In today's digital landscape, shorts, reels, and TikToks are becoming an increasingly crucial tool for online businesses and creators.

This tutorial will guide you through using a game-changing tool, Kapwing, to create these types of videos with dynamic elements and on-screen captions.

Watch the video and read the article below:

Getting Started with Kapwing

Kapwing is a browser-based platform that allows you to create, edit, and share videos.

Once you're logged into Kapwing, you can see all the different projects you've created recently. To start a new project from scratch, select "New Project."

Kapwing provides various video types to work with, including blank canvases with horizontal (16:9) and vertical (9:16) orientations.

The vertical format is perfect for shorts, reels, and TikToks. However, you can also edit long-form YouTube videos in Kapwing.

Adding Media to Kapwing

Once you've selected a blank canvas, you can add media (video or images) to your workspace.

While your media is uploading, explore the different elements on the left sidebar. These include layers, text, transcripts, subtitles, videos, images, shapes, audio, transitions, and templates.

Clicking on an element in your video opens the editing tools on the right side of the screen.

Editing in Kapwing

Kapwing's editing options include tools to zoom in on a video, lock or unlock the screen, adjust the contrast or saturation, add effects, and set transitions.

Once your media is uploaded, the next step is to add subtitles.

To cut your video, use the split tool or use 's' on the keyboard.

Adding Subtitles

Kapwing has an auto subtitle tool, which generates automatic subtitles for your video.

hese generated subtitles provide an easy way to edit, as you can identify where the blank spaces are in your video.

When creating shorts, a useful tip is to say a line, pause, then start again with the next section. This gives you a clear break to cut your video, making your editing process more straightforward.

You will have to go through the subtitles to see if there are any mistakes. Auto subtitle tools have improved dramatically in recent years.

Customizing Subtitles

Kapwing offers different text styles for subtitles, with various templates to choose from.

These animated captions highlight the words you're saying in real-time, capturing viewers' attention. You can also customize the number of characters per subtitle, adjust the transition between words, and position the captions anywhere on the screen.

You can save your template for upcoming videos.

Adding Text and Transcripts

In addition to subtitles, Kapwing also allows you to add custom text on the screen, which you can animate and time to specific parts of your video.

The Transcripts tool lets you edit the video by deleting parts of the text, a helpful way to trim down your video content.

Adding Videos, Images, and Elements

With Kapwing, you can search and add royalty-free videos and images from resources like Pexels.

You can add these directly to your project, adjusting their size and position to fit your needs.

You can also include elements like progress bars or waveforms, or insert shapes, arrows, or gifs to add an extra dynamic element to your video.

Adding Audio

Kapwing offers a record feature to add audio over your video, useful for adding voice-overs. You can also find royalty-free music from Pexels to use as background music.

You can also upload any music that you want to use.

Creating Split-Screen Content

Kapwing makes it easy to create split-screen content, where half of the screen is a video or image, and the other half features additional videos or images. This is great for showing tools or examples relevant to what you're talking about in your video.

To do this, simply drag in the horizontal video, scale it to fit half of the screen, generate auto subtitles, and move them to a visible part of the screen. Then, add images or videos relevant to the content of your video in the remaining space.

For instance, if you're discussing email lists, you can search for an image representing "email," add it to the workspace, adjust its size to fit the screen, and position it where you want it. To make this image more dynamic, you can add effects such as a subtle zoom, which gives a visually appealing touch to your video.

Final Thoughts

Kapwing offers a myriad of features that allow you to create engaging, visually appealing, and dynamic shorts, reels, and TikToks. By mastering the different tools and applying the techniques we've discussed in this tutorial, you'll be able to take your content creation game to the next level.