Not for: Not a tool that knows which child is whose, and not a recording of the whole programme. Keep the full recording for that; this is the highlight.
Story beats for this day
- Lighting the lamp and the welcome. The chief guest and the principal light the lamp, then the welcome song or prayer. A formal opening; one shot of the lamp and one of the stage are enough.
- Every class gets a moment. The youngest classes in costume, the older ones in a dance or a play. Parents look for their own class first. Check that every performance on the programme has at least one shot.
- Faces in the audience. Parents filming on phones, teachers in the wings, a grandparent laughing. Reactions between the performances make the highlight feel like the evening it was.
- Prizes and the chief guest. Names called, children walking up, a handshake and a certificate. Keep the chief guest’s best line audible; the song ducks under it.
- The finale on stage. The whole school on stage for the last song, or the closing bow. End there, on a full stage, not on the empty hall afterwards.
After Vantacut Auto-Edit makes the cut, walk these beats on the timeline. A missing one is an ordinary clip; swap it in.
How Vantacut cuts it
Import the cards from every camera and turn on AI analysis; speech is understood in 22 Indian languages and English, so a speech or an announcement counts as a moment. Choose the song, pick Documentary to keep the programme in order, and press Create. When Auto-Edit asks who matters most, say every class should appear. Read the plan, then walk the reel against the printed programme and swap in any performance it missed.
The music
An uplifting song, trimmed to the highlight the school asked for, because the song’s length is the reel’s length. If a class performance had its own song, keep a stretch of it audible in the reel and the main song ducks under it.
The light
School halls run a mix of stage lights, coloured gels and tube lights over the audience, and outdoor stages move from evening light to floodlights. Auto Balance Colour evens white balance across the cut, which can fight a coloured stage look; grade the performances by hand on the colour page if the colour is part of the show.
Theme
Start with Documentary. You pick it alongside the song and the brief, and if the pace is wrong you can run Auto-Edit again with another of the four.
Your footage stays on your computer
Editing, playback and export run on your computer, and your original footage and songs never leave it. To find moments, Auto-Edit shares low-quality copies of your clips, still frames and the speech, and the app asks once before anything is sent. The editor works worldwide, in English; credit packs are priced in Indian rupees.
Questions
Will every class be in the highlight?
Tell Auto-Edit every class matters when it asks, and put the programme in the brief. Then walk the timeline against the programme; a missing class is an ordinary clip you swap in.
Can I make a separate reel for one class?
Yes. Run Auto-Edit again with a shorter song and a brief about that class. Each clip is only watched once, so the new reel pays for its own minutes only.
Does it work for a college fest too?
Yes. A fest of performances, competitions and a prize ceremony is the same job: footage, one song, a theme, and the beats you check afterwards.
Get the editor
Windows and Linux now; macOS is coming. The editor is free; create your account when it first opens.