Remotion Graphics

Animated graphics with Remotion (optional)

Our video-overlay/captions path renders static PNGs composited by ffmpeg. When a job needs real motion design — eased entrances, staggered reveals, word-synced kinetic captions, animated lower-thirds, branded title cards, count-ups — author the graphic as a Remotion React component (every word/color/beat is a prop, animated over frame), render it to a transparent layer, then composite with our existing ffmpeg overlay. ffmpeg still owns the cut, audio, grade, and final encode; Remotion only authors the moving graphic.

⚠ Before using — it's optional and heavy

• Needs Node + npm and a Remotion project (the remotion/ scaffold in this repo). First render downloads a headless Chromium (~150–300 MB). This is a bigger dependency than the whole Python core — like the grok-video-edit vfx extra, it's off by default.
• Licensing: Remotion is free for individuals/small teams but companies above a small headcount need a paid seat license — verify before using under a company. (No API key, but a real license gate.)
• Render cost: frame-by-frame Chrome rendering; render the overlay at overlay size/duration only (seconds of a lower-third), never the whole video, to keep it fast.
• If the graphic is static or a simple fade → use video-overlay, not this.

Default pattern: transparent layer → ffmpeg composite

1. Author/parameterize the component (see scaffold in remotion/src/). Pass content + timing as inputProps JSON — no hard-coded text.
2. Render only the graphic on alpha:

   cd remotion && npm install        # first time only (pulls Remotion + Chromium)
   npx remotion render LowerThird out/lower.mov \
       --codec=prores --prores-profile=4444 --pixel-format=yuva444p10le \
       --props='{"name":"Lior Kolnik","title":"Product, Eve Security","inSec":0.3,"outSec":4.0}'
   # (or a transparent WebM: --codec=vp8 --pixel-format=yuva420p)
   

3. Composite over the footage with our normal overlay (timed window), keeping audio:

   ffmpeg -y -i footage.mp4 -i remotion/out/lower.mov -filter_complex \
     "[0:v][1:v]overlay=40:H-h-60:enable='between(t,12,16)'" \
     -c:v h264_videotoolbox -b:v 9M -c:a copy out.mp4
   

   This is exactly the RGBA-sequence compositing in video-overlay — Remotion just produced a richer, animated layer. For a full-frame animated title/outro card (no transparency), render opaque and concat it between clips (or drop it into an edl-edit EDL as a clip).

Word-synced timing comes from the transcript (cue sheet)

Don't eyeball when a word/overlay lands — grep the --words transcript for the phrase, read its timestamp, convert to a frame (frame = round(t * fps)), and put it in the cue sheet. The scaffold's FinalEdit.tsx holds CUES = [{id, at, dur}]; e.g. an emphasis lands on the word "right" at 4.92s → at: Math.round(4.92*fps). Kinetic captions read the same word timestamps to pop one word per beat. (See editor's "the edit is text" convention.)

Tuning knobs + reviewing your own work

• Global feel lives in remotion/src/anim.ts — a few TIMING constants (reveal, stagger, overlayIn/Out) + a shared easing. "Make it snappier" = change one number, re-render.
• Review before a full pass: npx remotion still <Comp> still.png --frame=N --props=... renders one frame — read it (like our frame-extraction checks), adjust, then do the full render. Iterate stills, not full renders.

When to reach for it (vs not)

• Use Remotion: kinetic/karaoke captions, animated lower-thirds, branded animated intro/ outro cards, count-ups/charts, anything with eased motion.
• Use video-overlay/captions instead: a static logo/label/watermark, burned-in plain captions, a simple fade-in PNG — cheaper, no Node/Chromium, no license question.

See remotion/README.md for the scaffold layout and adding a new component.