Day in the life cut prompts: time stamps, transitions between blocks, one throughline

Give it the blocks of the day in order, a time label for each, the one sentence the day is about, and a pace per block. The throughline is the difference between a day in the life and a vlog.

Minimal:

Cut this into a 60-second day in the life, morning to night, with time stamps on screen.

Standard:

Build a 60-second 9:16 day in the life from today's clips. Blocks in order. Morning at the apartment, commute, office, evening walk, night. Put a small time label top left at the start of each block. 7:40am, 9:10am, 10:00am, 6:30pm, 11:15pm. Keep the talking clip where I say "day four" at the start and "we made it" at the end. Everything else is b-roll, 2 to 4 seconds per shot. Music under everything, ducked when I talk.

Full:

Make a 75-second vertical day in the life. The throughline is that it's day four of a sprint and we're tired but good. Open on the line "day four" over the apartment clip, then the time label 7:40am. Apartment, 8 seconds, slow, two shots. Commute, 10 seconds, the train arriving and the platform, faster cuts. Office, 20 seconds, three moments, the whiteboard, the sheet mask, the kitchen thumbs-up. Keep the sheet mask clip's original audio because the laugh is the point. Evening walk, 15 seconds, the bridge and the skyline, slow, hold the skyline pan 4 seconds. Night, 12 seconds, the Waymo ride, end on "we made it." Time labels top left at each block start, small, white, no box. Slow at the start and end, fast in the middle. Uploaded track in on the commute, out under the last line. Phrase captions on talking clips only. No transitions between blocks, just a cut.

What each part does

The throughline sentence is how it picks between two similar clips. Per-block seconds and pace words give the day a rhythm. Naming the three office moments picks the story of that block. "Keep the original audio because the laugh is the point" is the kind of thing only you can tell it. Time labels turn a montage into a day.

Fixes

• Feels like a list. "Slow the apartment and night blocks to 3 shots held 3 seconds."
• Wrong time labels. "Use the clip timestamps, rounded to 5 minutes."
• Missed the moment. "Include the sheet mask clip with its original audio."
• Music never stops. "Cut the music under 'we made it'."

FAQ

Day in the life or vlog? A vlog is talking with b-roll. A day in the life is b-roll with a little talking and time labels. If you talk to camera more than three times, it's a vlog.

Where do the time labels come from? The clips' recording times. Ask it to use them and round to 5 minutes.

Related

• /formats/day-in-the-life-story
• /prompts/vlog-rough-cut
• /how-to/vlog
• /how-to/pace-a-short-form-video

Rules that apply to every prompt

1. One target per prompt. Length, platform, purpose.
2. Quote the exact line when you mean a specific moment.
3. Give numbers, not adjectives. "Pauses over half a second," not "snappy."
4. Say what not to add. Zooms, transitions, music, effects.
5. One fix per follow-up message. Ask for a list of changes with timestamps if you want to check.