The first frame is the thumbnail
Dana Whitlock
Shorts editor
On a phone, the first frame does the thumbnail’s job. So I pick it first.
4 min read
On a phone, nobody sees your thumbnail. The feed autoplays, so the first frame is the thumbnail, the title and the first impression at once.
Pick it before you cut
I scrub the raw footage for the frame where the person looks straight down the lens, or where something is about to happen. Then I build the edit backwards from it.
Three tests
Would it make sense with the sound off? Is there a face, or a hand about to do something? Is it clearly not an ad? If a frame passes all three, it opens the post.