# What you can ask Claude to do in VideoBuff — cuts, color, sound, captions, speed and animation, with example requests

> Everything you can ask Claude to do in VideoBuff from Claude Desktop or Claude Code, grouped by area: importing and exporting, cutting and arranging, color, sound, text and captions, images and logos, speed and transitions, and animation — with example requests, limits and how to rephrase.

_Last updated: 2026-10-11 · First published: 2026-10-11_

## The basics of asking

Once Claude is connected to the editor ([Claude integration](/en/guides/claude-integration)), most edits you can make in the editor can be asked of Claude too, in plain words in Japanese or English.

- **It checks its work** — Claude looks at the finished frame (a still image) to see whether text spills out or the color came out as intended
- **Ask in bulk** — say "every clip" and it makes many changes at once; a single undo reverses them together
- **Say what you mean** — "the selected clip," "from the playhead," "the second clip"; Claude reads the editor's selection and playhead position
- **Undo is available** — "undo that" and "redo" work

Below are example requests by area. Use them as they are or rephrase them.

## Importing and exporting

- "Import sunset.mp4 and coffee.mp4 from the desktop"
- "Open the file picker"
- "Open the export dialog set to 1080p and H.264"

Give the file's path and Claude can import it from there. For export, Claude opens the dialog, but **you press the final "Start export" button yourself** (choosing where to save needs a person's action).

## Cutting, joining and arranging

- "Trim the silence at the start and end of each clip"
- "Cut this in two at 3 seconds"
- "Remove the first second of this clip"
- "Delete clips shorter than 3 seconds and close the gaps"
- "Move the second clip in front of the first"
- "Duplicate this clip and place it right after"
- "Separate the audio from this video and delete it"

Say "delete and close the gap" to remove the empty space. Video and its audio move together as a pair, so ask "separate the audio" when you want them apart.

What it can trim in one go is the silence at the start and end of a clip. Short pauses in the middle are hard to find from the sound level, so tell it where to cut (around which second).

![A chat asking Claude to "trim the silence at the start and end of this clip," with the timeline before and after. Afterwards the clip is about 1.4 s shorter at the start and 0.9 s shorter at the end, and the flat parts of the audio waveform are gone](https://videobuff.app/guides/claude-edit-requests/silence-trim-en.webp)
_The chat is an example; the timelines on the right are a real result_

## Color

- "Give just this scene a warm, evening look"
- "Apply the Golden Hour preset"
- "Fix the color with Auto"
- "Match every clip's color to the first one"
- "Raise the exposure a little and add a vignette"

You can ask for any of the 15 presets, Auto, and 13 manual controls (exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, temperature, tint, vibrance, saturation, faded film, sharpness, vignette amount and blur, and blur). Color applies to video and image clips. See [Color grading](/en/guides/color-grading) for more.

## Sound

- "Lower the BGM a little so the narration is easy to hear"
- "Clean up the narration with Auto"
- "Cut a bit of the low end so the voice is clearer"
- "Even out the volume differences with the compressor"
- "Halve this clip's volume"

You can ask for volume, the 3-band EQ (low, mid, high) and the compressor. There are four presets — Narration, BGM, Heavy and Punch — plus Auto.

Claude doesn't listen; it judges by changes in level and by text from transcribed speech. It can't tell how music feels or the quality of a voice, so for something subjective like "a bit brighter," add a number ("raise the mids by 2 dB") to get closer. See [Audio mixing](/en/guides/audio-mixing).

## Text and captions

- "Add white text 'Episode 1' near the bottom with a black outline"
- "Make the title bigger, but keep it inside the frame"
- "Make all the captions the same size"
- "Add captions to this clip"
- "Make the spoken word change color, karaoke style"
- "Look at what's said and cut where I misspoke"

You can ask for the font (14 options), size (12 to 200 px), color, outline, shadow, background and position. Automatic captions download a model of about 1.6 GB the first time (karaoke captions need a second, similarly large model). It doesn't work in Safari. See [Text and titles](/en/guides/text-and-titles) and [Auto captions](/en/guides/auto-captions).

## Images, logos, position and zoom

- "Put the logo small in the top right"
- "Give the logo a drop shadow and round the corners"
- "Lay this photo on with Multiply"
- "Zoom the footage in a little"
- "Fill the whole frame"
- "Crop a little off both sides"
- "Tilt it 5 degrees" / "Lean it back a little"

You can ask for position, scale (up to 1000%), rotation (±180°), crop (up to 50% per side), perspective (±30°), opacity, rounded corners and a drop shadow. **Blend modes (12 of them) can only be changed by asking Claude** — the editor has no control for them. See [Image overlays](/en/guides/image-overlays).

## Speed and transitions

- "Slow down just this part"
- "Double the speed but keep the voice pitch"
- "Slow it down gradually"
- "Add a 0.5-second dissolve at the cut"
- "Fade in at the start and fade out at the end"
- "Make the text appear with the typewriter effect"

Speed runs from 0.1x to 10x, and you can change only part of a clip or ease the change in. For transitions you can pick dissolve, fade to black, fade to white, blur, zoom or wipe, plus the typewriter effect for text. See [Speed ramping](/en/guides/speed-ramping) and [Transitions](/en/guides/transitions).

## Bulk requests and project-wide changes

- "Lay out all the photos I imported at 3 seconds each, with 0.5-second dissolves between them"
- "Number every clip in the lower left: '#01', '#02', …"
- "Make all the titles the same size"
- "Switch the canvas to vertical 9:16"
- "Set the frame rate to 30"
- "Rename the project 'Trip 2026'"

The more repetitive the job, the more asking in bulk beats doing it by hand. A bulk change is undone with a single undo.

![A chat asking Claude to lay out three photos at 3 seconds each with 0.5-second dissolves, and the resulting timeline: three photos three seconds apiece, each with striped bands marking a dissolve at its start and end](https://videobuff.app/guides/claude-edit-requests/batch-dissolve-en.webp)
_The chat is an example; the timeline is a real result_

## Animation and making assets

- "Open with a 5-second intro where the logo spins in"
- "Show the sales trend as an animated bar chart"
- "Make the logo.svg on the desktop 3D and turn it slowly"
- "Put ~/Models/robot.glb on stage and have it wave"
- "That intro from before — make it blue and 2 seconds longer"

Claude builds animated titles, diagrams, charts, and 3D logos and lettering and places them on the timeline. Photos, logos (SVG) and 3D models from Blender can be used too. One animation can be up to 30 seconds, and it can't be laid over footage. See [Have Claude make animations](/en/guides/motion-graphics) and [Add Blender 3D models to your video](/en/guides/blender-3d-models).

## Checking and rephrasing

- "Select that clip and show me"
- "Check whether any text spills out of the frame"
- "Undo that last change"
- "Go back three steps"

When something misses, rephrase with **the target, a time and a number** ("the second clip's…", "at 3 seconds", "5%" rather than "a bit more"). Asking one thing at a time is often more reliable — "cut first," then "add the title."

## What you do yourself, and the limits

- **Playing it to check** — Claude sees still frames. Check smoothness and pacing yourself by playing it at the end
- **The final export button and where to save** — Claude only opens the dialog
- **Choosing in the file picker** — if you give the path, Claude can import it
- **How long Claude can act** — only while the VideoBuff tab is open. The connection doesn't work in Safari, so use Chrome, Edge or Firefox

Setup and what Claude can see are covered in [Let Claude edit](/en/guides/claude-integration).