highlight" prompt.
Adapt it to use my footage at public/launch.mp4.Personal favorites:
- News article headline highlight — for any clip where you're reacting to a news story.
- Travel Route on Map with 3D landmarks — for trip recaps; auto-generates the line + city pins.
- Rocket Launches Timeline — looks ridiculous on portrait video; data-viz that actually pops.
Each is a starting point. Claude will adapt them.
Common gotchas
"Module not found: remotion" — you launched
claudefrom the wrong directory.cdinto the project folder first, then runclaude.
"Cannot find module 'esbuild'" —
npm installdidn't finish. Runnpm installin the project root manually, then resume.
Claude says "I can't run that command" — the command is interactive. Don't paste it — describe what you want and let Claude handle the install. If the app keeps refusing, switch to Claude Code in your terminal.
Renders come out silent — two usual suspects: the audio file isn't under
public/(staticFile()only seespublic/-relative paths), or you wrapped the audio in a<Sequence from={...}>that starts after the clip ends.
The timeline drifts after a re-cut — you spliced audio without shifting downstream scene timings. Every audio splice changes the timeline by Δ; every scene's start time past the splice needs
+Δ. Claude will do this automatically if you ask.
The render freezes on the last frame — source video is shorter than the scene. Either the playback rate is too fast, or
startFromis too late. Lower one of the three.
What to learn next
Once the loop above feels comfortable, three directions to expand.
- Custom scene templates. Write a typing-animation or stat-card template once, reuse it across videos.
- Voice-over + synced captions. Pre-record narration with ElevenLabs, get word-level timestamps, sync captions, layer music underneath.
- Multi-clip masonry layouts. Collage four prior renders in a 2×2 grid for "look what I shipped this week" beats.
That's the whole loop. Drop a clip, write a sentence, render. Iterate in seconds. Now go cut something.