Make your first Reel - the full walkthrough
A simple talking-head or clip-montage Reel, start to finish. Budget about 20 minutes for your first one; by your third it'll take five.
Record or import your clips
Tap + to import from your camera roll, or use the in-app camera to record up to 10 minutes per take. Filming yourself talking? Open the teleprompter - paste your script and it scrolls just under the lens, so you keep eye contact. Record a couple of takes; you'll pick the best next.
Trim on the timeline
Drag clip edges to trim, tap a clip and choose Split to cut it at the playhead, and hold-and-drag to reorder. Pinch the timeline to zoom in for frame-accurate cuts. Run Cut Silences to strip dead air automatically, and keep only what earns its place - shorter almost always performs better.
Add auto captions
Tap Captions and Edits transcribes your speech automatically. Skim the transcript, fix any misheard words with find & replace, then pick a caption style and highlight one or two key words per line. Most viewers watch with sound off - this step is what keeps them.
Music, effects, and color
Add a track from the music library (there's a royalty-free category if the video is commercial), drop beat markers so your cuts land on the rhythm, and balance music under your voice. Then one filter or a light color adjustment - brightness, contrast, warmth - and stop. Restraint reads as professional.
Export and publish
Preview once at full speed, then export - no watermark, up to 1080p - and publish straight to Instagram (or Facebook) from inside the app. Want feedback first? Share the draft to a friend via DM. Then check the Insights tab in a day or two to see how it did and where viewers dropped off.