AI rough cut for vlogs: a first cut from your own footage

The slow part of a vlog is not the edit you enjoy. It is scrubbing hours of clips to find the good minutes, then laying them on a timeline in some order. An AI rough cut does that first pass for you: it watches and listens to everything you shot and hands you a draft to fix. This guide shows how, and what you still do yourself.

Last checked 2026-10-25, against Basecut 4.1.1.

Where a step names Basecut, it is our product, so judge that part on your own footage. The order of the steps works with any tool.

What an AI rough cut gets right, and what it does not

A rough cut is a set of decisions: which clips, which part of each, in what order, and for how long. Some of those have a measurable answer. Is the shot sharp and steady? Is someone talking, and where does the sentence end? Is this the same take twice? An AI that has analyzed every clip answers those well, across a whole card dump.

Other decisions are taste. Which joke landed, which view was the one you drove two hours for, whether the story starts at the airport or on the beach. A good AI rough cut gets you to a watchable draft fast, and then lets you push it toward your taste without starting over.

Your options

Step by step

1. 1. Put the footage in one folder per shoot or per day

   Copy the cards to a working drive and keep a backup. One folder per day of a trip, or per shoot for a regular vlog, keeps the order clear and lets you cut one day or the whole week later. Basecut reads your files where they are and never changes the originals.

2. 2. Analyze the footage first

   A rough cut is only as good as the picks under it. Point Basecut at the folder and let it analyze every clip: it rates each one as a hero, keeper, maybe or skip, tags what happens in it, and transcribes what you say to the camera. On a Mac with Apple Silicon or a Windows PC with an NVIDIA card with 10 GB or more of video memory, Argus, Basecut's own AI, does this on your computer. Long shoots are an overnight job. See How to cull wedding footage with AI for how the first pass works, since it is the same pass for any footage.

3. 3. Say what you want in one sentence

   Open Auto Edit, pick the analyzed shoot (a chat can use up to 12), and type what you are making in the Make me... box, for example "a 10 minute vlog of the weekend" or "a vertical vlog under a minute". You can also pick a kind of video, such as Vlog (you talk to the camera, with music under the montages) or Travel film (places first, a little talking). Then click Make it.

4. 4. Watch the cut, then change it by chatting

   The first cut is a draft. Tell the chat what to change in plain words: "make it 3 minutes", "swap the opening shot", "no car interiors". The Style tab has the same dials the chat changes, such as pacing, how much talking to keep, and the music, and every change you make nudges the next edit toward your style.

5. 5. Check the talking parts

   In a vlog the talking carries the story, so listen to every line that made the cut. Basecut cuts talk on the words, keeps the voice level even from cut to cut, and can dip a swear while keeping the line, but it cannot tell which joke landed. Restore a cut line or remove one by asking in the chat.

6. 6. Finish it in Basecut's editor or in yours

   Click Open in editor to finish inside Basecut: a multi-track timeline with trim, titles, transitions, effects, word captions, a mixer and undo, with export to a video file. Or export the cut as FCPXML for Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve, or as Premiere Pro XML, and finish where you always do.

7. 7. Keep what you changed as your style

   The Your style tab remembers how you edit, and Templates save a style as a .basecutstyle file you can reuse on the next episode or share. The second episode should need fewer changes than the first.

Where AI rough cuts go wrong

• It keeps what is clear, not always what is funny. Watch every talking section once before you trust the cut.
• It follows the order you shot in unless you tell it otherwise. If the story should start somewhere else, say so in the chat.
• A sideways phone clip is stood upright only when the evidence is clear; otherwise it is flagged for you to check.
• Your first run on a new computer includes a one-time download of the on-device AI, so start with a small shoot.

Travel vlog? How to edit a travel vlog faster covers the trip-specific parts: itinerary briefs, day chapters and length targets.