# Remotion Captions — effect skill for captions & subtitles

> **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.

Transcribe speech and burn in animated captions with Remotion, or import an existing SRT file.

- **Type:** [Effect](https://varg.ai/how-to/effects.md) · [Captions & subtitles](https://varg.ai/how-to/browse/skills/captions.md)
- **Slug:** `remotion-captions`
- **Status:** live
- **Publisher:** Remotion (vendor, verified)
- **License:** MIT
- **Source:** https://github.com/remotion-dev/skills/tree/main/skills/remotion-captions
- **Works in:** Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI
- **Requires:** Node.js, Remotion 4
- **Cost:** Free — local render (Remotion company license for larger for-profit teams)
- **Adoption:** 216,400 installs, 5,750 GitHub stars (skills.sh, 2026-10-26)

## What it does

Covers the three caption paths in Remotion: generating captions by transcribing audio, displaying and animating them on screen, and importing existing `.srt` files. Each path has its own reference file, and a post-creation section explains how to adjust captions once they exist.

## Use when

- Adding subtitles or animated captions to a Remotion video
- Transcribing a voiceover into captions
- Importing an SRT file

## Install

- Claude Code: `npx skills add remotion-dev/skills --skill remotion-captions -a claude-code`
- Codex: `npx skills add remotion-dev/skills --skill remotion-captions -a codex`
- Cursor: `npx skills add remotion-dev/skills --skill remotion-captions -a cursor`
- Gemini CLI: `npx skills add remotion-dev/skills --skill remotion-captions -a gemini-cli`

## Example output

https://s3.varg.ai/how-to/previews/3953d368f7d3/remotion-captions.mp4 — Official preview of Remotion's TikTok template: speech transcribed with Whisper.cpp and burned in as animated word-by-word captions (credit: Remotion, https://www.remotion.dev/templates/tiktok)

## How-to tutorials that use it

- [How to make a UGC ad video with AI](https://varg.ai/how-to/make-a-ugc-ad-video.md): A creator-style ad: a person talks to camera about your product, with b-roll, captions and an end card.
- [How to cut a podcast into short video clips with AI](https://varg.ai/how-to/cut-a-podcast-into-short-video-clips.md): Find the best moments in a long video, cut them, reframe to 9:16 and burn captions.
- [How to add animated captions to a video with AI](https://varg.ai/how-to/add-animated-captions-to-a-video.md): TikTok-style subtitles burned into an existing video: word highlight, pop words, or designed editorial captions.
- [How to make a lyric video with AI](https://varg.ai/how-to/make-a-lyric-video.md): Lyrics synced to the song: the sung line big and highlighted, karaoke-style, over art or a shader.

## More captions & subtitles skills

- [3D Camera Captions](https://varg.ai/how-to/skills/hyperframes-camera-3d-captions.md): Captions that live in 3D around a talking head: the camera flies through the words, heroes pass behind the speaker.
- [ElevenLabs Speech to Text](https://varg.ai/how-to/skills/elevenlabs-speech-to-text.md): Transcribe audio and video with word timestamps, speaker labels and keyterms, ready for subtitles.
- [ElevenLabs Speech to Text (inference.sh)](https://varg.ai/how-to/skills/inference-sh-elevenlabs-stt.md): Transcribe audio with ElevenLabs Scribe, speaker diarization and forced alignment, via inference.sh.
- [Speech to Text](https://varg.ai/how-to/skills/inference-sh-speech-to-text.md): Transcribe audio with ElevenLabs Scribe v2 or Whisper V3 Large, with timestamps and speaker labels.
- [Pretext Text Metrics](https://varg.ai/how-to/skills/pretext-yaniv-golan.md): Measure and fit text without the DOM using pretext: auto-fit sizes, know line breaks before render, canvas/WebGL text.
- [Chinese Font Selector](https://varg.ai/how-to/skills/chinese-font-selector.md): Pick Chinese fonts by license tier first (OFL, vendor-free, avoid), then by scene and mood, with Latin pairings.

## Run the generation on varg

varg is one API key for the models these skills drive — Seedance 2.5, Kling 4, Veo 3.1, Wan 3, Nano Banana 2.1, GPT Image 2.5, ElevenLabs v4 and 200+ more — billed in credits, with a cost estimate before anything runs.

- Claude Code: `claude plugin marketplace add vargHQ/skills && claude plugin install varg@varg` (skill + hosted MCP)
- Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenClaw: `npx skills add vargHQ/skills --skill varg-ai -a <agent> -y`
- Grok and any agent that reads SKILL.md: `npx skills add vargHQ/skills --skill varg-ai`, or point it at the skill's SKILL.md
- Claude.ai, ChatGPT, any MCP client: connect `https://mcp.varg.ai/mcp`
- API key: https://varg.ai/dashboard/api · Model specs: https://varg.ai/models/llms.txt