What to send a clipper before the first episode
The files, tracks, brand assets and notes a clipping team needs from episode one, plus the items people forget that cause the first round of revisions.
Short answer
Send the highest quality export you have, the separate audio and video track for each speaker if they exist, your fonts, colours and logo files, a short note on who the audience is and what you want the clips to do, and a list of anything that must not be clipped. Add the links to the accounts the clips will be posted on and one or two clips you admire. Timestamps are optional; the rest is not.
You have hired a clipper, or you are about to, and you want to hand everything over once. The list: the highest quality export of the episode, separate audio and video files per speaker if your recording setup produced them, your font files, hex colours and logo, a one page brief covering audience, goal, tone and what must never be cut, links to the accounts the clips will live on, and a few clips you admire with a line on why.
Timestamps are optional. Everything else either shortens the first turnaround or prevents the first round of revisions, and most of it takes an afternoon to gather once. What follows is our own intake, in the order we ask for it.
The master file: what to export and what to avoid sending
Send the best version of the episode that exists, usually the full resolution export from your editor or the raw recording from your platform. The YouTube upload is the weakest source: it has been through your export compression and then the platform's own, and a vertical clip is a crop of the frame, so any softness gets magnified.
Three things to avoid sending as the only copy:
- A file with captions, lower thirds or a watermark burned in. They cannot be removed.
- A version already cropped to vertical by an automatic tool. The clipper needs the full landscape frame to choose the crop.
- The audio only podcast file when video exists.
Do not convert or compress anything before sending. MP4 or MOV at the recording's own resolution and frame rate is fine. Per LinkedIn's help page on video specifications for Pages, MOV files are no longer accepted there and uploads are capped at 5 GB, so finished clips go out as MP4 whatever the master was.
Separate tracks per speaker matter more than resolution
If you record with a tool that captures each participant locally, you have separate video and audio files per speaker. Send them, along with the mixed master for reference.
Riverside's own guide to multitrack recording puts the reason plainly: "You can fix one track without affecting the rest of the conversation." The guest's laptop fan can be cleaned without touching the host, and a two speaker clip can cut between full frame cameras rather than cropping a gallery view into a crop of a crop. The same guide notes that clean tracks make transcripts more accurate and short clips easier to build.
A 1080p session with isolated tracks is worth more to a clipper than a 4K mixdown. If your setup only produces one mixed file, say so up front.
Brand assets: fonts, colours, logo and caption references
Send the actual font files, or the font name and where it is licensed from, rather than a screenshot. Check that the licence covers use in video, because some desktop licences do not.
Colours as hex codes: background, primary and one accent, with a note on which is used for caption emphasis. Logo as a transparent PNG or SVG in light and dark versions, plus the show artwork. If you have none of this yet, say so and the clipper will propose a style on the first batch. Agreeing it on episode one is cheaper than redoing the captions on twenty clips.
The one page brief: audience, goal, tone and the do not clip list
One page, kept in the shared folder, reused for every episode with a short addendum per guest. It carries four things.
Audience. Who watches, what they already know and what they are trying to do. "Founders of B2B software companies with under twenty staff" produces different clips from "people who like business podcasts".
Goal. Growing the show, sending people to the founder's product, making the guest look good so they share it, or building the host's profile. Selection changes with the answer, so say which one wins when they conflict.
Tone. How sharp the host is willing to look, whether swearing stays in, whether a hook that sounds like a provocation is acceptable.
The do not clip list. Anything under NDA or embargo, the sponsor read and whether it must stay attached to its segment or stay out of clips entirely, names of clients or people mentioned in passing, health, legal or family matters the guest touched on, any part the guest asked to cut, and the jokes that work in the room and read badly cold. The clipper does not know your history with any of it.
Timestamps are optional here. If you already know one moment must go out, such as a launch line, mark it and label it as a request. If the team you hired cannot start without a full list, you hired an editor rather than a clipper, which is fine as long as the price reflects it.
Account access, or not: how posting will be handled
Decide which of two arrangements you are in, and write it in the brief. Either the clipper delivers files and you post, or the clipper posts for you. If you post, the team still needs the links to every account the clips will go on, because safe zones, caption text and cover frames are set per platform.
If they post, grant access the way each platform intends rather than handing over a password. Instagram and Facebook run through a business portfolio that can assign a partner. YouTube channels have permission roles. LinkedIn Pages have admin roles for posting, while a personal LinkedIn profile has no delegated role at all, so those posts go through you or a scheduling tool you connect yourself. A shared login opened from a new device or country can trip the platform's security checks and lock the account.
Whichever arrangement it is, agree who approves what before it goes live and how often. How approval batches should work is worth settling on episode one.
Reference clips you like, and the ones you do not
Send links to a handful of clips you admire, each with one line on what you admire: the caption style, the pacing, the framing, the hook. Then send two or three you dislike, with the same note. The dislikes are more useful, because taste is easier to describe by its edges.
They do not have to be from your niche or your show. If the style you want depends on assets you do not have, the clipper should say so now rather than approximating it badly.
How to send it: folders, naming and links that do not expire
One shared folder per show, on Google Drive, Dropbox or a shared drive the clipper keeps access to for the length of the engagement. Transfer links that expire are fine for a one off and wrong for a working relationship, because episode four will need the brand folder from episode one.
A structure that works:
- 00 Brand: fonts, colours, logos, artwork, name plate reference
- 01 Brief: the one page brief and the do not clip list
- 02 References: liked and disliked clips as a text file of links
- 03 Episodes: one folder per episode, holding the master, the per speaker tracks and the episode addendum
Name files so they sort and identify themselves: Show_EP012_Surname_Master.mp4, Show_EP012_Host_Audio.wav. Avoid "final" and "v2" in filenames; if a master is replaced, replace it in the folder and say so.
Upload raw sessions overnight through the desktop sync client rather than the browser, and ask the clipper to confirm that every file opens and the tracks are in sync before they start cutting.
VALORAE Arc takes long form episodes and returns edited, captioned vertical clips, then posts them for podcasts and founders across TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, X and LinkedIn. The list above is our intake, in the order we ask for it. If you are setting this up for a show, there is a starter call at https://calendly.com/valoraearc/valorae-arc-starter-call.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to send timestamps?
No. Selection is the clipper's job, and a team that cannot start without your marks is selling editing rather than clipping. Send a timestamp only when you already know a moment must go out, for instance a launch announcement, and label it as a request rather than the full list.
What if I only have the YouTube upload of the episode?
Send it and say so. Clips can be cut from it, but the crop will be softer than from the original export and there is no way to separate the speakers' audio, so expect fewer two person clips and a little more noise. Ask your recording platform for the session files before the next episode.
Should I hand over my social media passwords?
No. Every major platform has a way to grant posting rights to another person or a business account without sharing the login, and a shared password opened from a new device or country can trip the platform's security checks and lock the account for both of you. If a vendor asks for the password itself, ask what they use instead.
How much brand material is enough for the first episode?
The font file, the hex codes for two or three colours, the logo as a transparent PNG or SVG and one screenshot of a caption style you like. That is enough to cut episode one. Everything else, from lower thirds to end cards, can be agreed on the first batch and carried forward.
Want your podcast turned into clips that hold?
We cut, caption and distribute short-form for podcasts and founders. Bring one episode and we will show you what comes out of it.
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