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Part 18 of 33Sourcing & Clipping Raws6 min read
Sourcing & clipping raws

Workflow — remixing clips

You've got a pile of raw clips and a template that works. This is the loop that turns them into a finished remix — the AI editor swapping your footage into each scene while keeping the timing that made the original pop.

Copies the whole guide — prompts, next steps & all — for your AI agent
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The full remix loop: opening a fork, asking the copilot to swap a scene with a hunted raw, recaptioning the hook, compositing a greenscreen foreground, and rendering the result.

Key takeaways

  • Remixing is paintbrush #1 (raw_clip) in practice — the cheapest way to make a whole new video.
  • The AI copilot swaps footage in place with set_layer_media, keeping each scene's key, geometry, and timing.
  • Recaption with set_captions / set_layer_text; composite a greenscreen foreground over a background for meme formats.
  • In the devcli the same moves are set-media (in-place swap) and place (delete + reinsert).
  • Preserve the load-bearing beats — swap the dressing, keep the DNA.

Swap the footage, keep the structure

A proven template already knows how a video should feel — the pace, where the hook lands, when the reveal hits. Remixing keeps that skeleton and repaints it with your footage. You pull clips from your /raws and /files libraries, drop them onto the timeline as scene replacements, retitle the captions, and render. No blank timeline, no dragging keyframes — you describe the swap and the AI editor does it.

A vertical short-video template shown as a stack of scene slots, glowing gold to show its structure is locked. A hand pulls one old grey film clip out of the middle slot while sliding a fresh colorful clip in from the right; circular swap arrows loop around that slot, and a finished trending-flame version sits to the right.
Swap the footage, keep the structure. The template's skeleton — pacing, hook timing, cut rhythm — stays locked; only the clip in each slot changes.

First, make sure you actually have clips to work with. If your raws library is thin, go build it in Sourcing & clipping raws — then come back here to remix them into a video.

Manual walkthroughDo it in the editor (the web UI)

  1. Open a fork in the editor

    Open a composition in the Trackpad Editor — either an existing fork or a fresh one forked from a template on Discover . You land on a real timeline with an AI copilot in the chat dock.

    Open the editor

  2. Ask the copilot to replace a scene with a raw

    In the chat dock, describe the swap in plain English — "replace scene 2 with a clip of someone reacting to a text message." The copilot searches your library (or hunts a fresh raw), then calls set_layer_media to swap that scene's footage in place — same key, same geometry, same timing.

  3. Or attach a raw yourself

    Prefer to hand-pick? Use Upload media → Clip from Raw to attach a specific raw from your library to the timeline, then tell the copilot which scene it belongs in.

  4. Recaption the hook

    Swap the words to your message with a simple instruction — the copilot uses set_captions / set_layer_text. Remember: on-screen text is always a HyperFrames graphic, so it stays crisp and re-themeable (see the three paintbrushes ).

  5. Composite background + foreground for memes

    For a "video meme" format, lay a foreground greenscreen clip over a background clip. Two raw clips, zero generation — the copilot composites them on the canvas.

  6. Confirm, render & approve

    When it looks right, confirm the render — VidFarm always asks before it charges — then approve the finished MP4 into a shareable post on your approved posts page.

The Trackpad Editor timeline with a raw clip being dropped into a scene slot: the video canvas up top shows the new footage, and one layer row in the timeline below is highlighted as the target of a media swap.
A raw dropped into a scene slot — <code>set_layer_media</code> swaps the footage in place and keeps the layer's timing.
The editor's AI chat dock with the user's message 'replace scene 2 with a confused reaction clip from my raws' and the copilot's reply confirming it hunted a matching raw and applied set_layer_media to that scene.
You describe the swap; the copilot searches or hunts the raw and applies it — no manual clip-dragging.
Illustration
🟢
Generate on green
→
🔳
Key out the color
→
🎬
Composite over scene
Generate on a key color, chroma-key it out, composite the subject over your scene.
Tip Target the exact editor_context.layers key when you swap, and remember a file's view_url from Browse is the URL you pass as media. Use set-media / replace-media for an in-place swap (keeps key, geometry, timing, plus volume/mute/subrange); use place --replace when you actually want to delete and reinsert.
Note Multi-track audio at different volumes works end-to-end — keep narration around 1.0 and background music around 0.1–0.2. One catch: you can't stem-separate baked audio. If a source clip has music glued to the voice, rebuild the mix fresh (a new narration track plus a real music file as two separate layers).

Where to go next

That's the remix loop. Fill your library first, then try the guided remix demo:

Turn your clips into a video

You've seen the loop — pull raws, swap scenes, recaption, render. Open the editor and remix a template with footage you already have. Cloud renders start at $0.01.

Open the editor