I used to spend upwards of two hours editing a two-minute video. The video itself took maybe ten minutes to record.
That ratio never stopped feeling insane to me.
And I did this over and over, because talking-head content is literally what grew Skylight Social to over 400,000 organic downloads. No paid ads, no influencer deals — just me posting videos on TikTok, Bluesky, Instagram, and YouTube, talking directly to the people I wanted to reach. It worked. And it was costing me my entire afternoon, every time.
The editing grind is real.
Here is what two hours of editing a two-minute video actually looks like.
You watch the whole thing back. You cringe at every “um” and “uh.” You find the three places where you restarted the same sentence. You scrub through the waveform trying to find the pauses. You make a cut, realize it created a weird jump, undo it, try again. You do this for the entire clip, and by the time you are done you have spent more time editing than you spent making the actual video.
And none of it was the creative part. The captions, the green screen moments, the pictures I drop in to illustrate a point — that stuff is fun. That is where I actually get to make something. But I could not get to any of it until I had slogged through the initial cleanup first. The ums, the dead air, the bad takes. Every single time.
I tried the other tools. They weren't it.
There are a lot of “AI video editors” out there. I tried them. And most of them wanted to do a lot of things I did not ask for.
Obnoxious auto-captions that take over the whole screen. Weird jump cuts with dramatic zooms. AI-generated B-roll that has nothing to do with what I am saying. Filters. Effects. Stuff that might work for some creators, but completely changes the feel of a talking-head video.
I did not need my video transformed. I needed it cleaned up. I needed someone to take out the ums, cut the dead air, find my best take, and hand it back to me. That is it.
That tool did not exist. So Reed and I built it.
That is how Refined was born.
Refined does one thing. It takes your raw talking-head footage and gives you back a clean, post-ready edit. No captions. No effects. No AI slop layered on top of your content. Just your video, with the mess removed.
You import your clip, tell Refined what to fix, and tap “Refine and Edit.” The AI goes through your transcript, cuts the filler words, removes the dead air, finds your best take, and shows you exactly what it removed. Then you review it, adjust anything you want, and export.
The whole thing takes minutes. Not hours.
What I actually want Refined to be.
Here is the honest version of the vision.
I want Refined to fit inside the workflow you already have, not replace it. You record on your phone. You edit on your phone. You post from your phone. Refined lives in that loop and handles the part that used to eat your afternoon.
It is built for creators who talk to the camera. YouTubers, TikTokers, course creators, podcasters doing video. People who have something real to say and just want the editing out of the way.
We are still early. There is a lot more we want to build. And the people who are going to shape what Refined becomes are the creators who use it and tell us what is working and what is not.
If you have feedback, a feature you want, or just want to tell me the thing that is still taking you too long — I genuinely want to hear it. Email us at contact.skylight.social@gmail.com. I read these.
Try it on your next video.
Download Refined from the App Store. Import your next talking-head clip. See what comes out the other side.
And if you want to follow along with what we are building, you can find me at @BuildWithTori on TikTok and the Skylight Social app at skylight.social.
Record. Refine. Post.