CutBrief

Inspiration

A creator should be able to start with an idea and keep working toward a finished video without losing the story, reference photos or earlier decisions. I built CutBrief to connect those steps in one saved workspace and reduce the repetitive work of preparing videos for different screens.

What it does

Describe a scene to Sarah, CutBrief's structured written planner. Add character and location photos, review the ordered shots, and preview or download the storyboard. A photo used to describe a character stays separate from an image chosen as a shot's opening frame.

You can reopen a saved project, choose Continue scene and explain what happens next. CutBrief adds the continuation while preserving the earlier shots and their recorded details.

To make a finished video, import footage, put the clips in order, choose trims and captions, and select Make video. CutBrief joins the clips with their existing sound and opens the finished player. The tested edit limit is five minutes with up to 60 selected clips. Export 3-format content package creates landscape, vertical and square versions, caption files, source records and editable media. Projects can also be backed up.

Sarah uses structured local planning, not a general-purpose LLM. A storyboard is a plan, not newly generated footage. The demonstrated editing workflow runs without a provider key or local model.

How we built it

I combined Python planning and editing logic with JavaScript, HTML and CSS. The browser edition runs Python through Pyodide and WebAssembly, stores projects in IndexedDB, and exports through FFmpeg compiled to WebAssembly.

The Windows package includes the browser assets and a small local starter. Normal use does not require installing Python or Node. The source edition has separate developer setup instructions, with explicit instructions for its prebuilt runtime dependencies.

Saved projects connect the brief, reference roles, shot revisions and selected footage. Export records retain the relationship between the reviewed edit and the files delivered to the creator.

Challenges we ran into

The difficult part was preserving intent across revisions and making each result clear. An actor reference is not automatically an opening frame. Continuing a scene must preserve the earlier work. Approving a written plan must not imply that footage already exists.

Longer edits also exposed practical issues that a short preview missed: audio drift between joined clips, a completed player that did not open, and seeking near the end of a saved video. I corrected those paths and checked the actual exported files, playback, downloads and project reloads.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

CutBrief now has a working path from a saved idea and references to a reviewed storyboard, and from imported footage to real video files.

Actual desktop and browser tests produced five-minute edits with source sound. Browser tests also produced all three formats from 60 selected clips. The checks included decoded audio, clip order, downloads and playback after reopening the project. These tests used clearly identified engineering clips; they verify editing behavior, not the quality of AI-generated footage.

The no-install Windows package and a separate source-and-judge-guide ZIP are prepared. The small source ZIP contains the code and instructions; the larger Windows ZIP contains the runnable browser assets.

What we learned

Clear language and visible results matter. A plan, a preview and an exported video are different things, and users need to know which one they have. Testing also needs to follow the whole workflow: create, revise, export, reopen and inspect the result.

What's next for CutBrief

Expand the everyday phrases Sarah understands and complete the controlled generation workflow. WAN 3.0 Prime at 1080p with native sound has been selected for that next integration, but no paid generation result is claimed in this submission. Existing footage can already be joined with its sound; generating new footage and matching a person to a supplied recording are separate capabilities that need their own verified results.

Built With

• css3
• ffmpeg
• html5
• indexeddb
• javascript
• pyodide
• python
• webassembly