Learn to Edit — Free
Master every cut, step by step.
Everything we know about editing real estate video, given away free — how to build each of the four cuts, the mistakes that get edits rejected and how to avoid them, and answers to the questions editors actually ask.
Completing the training is required to finish your application. You can watch it all free right now — an account just saves your progress and starts your application.
The four cuts
Open any cut for the full walkthrough, the steps to build it, and the common problems with their fixes.
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Log in to track your progress →A clean, ambient-paced walkthrough — no logos, no voiceover. The whole job is pacing and a natural path through the property.
Steps
- 1.Sort clips into a logical route: exterior, entry, main living, kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, outdoor.
- 2.Cut on motion — end a clip as the camera settles and start the next one already moving.
- 3.Keep each shot to a few seconds; trim dead frames at the head and tail.
- 4.Match exposure and white balance across clips so the brightness never jumps at a cut.
- 5.Lay a simple, lyric-free music bed and cut roughly to its beat.
Common problems & fixes
- Clips linger too long. If nothing new is happening on screen, cut. Aim for 2–4 seconds a shot.
- Brightness jumps between rooms. Match exposure and white balance per clip before you cut them together.
- Rooms feel out of order. Follow the walk a buyer would take — exterior in, room to room, never jumping back.
Everything in the Value Cut, plus the agent's brand: a logo bookended in and out and a single intro clip up front.
Steps
- 1.Build the Value Cut first — the walkthrough is still the core.
- 2.Add the agent's logo as a short animated or static bookend at the start and end.
- 3.Place their supplied intro clip before the walkthrough begins.
- 4.Keep brand colours and text on-brand and legible; don't cover the visual focus.
Common problems & fixes
- Logo feels bolted on. Match the logo's timing and motion to the music's entrance so it lands on a beat.
- Intro clip drags. Trim the intro to the essential few seconds — it sets up the tour, it isn't the tour.
The full feature — over a minute, with a proper introduction, voiceover, logos, and captions for silent autoplay.
Steps
- 1.Lay the voiceover first and build the picture edit to it — the VO is the spine.
- 2.Open with a strong establishing sequence before the VO starts.
- 3.Sync b-roll to what the voiceover is describing at each moment.
- 4.Add captions for silent autoplay; keep them clean and well-timed.
- 5.Finish with a full colour pass and an audio clean-up.
Common problems & fixes
- Picture and VO drift apart. Cut the picture TO the VO, not the other way round — show what's being said as it's said.
- Captions are hard to read. High contrast, safe margins, one or two lines at a time, on screen long enough to read.
Fully bespoke — talking-head, testimonial, or any mix. The brief defines it, so read it closely and deliver to spec.
Steps
- 1.Read the brief twice and note every explicit requirement before you start.
- 2.For talking-head, cut for clarity: remove filler, tighten pauses, keep energy up.
- 3.Cover cuts with relevant b-roll so jump-cuts never show.
- 4.Match the tone the brief asks for — polished, casual, high-energy — throughout.
Common problems & fixes
- Jump-cuts are visible. Bridge every cut with b-roll or a reframe so the talking-head never visibly jumps.
- Missed a brief requirement. Check your delivery against the brief line by line before you submit.
Our standard
The Cutline Way
Every edit is held to the same bar. Meet all of it and you pass review; miss any of it and it comes back. Here’s exactly what we expect.
Pacing
Cut on action. No single clip lingers more than a few seconds without a reason.
Dead frames lose the viewer instantly — a listing reel has to keep moving.
Consistent color
Match exposure and white balance across clips so cuts never jump in brightness or tone.
A brightness jump at a cut reads as amateur and breaks the sense of one continuous space.
The right music
Choose music that fits the pace and mood — and never let lyrics fight a voiceover.
The track sets the feel; competing vocals make the whole edit hard to follow.
Clean text & logos
Keep on-screen text and logos legible, on-brand, and clear of the visual focus.
Branding should support the property, not cover it or clash with it.
A logical path
Follow the route a buyer would walk — exterior to interior, room to room. Never jump around.
A coherent path lets a viewer build a mental map of the home; jumping around confuses it.
Clean audio
Remove wind, handling noise, and clipping. Audio stays clean even with no voiceover.
Rough audio is the fastest way to make a polished picture feel cheap.
What gets an edit rejected
The most common misses, and how to avoid them. Learn to spot these in your own work before you submit.
The shot that overstays
Wrong: A six-second static clip of one corner with nothing happening — the viewer's attention is already gone.
Fix: Cut when the moment is over. Two to four seconds a shot unless there's a reason to hold.
The brightness jump
Wrong: A cut straight from a blown-out exterior to a dark interior with no exposure match.
Fix: Balance exposure and white balance per clip before you cut them together.
The random room order
Wrong: Kitchen, then a bedroom, then back to the kitchen — the home has no shape.
Fix: Order clips as a walkthrough: outside in, floor by floor, room to room.
The fighting audio
Wrong: A song with lyrics playing at full level over the agent's voiceover — you can't follow either.
Fix: Duck the music under any voiceover, and prefer instrumental beds where there's speech.
Frequently asked
- Do I have to finish the training to apply?
- No — applying is free and takes a minute. But completing a cut's training (or getting a test edit approved for it) is required before you can claim that cut's jobs, so finishing the training is what actually unlocks paid work.
- Is the training really free?
- Yes. Everything here is free to everyone, no account needed to watch. An account only comes in when you want to track your progress or apply.
- What software do I need?
- We prefer Final Cut Pro — our training and step-by-step guides are built for it, so it's the smoothest path to approval and claiming work. Other editors (Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, CapCut) are still accepted and we judge the finished edit, not the tool — but if you can use Final Cut, use it.
- How fast do jobs need to be turned around?
- 24 hours from claim to submission. Only claim a job when you can hit that.
- What happens if an edit doesn't pass review?
- You'll get specific notes and a chance to revise. Consistently clean, fast work moves you up the ranking and unlocks earlier access to new jobs.