Shorts Script Recut: make a long script fit
You already know it is too long
The hard part is the next twenty minutes: reading the same eleven lines over and over,
deleting a sentence, feeling the piece get worse, putting it back. There is no clock on the
page while you do it, so every decision is a guess about whether it bought you enough. Most
people give up, record it long, and try to fix it in the edit — the one place it cannot be fixed.
This is the workbench for that twenty minutes. Every line is a row. Every row has a number.
The total moves while you choose.
Open it and use it
Download the package and open shorts-script-recut.html in any browser. That is the whole
setup. No installation, no signup, no account, no API key — and no coding tool of any kind.
You do not need Claude Code, a terminal, Node or Python. It is a web page that happens to live
on your disk, and it works with your network switched off.
What is in it
- A cut planner. Every line is Keep, Tighten or Cut. Cutting takes its seconds — and the
breath after it — off the total immediately. Tightening opens the line for editing right
there, and the seconds recount as you type, so you can see whether losing four words actually
bought you anything before you commit to it. - The cuts that reach your target. The smallest set that closes the gap, slowest first, with
what each one returns, protecting your opening and closing lines until there is no other way.
Ranked by length, not importance — it says so, and you read them before one button applies them. - A filler dictionary. Twenty-three stock constructions that cost time and carry nothing:
in this video, make sure to, at the end of the day, needless to say, as you can see,
the channel greeting, and the long forms that have short forms. It reports what they are worth
in seconds, then strips them on one click and tells you how much runtime came back. Nineteen
weak words are a separate opt-in pass, because some of them carry meaning in your sentence. - A time budget. Hook, setup, body, close, each with a share of the target, and the page
names the block that is over. A script that is eight seconds long is rarely eight seconds
long everywhere — it is almost always one block, and cutting a word from every line instead of
that block is how a script gets worse without getting shorter. - Hook formulas. Ten fill-in shapes with the slots marked, not generated copy. Write your
version and it is measured as you type — seconds, characters, whether it lands inside the first
two and a half seconds — with stock openers flagged. Drop it in as line 1 when you like it. - Exports. The recut script ready to copy; caption cards split so each one reads in a single
glance, at a width you set; and a printable shot list with each line's in-time, duration and an
empty column for the visual. Your work survives closing the tab.
Your script stays on your machine
The page makes no network requests. No analytics, no tracking, no telemetry, no server. What you
paste is processed in the page and never leaves it — which is why it still works offline. Open
your browser's network tab and watch nothing happen.
Honest limits
The length is an estimate; spoken length depends on delivery, so the page gives a likely range
and the range is what to plan against. It counts speech only — silent B-roll, a held beat or an
outro card add time it cannot see. It does not write your script: the filler pass removes stock
phrasing and the formulas give you a shape to fill, but every cut is your decision and every
change can be reverted. It makes no claim about views, reach, followers or revenue. What it
promises is one thing — you will know whether the script fits, and where the seconds are.
Where this sits
Shorts Script Timer (Free), from the same publisher, tells you whether a script fits; start
there if you have not measured yet. This is what you open when the answer was no. Shorts
Autopilot goes the other way — a topic in, a whole production plan out. Retention Rebuild
Kit is for after the fact, with a published video and real analytics.
