Selection is the edit
A good short usually already exists somewhere in the footage. The work is finding the forty seconds that contain a complete thought: a claim, a reason and a turn. If the clip needs three sentences of setup to make sense, it is a section of a longer video, not a short.
The hook is a promise, not a shout
Loud openings age badly. A hook works when it creates a specific gap between what the viewer knows and what they want to know. That gap can be quiet.
Not every moment deserves to become a short.
Vertical is a rebuild
Cropping a horizontal frame and burning in captions is not a format change. Framing, pacing, text placement and where the eye lands all change when the screen is a phone held at arm's length. We rebuild rather than crop.
Ten strong clips from one shoot beat thirty forgettable ones. The feed remembers the good ones and forgets you posted the rest.