I cut vertical video for brands that need it to sell something.
Eight years inside retail operations before I ever opened an editor. I know what a product has to do on a shelf — now I cut the video that does it on a feed. TikTok, Reels, Shorts.
Cuts, and what they pulled.
Every number below comes from TikTok Analytics or the public channel. The pages are live, so any of it can be checked in ten seconds.
The one that broke out307× the channel's subscriber count. Nothing about the account explains it — the opening second does.
Gift shop brand filmBuilt for a product catalogue with no shoot budget. The closest thing here to a client brief.
Single-emotion cutOne idea, no setup. The structure that repeats most reliably.
Reveal structureThe payoff is withheld to the last beat, so the watch-through carries itself.
Motion-ledCut to movement rather than to music. Harder to edit, travels further.
SerialisedPart of a run. Later parts outperformed earlier ones once the audience knew the shape.
Previews are the first seven seconds, muted. Full cuts open on YouTube. The TikTok numbers — including a 90,000-view product post — are broken down in Reach and Chey Cherry.
I spent eight years in retail before I spent one in an edit.
Sales & Operation Coordinator at Metropolitan — five years at Printhub, then Canon Photohub, where handling the social profiles sat alongside invoicing, stock, local purchasing and cash. Every week I built the division's management review: sales against budget, gross margin by channel, dealer and corporate performance, debtor ageing, stock value.
That is an unusual thing for an editor to have done, and it changes what I do with your footage. I am not cutting for views. I am cutting for the thing you need the viewer to do next.
Most clients start with the editing. Some hand over the whole page — calendar, captions, posting, comments and the monthly read — because the person cutting the video is already the person deciding what it should say. Either is fine. The editing is the part I will not hand to anyone else.
Wandana Subasinghe · Colombo
What that means in practice
- I ask what the margin is before I ask what the vibe is. A hero product and a clearance product get different cuts.
- I know gifting seasons and lead times, because I've ordered against them.
- I read your catalogue before your brand deck.
- I run a 22-product gift shop myself, so I've watched a video turn into an order — and watched a better-looking one turn into nothing.
Chey Cherry
A gift shop I run with my sister — 22 products, from LKR 150 hair clips to LKR 8,500 gift boxes. It's not a client. It's where I get to test things on my own money.
The problem
Gift products photograph well and sell badly. Static posts of a product on a table got reach in the low hundreds and produced almost no enquiries. The catalogue was fine. The content was the bottleneck.
What changed
- Hands in every frame. Wrapping, opening, tying. Motion in the first half-second instead of a still hero shot.
- Occasion-first, product-second. The video is about the moment the gift is handed over. The SKU is the answer, not the subject.
- One route to buy. Every cut ends on the same instruction, in the same place, at the same size.
Result
The strongest post reached 90,000 views with 338 likes, 12 comments and 57 hours 42 minutes of total watch time, and brought in 56 new followers on its own.
More usefully than the views: since restarting the shop on this approach we have taken roughly 15 orders. That is a small number and I would rather quote it accurately than round it into something it isn't — but it is the number that tells you the video is doing a job, not decorating a feed.
Product and lifestyle photography shot in-house for the Chey Cherry catalogue.
Mr & Mrs Hettihewa — 128,700 viewers in sixty days.
A lifestyle brand I built from zero and run across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook — shooting, cutting, captioning and posting all of it. Figures below are 25 June to 23 August 2026, straight from TikTok Analytics.
Watch the channel on YouTube 15 Shorts published · top cut at 84K
What worked
Six posts carried the window — 26K, 25K, 20K, 17K, 13K and 13K. All six share one structure: a decision or a reveal in the first second, no setup, no logo, no slow build. The posts that opened on context instead of consequence sat at a few hundred views.
The serialised cuts were the clearest lesson. Part 5 of a sequence outperformed the four parts before it, because by then the audience knew what they were waiting for.
And the part that didn't work
128,700 viewers converted to 358 followers. That is poor follow-through and I'd rather say so than let you find it.
The cause is structural: the cuts ended on the payoff and then simply stopped. There was no reason to follow and no next thing promised. On the accounts I've cut since, the last 1.5 seconds are built to earn the follow — and that is the first thing I'd change on yours.
No calls. Nothing to schedule.
Everything a kick-off meeting would establish is below, so you never have to book one. Send footage and a brief; get cuts back. If something needs discussing, it gets discussed in writing, where both of us can re-read it.
- 01You send the briefThe form below. What you're selling, roughly how much footage, how many cuts, and when you need them. Five minutes.
- 02I reply within 24 hoursEither a quote and a delivery date, or a straight no with a reason. I don't send "let's hop on a call" — if it isn't a fit, I'll tell you why in the reply.
- 03Footage goes to Drive or Frame.ioRaw is fine. Phone footage is fine. Vertical is easiest but I'll reframe from horizontal if that's what exists.
- 04First cuts in 3–5 working daysA four-video pack lands together, not one at a time, so you can see the set working as a set.
- 05Two revision rounds, timestampedComment on the frame. "Tighten 0:04–0:07" beats "make it punchier" and gets you a better cut faster.
- 06Delivery1080×1920 MP4, no watermark, plus a 1:1 and 16:9 reframe of each if you want them. Captions burned in or as a separate SRT — your call.
Three ways to work with me.
Pricing depends on footage volume and turnaround, so it's quoted per brief rather than listed. Tell me the scope and you'll have a number the same day.
Four-video pack
A set built to run together over two to four weeks — one hook structure tested four ways.
- 4 vertical cuts, 1080×1920
- Burned-in captions
- 2 revision rounds
- 3–5 working days
Content retainer
The cuts plus the running of the page. For brands who want the whole thing handled rather than just the editing done.
- 8–16 cuts per month
- Content calendar and scheduling
- Captions, hashtags, posting
- Comment and DM handling
- Monthly performance read
- Rolling, cancel with 30 days
Single cut
A launch video, a campaign hero, or a test before you commit to a pack.
- 1 vertical cut
- Captions included
- 1 revision round
- 48–72 hours
Tell me what you're selling.
The more specific the better. What the product is, who buys it, what your footage looks like right now, and what you want the viewer to do after watching. If you already know a video isn't working, say which one — that's the most useful thing you can send me.
I reply to every brief within 24 hours, including the ones I turn down.