How to edit street interview videos
Last updated 17 September 2026
A street interview video is one question put to a handful of strangers, cut tight and played back to back. Editing one by hand means typing the question as a title, trimming every answer, hunting for the awkward silences and cutting between faces as people talk. YouClip's Street interview mode puts all of that in one place: drop in the answers, cut them from the transcript, put them in order and export a single vertical video.
Step by step
Drop in the interviews
Open Street interview and drag in every answer you recorded to the same question, one file per person. Each becomes its own interview in the list, and they play back to back in the order you dropped them.
Set the title, the question and the picture
A short setup asks three things, one at a time: the video's title, the question you put to people, and, if you showed them something, a picture. Pick how the picture comes on (a swipe, a fade or a zoom), then drag the title, question and picture wherever you want them on the video.
Cut the answers from the transcript
Every interview is transcribed word by word. Delete the words you don't want and the video is cut to match. Pauses and silences show up in the transcript as markers you can click to take out, or remove every silence across all the interviews in one go.
Put the answers in order
The timeline shows the whole assembled video. Split an answer where you want to break it, drag the pieces into a new order, and take out anything that doesn't earn its place. Every change can be undone.
Check who's talking
YouClip finds the faces in each interview and cuts the vertical frame to whoever is speaking, close on their face. Name the people, switch who's talking at any moment from the bar under the preview, and set how close the frame sits. If someone was missed, click their face to add them.
Style the captions and export
Pick a caption style and it previews on the video. Double-click a misheard word to fix it on the spot. Then export one vertical 1080x1920 video with the question, the picture and the captions burned in.
What you need before you start
- One file per answer. Each person you stopped is their own interview, so trimming and framing stay separate.
- The question, written the way you want it on screen.
- The picture you showed people, if the question was about one. It's optional.
Why edit from the transcript
Street interviews are loose. People start, stop, laugh and trail off, and the good bit of an answer is usually buried in the middle. Scrubbing a waveform to find it is slow. Reading the answer is fast: strike the words you don't want and the cut follows. The silences are marked with their length, so you can tell the dramatic pause from the one where someone forgot the question.
Framing that follows the conversation
Most street interviews are shot wide on one camera, with two people in the frame. Cropping that to vertical with a fixed box either loses one of them or leaves both too small to read. YouClip frames each interview on its own, finds each face, and cuts the 9:16 frame to whoever is talking. You stay in charge: switch the person at any moment, move the frame closer or wider, or drag the frame yourself on the preview.
Take it further
- Style the captions word by word.
- Write a stronger hook for the title.
- Crop landscape footage to vertical outside an interview.
Frequently asked questions
Does YouClip pick the best answers for me?
No, and that is deliberate. Street interview mode transcribes the answers and leaves the choices to you: which words stay, which silences go and what order the answers play in. It is an editor for putting a vox pop together, not a highlight finder.
How many interviews can I put in one video?
As many as you drop in. A typical street interview video has somewhere between three and five answers to the same question, and each one is cut and framed on its own before they are joined.
Can I keep a pause that makes the answer funny?
Yes. Nothing is cut until you cut it. Silences are marked in the transcript with their length, and you remove them one by one or all at once. Undo puts any of them back.
What if the interviewer is off camera?
That is common, and it is fine. The frame can only cut to people it can see, so it stays on the faces in shot. You can still name the interviewer, so the transcript shows who asked what.
Can I show the picture I asked people about?
Yes. Add it during setup and it comes on at the start of the video with the transition you chose, holds while the question lands, then fades away. You can drag and resize it on the preview.
Is my footage uploaded anywhere?
Face finding, framing, cutting and rendering all run on your own machine. Only the audio needed for the transcript is sent for transcription. The video files stay local.