Music and subtitles are the two things that make a short video feel finished. Music keeps it from feeling flat. Subtitles let people follow along with the sound off. Yet both are easy to forget when you are producing a lot of video, and once one reel goes out without them, the next ten often do too.
That is what happened to us at Balay ni Bruno & Co. So instead of promising to remember next time, we made it impossible to forget.
One Finishing Step, Every Reel
The fix is a single finishing step that runs at the end of every reel we make. It does two jobs in one pass and takes about 15 seconds per reel.
The video is produced as normal, with its voiceover.
A soft music track is laid quietly under the voice, looped to the right length, with a gentle fade in and out.
Speech-to-text listens to the reel's own audio and burns subtitles into the picture.
No reel is marked ready, posted or handed over until music and subtitles are both confirmed.
The subtitles sit in a centred caption box, placed high enough to stay clear of the headline at the bottom of our reels. Because the step is built into how every reel is produced, a new reel cannot come out without it.
Music We Own, at No Cost
Background music is where many small businesses get stuck, because using a popular song can mean a licence problem. We sidestepped that completely. Our music bed is a warm instrumental we generated ourselves, so it cost nothing, it is clean to use anywhere, and we own it.
FFmpeg (free video software) mixes the music and burns in the words. faster-whisper (free speech-to-text) writes the subtitles from the audio.
Fixing the Old Reels and the Scheduled Ones
Building the step for new reels was half the job. We still had a library of reels without music or subtitles, and many of them were already scheduled to post over the coming weeks.
Before
- About a hundred reels with no music
- No subtitles, so nothing to follow with the sound off
- Scheduled posts lined up to go out the same way
- Relying on someone to remember each time
After
- 103 older reels fixed in about 26 minutes, none failed
- Every reel has music under the voice and burned-in subtitles
- All 102 scheduled reel posts upgraded
- Every new reel gets both, every time
The scheduled posts were the pleasant surprise. Our scheduling tool did not store its own copy of each video. It fetched the reel from our website at the moment of posting. So once we replaced the files on our website with the finished versions, all 102 scheduled reel posts picked up the music and subtitles automatically, without us editing a single post. We then checked that the website was serving the new versions.
Worth knowing before you schedule: if your scheduling tool can post a video straight from a web address instead of a copy you upload, you can improve the video later without touching the scheduled post.
A small thing that broke every caption: subtitle files have a header line listing their columns. When one column name was missing from ours, every single caption appeared with a stray comma at the start. Adding the missing column fixed all of them at once. If your subtitles show odd characters at the start of every line, check that header first.
Common Questions
How can I add music and subtitles to every reel without doing it by hand?
Make it one finishing step that runs at the end of every video you produce. Ours lays a soft music track under the voice and burns in subtitles taken from the reel's own speech, in one pass, in about 15 seconds per reel. Because it runs every time, no new reel can leave without both.
Where do I get background music I am allowed to use?
We made our own. Our music bed is a warm instrumental we generated ourselves, so it cost nothing and we own it outright, with no licence to worry about.
Can I fix reels I already made and already scheduled?
Yes. We ran the same finishing step over 103 older reels with no failures in about 26 minutes. Our scheduled posts pulled each video from our website at the moment of publishing, so replacing the files on the website upgraded all 102 scheduled reel posts without editing a single one in the scheduling tool.
Why burn subtitles into the video instead of adding them separately?
Burned-in subtitles are part of the picture, so they show up the same everywhere the reel is posted. The words are read from the reel's own audio, so they match what is actually said.
Key Takeaways
- Do not rely on remembering. Put music and subtitles into one finishing step that runs on every reel.
- Ours takes about 15 seconds per reel and does both jobs in one pass.
- Music you make yourself costs nothing and carries no licence worries.
- We fixed 103 older reels in about 26 minutes with no failures.
- Scheduling from a web address meant 102 scheduled posts upgraded without a single edit.
- No reel goes out until both music and subtitles are confirmed.