FirstCut
FirstCut is a narrative-first video editing tool that organizes footage into beats and segments, generates different storylines with a single click, and enables precise cuts from sentence level down to individual words. Every change previews instantly in the browser, while all media stays local. It's ideal for first-pass edits of interviews, oral histories, and other dialogue-driven videos.
Updated: 2026-10-27
What is FirstCut?
FirstCut is a narrative-first video editor that advocates changing the story first, then the visuals. It organizes footage into a readable narrative structure of beats and clips, letting creators see how the story works before the timeline. All changes play instantly in the browser, and the official statement says original videos always stay local and are never uploaded to the cloud.
Key features
6Beat-based narrative structure
FirstCut splits footage into two layers, beats and clips. A beat is a node where the story's direction or tension changes, composed of consecutive clips. Beats can be renamed, added, deleted, and dragged to reorder, and the system rebuilds the sequence around the new decisions.
Multiple storyline generation and comparison
A new narrative arc can be generated from the same footage with one click. Read the beats and clips first, then decide whether to play. The original storyline remains unchanged, making it easy to compare different tellings in parallel.
Clip and transcript binding
Each clip corresponds to a specific time range in the source footage and includes the transcript text for that segment. View all sequence clips or only the clips under the current beat, and move, delete, or use natural language to request replacements and find new clips.
Word-level refinement
Selecting a clip shows only that clip's transcript. Mark a sentence or word for deletion, or undo previous deletion marks. The text always stays linked to the visuals and its beat.
Natural language commands and instant preview
Describe edit intent in everyday language, such as tightening the opening, making a beat focus more on the customer, changing the ending, or extending the whole by two minutes. The system converts it into sequence operations and generates a new version, and changes can be played directly in the browser.
Local footage and rollback protection
The official statement says videos are not uploaded. When exploring new directions, the original version is fully preserved, and you can return to previous states at any time.
How to use FirstCut
- Prioritize importing footage with clear dialogue and high transcription quality.
- Word-level editing and beat segmentation both depend on transcription accuracy.
- Read through the beat sheet before editing, confirm the role each beat plays in the story, and then decide whether to reorder or delete.
- Use new storylines for parallel experiments and keep an original narrative you are satisfied with as a baseline to avoid losing direction during exploration.
- Make natural language commands as specific as possible: state which beat to change, what direction to take, and whether the duration should get longer or shorter.
- After completing the first version of the narrative layer, export to familiar editing software for color grading, mixing, and packaging.
- Footage stays local, but you still need to confirm interviewee authorization and compliant use of transcript content.
Things to know
Suitable for
- Creators making interviews, oral histories, roundtables, and other dialogue-driven content where the story is mainly hidden in what people say.
- The rough-cut stage of documentaries and branded documentary shorts, where you need to first determine how many stories are in the footage.
- Screenwriter-type or text-background creators who are not used to starting from a timeline and want to build a narrative skeleton first.
- Content teams and production companies that need to quickly show multiple narrative options to clients or teams.
- Sensitive projects where footage should not be shared externally and organization and selection need to be completed locally.
Traffic & popularity
Data month Sep 2026
FirstCut receives about 62.6K visits per month.
Monthly visits
6 monthsEstimated from third-party traffic data.
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