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Video Editing14 June 2026· 7 min read

The Reel Engine: a repeatable short-form editing system

Turning raw footage into a conversion-driving reel in under an hour — the exact workflow I use across Premiere, Final Cut and CapCut.

Short-form video lives and dies on pace. A reel that ramps slowly gets skipped. Over the last few years I've boiled my edit down to a system I can run in under an hour, start to publish.

The three passes

1. Structure first — drop the hook, the payoff and the CTA on the timeline before anything else.

2. Trim to the beat — cut on motion and audio hits, not on the clock.

3. Grade for attention — one consistent look, applied as a master, not clip-by-clip.

Tools

I move between Premiere Pro, Final Cut and CapCut depending on the client. The system is tool-agnostic; the discipline is what matters. The full template pack is in the store.