# Stage: edit

Decide how the scenes are sequenced and finished — the `edit_decisions` artifact.

## Quality bar

- **Order and pacing.** Confirm the scene order and that each duration fits its
  narration. Hold no scene shorter than ~2.5s (feels rushed) or longer than ~8–12s
  without a change (feels frozen); a text card sits ~3.5s, a stat ~3s.
- **Lock the look once.** Decide how the video is composed and carry that through
  to compose unchanged. Don't let the visual treatment quietly change at the last
  step.

## Synchronization (validated)

- **Narration and visuals must land together.** A cut should change when the line
  it illustrates is spoken. Learning and clarity drop sharply when audio and visuals
  are offset by even a couple of seconds (Mayer's multimedia-learning research). If
  a line overruns its scene, fix the cut *before* composing, not during render.

## Captions (validated — not optional)

- **Always caption.** Most short-form viewers (~80%) and a large share of long-form
  watch with the sound off; captions raise retention. Burn them in: a bold
  sans-serif, large (~42px+), with a background or stroke for legibility, ~30
  characters per line, max two lines, kept inside the safe zone.

## Music

- **Duck it, always.** A music bed at full volume under narration makes a video
  unwatchable. Keep the bed continuous but pulled ~18–20 dB below the voice while
  someone is speaking, rising back in the gaps, with short crossfades between
  sections. State the levels so compose can execute them without guessing.
