Turn your voiceover into a finished documentary edit
Cutaway listens to your narration and puts a picture on screen when you say the thing it shows: a map when you name a place, a statue when you name a king. Every picture is public domain or openly licensed, and you get the credits list.
The documentary channels we measured run 56 to 57.
Those channels: 67 to 74%.
Public domain, CC0 or Creative Commons.
How it works
Send your script or voiceover
Paste the script before you record, or upload the MP3 or WAV once you have. We cut long pauses and retakes from the recording.
Check the storyboard
You see the picture we picked for each sentence, where it comes from and its license. Swap any of them for one of the alternatives.
Get the video and the kit
We render the edit and send it with three Shorts, captions, chapters and a description you can paste into YouTube.
Pictures change on the word
Four frames from the sample, taken when the narrator says the highlighted words.
"the temple dominated life in Sumeria"
"such was Pepi the Second, who reigned in Egypt for ninety years"
"the largest of these is four hundred and fifty feet high"
"all this was brought down the Nile in boats"
What you get with every video
These examples come from our 2-minute sample and from a test script about Tutankhamun. Nobody edited them by hand.
Storyboard
One row per shot: the narration, the picture, the label on screen, the source and license, and three alternatives. You can ask for changes before we render.
The finished video
1080p MP4 in the look picked for your topic.
Three Shorts
Vertical cuts of 20 to 45 seconds from the strongest passages, with word-by-word captions.
Captions
1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,799 The temple dominated life in Sumeria.
An SRT file. Names the speech recognition misheard are corrected, like "heops" to Cheops.
Chapters
0:00 Temples and priest rulers 0:24 The pharaoh as god 1:09 Kings good and bad 1:30 Building the pyramids
Each chapter starts on a real sentence.
Description
Pepi the Second ruled Egypt for ninety years, and Cheops and Chephren put up the pyramids... Sources and credits - Great Pyramid of Giza. kallerna. CC BY-SA 3.0. commons.wikimedia...
A short summary, the chapters and every picture's credit, ready to paste.
What it replaces
Hiring an editor
In the hiring posts we read on editor job boards, most documentary edits paid $45 to $175 a video, and each one takes days.
One-click AI video tools
They write the script and generate the voice for you. YouTube's rules on inauthentic content are aimed at that kind of mass-produced video.
Cutaway
You write and record. We find the pictures and do the cutting, and you get a draft within a day.
YouTube monetization
YouTube won't pay for videos that are mass-produced or that read text the creator didn't write. Cutaway only edits narration you recorded, gives each video its own look, and doesn't use clips taken from other channels. YouTube decides who gets monetized, so we can't promise that you will.
Pricing
Free try
$0- A storyboard from your script, or a 3-minute edited clip from your voiceover
- No card needed
Creator
$49/month- 150 finished minutes a month
- Storyboard, Shorts, captions, chapters and description with every video
- Change requests by email during the beta
- Cancel anytime
Studio
Talk to us- Several channels, or videos longer than an hour
Questions
Who owns the video?
You do. The pictures keep their own licenses. We send a credits list to paste into your description, and we tell you when a Creative Commons license asks you to share your video under the same terms.
Which topics work best?
History, archaeology and science, because there are plenty of free-to-use pictures for them. True crime and commentary are next.
Do you make AI voices?
No. We only edit narration you recorded.
How long does it take?
During the beta, we send a draft within 24 hours.
Can I use my own footage?
Yes. Send the clips with your voiceover and tell us where they go.
Which languages?
English narration for now.