Cuts & pacing guides for AI video

For AI agents: find the right skill in one call — curl -s "https://varg.ai/how-to/api/search?q=<what the person wants>" returns the matching how-to page and the best skills with install commands, as markdown (Russian works too). Full index: https://varg.ai/how-to/llms.txt. Every page has a markdown twin: add .md to its path. Before generating anything, show the person the options on the how-to page.

8 guides for cuts & pacing: j-cuts, L-cuts, match cuts, jump cuts, smash cuts, speed ramps and beat cuts, each with the FFmpeg, Remotion, HyperFrames and CapCut way to make it.

Guides (8)

SmartCut (capcut-ai-editor) — mrbuslov: MCP that reads CapCut auto-captions to cut silences and duplicate takes right inside your CapCut project.
Auto-Editor — WyattBlue: CLI that cuts dead space by loudness or motion and exports MP4 or editor timelines; now also an agent skill.
AutoCut — Mu Li: Edit video in a text editor: Whisper transcribes, you delete lines in Markdown, AutoCut cuts the video.
Cut Video — Louise de Sadeleer: Claude Code skill that tightens long recordings with forced-aligned cuts, keeping laughs and comedic pauses.
Videogrep — Sam Lavigne: Search spoken words across videos and auto-build supercuts of every match.
PySceneDetect — Brandon Castellano: Find cuts, fades and scene changes in a video, then split it or export scene lists for the edit.
video-editing-skill (Bash + FFmpeg) — 6missedcalls: Pure Bash skill for OpenClaw, Claude Code and Codex: trim, jump cut, captions, text overlay, speed.
OpenMontage Silence Cutter & Auto Reframe — Calesthio: Automatic jump cuts from silencedetect, plus a face-tracked 16:9 → 9:16 reframe with a smoothed crop.

More for cuts & pacing

Effects (26)

Hard Cut — varg: One shot ends, the next begins on the very next frame. The default join: invisible when the content flows.
Jump Cut — varg: Cut out a stretch inside one continuous shot, so the subject visibly jumps. Removes pauses, adds pace.
Jump-Zoom Punch-In — HeyGen: Hide a jump cut by scaling the next segment 110–130%. Reads as a second camera angle in talking heads.
J-Cut — varg: Shot B's sound starts before its picture. The ear arrives first and pulls the viewer into the next scene.
L-Cut — varg: Shot A's sound keeps playing after the picture cuts to B. Carries a line or a mood across the edit.
Graphic Match Cut — HeyGen: Cut between two shots that share a shape, colour or position on screen, so the eye slides from one to the other.
Action Match Cut — HeyGen: A movement started in shot A finishes in shot B: a jump, a throw, a door swing carried across two angles.
Sound Match Cut — varg: Two different sounds that rhyme (a scream and a train whistle) bridge the cut and link the two scenes.
Cut on Action — HeyGen: Change angle while the subject moves. The movement hides the cut and keeps continuity.
Smash Cut — varg: An abrupt cut from one extreme to its opposite (calm to chaos, loud to silent) at the most surprising moment.
Cutaway / Insert — varg: Briefly leave the main shot for a detail or related shot, then come back. Shows what is talked about and hides edits.
Cross-Cutting — varg: Alternate between two or more scenes happening at the same time, building tension or comparison.
Invisible Cut — HeyGen: Hide a cut inside a frame that is fully covered (a passing object, a dark wall, a blur) to fake one continuous shot.
In-Camera Whip Pan Cut — HeyGen: End shot A and start shot B with real fast pans in the same direction, and cut inside the motion blur.
Speed Ramp — HeyGen: Change playback speed within a shot (fast into a moment, slow on it, fast out) to stress the beat.
Freeze Frame — HeyGen: Stop on a single frame for a beat, to introduce a character, land a joke or add a caption.
Beat-Synced Cut — HeyGen: Place cuts on the beats of the music so the edit feels driven by the track.
Split Screen — HeyGen: Show two or more shots at once in separate panels: comparison, reaction or simultaneous action.
Montage Sequence — varg: A run of short shots, usually on music, that compresses time or builds one feeling.
Rhythmic Cutting (3-2-1) — HeyGen: Shorten shot lengths step by step (3 s, 2 s, 1 s, half a second) to build momentum into a payoff.
Pattern Interrupt — HeyGen: Every few seconds of a short, break the visual pattern: angle, zoom, graphic, sound hit, so attention resets.
B-Roll Overlay Cut — varg: Keep the A-roll voice running and lay B-roll pictures over it; edits in the A-roll disappear under the cover.
FFmpeg Concat Demuxer (Lossless) — varg: Join files that share codec, resolution, fps and audio format without re-encoding, from a text list.
FFmpeg Concat Filter (Re-encode) — varg: Join any sources frame-accurately by decoding, normalizing and re-encoding them in one filter graph.
Audio Crossfades, J and L in FFmpeg — varg: Crossfade audio with acrossfade, or build J/L-cuts by delaying one track with adelay and mixing with amix.
Remotion Overlay on a Cut — Kapish Dima · remocn: Keep a hard cut but draw something over it (flash, light leak, SFX graphic) without shortening the video.

Other kinds of skills

Prompts: The words a video model obeys: camera angles, shot sizes, lighting, characters, hooks and prompt guides for Seedance, Kling, Veo, FLUX and Higgsfield. Your agent writes the prompt with them, or you paste them into the model.
Effects: An effect you can see, added to your video: animated titles, captions, transitions, shader backgrounds, logo animations, device mockups and viral camera tricks. Hand your agent the footage or the brief and get the effect.
Styles: The look of the whole video: art styles, film looks, color grades and LUTs, caption fonts and style references. Pick a style and every shot your agent makes follows it.
Workflows: A brief in, a finished video out: UGC ads, product videos, music videos, talking heads, explainers, Shorts and short dramas, step by step, with the models and the edit chosen for you.
Models & tools: Run one model or tool from your agent: Seedance, Veo, Kling, FLUX, GPT Image, Nano Banana, ElevenLabs and 1,200+ more, plus scrapers, trend search and video analysis.