Short-form video

Short-form video cuts a video, or several clips joined together, into a vertical short that is ready to post. Daoco reads what’s said, keeps the strongest part, takes out long pauses and filler words, and adds styled captions, an opening hook, punch-in zooms, and a thumbnail. The post’s caption is written when you turn the short into a draft. The finished video is saved to your brand library. It works best on talking-to-camera video, interviews, podcasts, tutorials, and screen recordings with narration. A video with nobody talking can’t be cut this way yet.

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Enable the preview

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Make a short

Attach a video (or pick one from the library) and type /short-form, or just ask: “make this a 30-second reel”, “caption this”, “cut this down for TikTok”.

• Length: the source can be up to 10 minutes. Daoco trims it to the style’s usual length unless you ask for one.
• Several clips: attach up to 10 clips (10 minutes in total) and Daoco joins them into one short. It puts them in the order that tells the story best (the strongest hook first, the sign-off last) and leaves out repeated takes. Ask for “a short from each video” to get one per video instead; each costs its own premium token.
• From your assistant: send the video on WhatsApp or iMessage and ask for a short. Videos up to 100 MB come through the assistant; upload longer ones in the dashboard.
• From an AI app: upload the video with upload_file, then start work with /short-form and the upload. get_output returns the finished video.

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Thumbnail

When a short benefits from one, Daoco makes a thumbnail: it looks at five frames taken while key lines are spoken, picks the one that best matches what the video is about, and sets a short title on it in your brand font and color. Very short clips, casual stories, and videos whose first frame already says what they are skip it. The thumbnail is the video’s cover in the card, the library, and its post draft, and you can download it on its own. Turn it on or off and type its title on the card, or ask in chat for a different frame.

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Video looks

Short-form looks live in your brand’s Daoco Looks, next to your image looks. When a short looks the way you like, click Save next to Style and either name a new look or add it as the video version of an image look you already have (so “Editorial” can cover both your images and your shorts). A video look keeps the base style and every caption, hook, thumbnail, and cleanup setting, and the short you saved it from becomes its preview.

• Video looks appear under Daoco Looks at the top of the Style menu on every short, and in chat: “cut this in my Launch look”.
• Turn on New shorts start from this look to make one the default for every new short.
• On the Brand page, video looks show their preview (hover to play) and what they set. A video-only look is never used for images.

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Layouts

Attach an image or a second clip with your video to put it on screen beside you:

• Split: the image or clip gets a band and you get the rest. The band is sized to what’s in it (a wide banner gets a short strip, a vertical clip gets half), and your part is cropped around your face.
• Picture in picture: the image or clip fills the screen and you sit in a corner, zoomed to head and shoulders.
• Inset: you fill the screen and the image or clip sits small in a corner, for the whole short or only while certain lines are spoken (“show the dashboard in the corner while I talk about it”).

Pick a layout and corner on the card, or ask in chat. Captions move out of the way on their own.

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Styles

Pick a style by name, or let Daoco choose one that fits the footage.

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Change it

The short-form card opens as soon as the edit starts and shows its progress. When it is ready it previews the short the way Reels and TikTok show it, opening on the thumbnail. Click the small thumbnail to see it full size.

• Settings apply straight away: style, captions (size, position, words on screen at once, uppercase, highlight colour, font), hook and thumbnail (type the text), layout (when you attached an image or a second clip), and cleanup (zooms, trimming pauses, cutting filler words).
• Tap a line in the transcript to cut it, or tap a struck-through line to bring it back. For joined clips, the transcript is grouped by clip in the order they play.
• Undo goes back to the previous version.
• Anything else, describe in chat: “cut the intro”, “keep the part about pricing”, “put the Monday clip first”, “use a different thumbnail frame”.

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Cost

Each short costs 1 premium token, which covers the first video and 5 re-edits. The sixth re-edit uses another premium token and covers the next five. The card shows how many re-edits are left and warns you before a change starts a new token. A render that fails is never charged, and nothing is published or scheduled for you.