---
title: "Clip bank"
description: "One long recording turned into a bank of short clips, each one idea at 40 to 75 seconds, mapped beat by beat and handed to an editor as a ticket."
canonical: https://tomsharman.com/glossary/clip-bank/
updated: 2026-10-25
---

# Clip bank

One long recording turned into a bank of short clips, each one idea at 40 to 75 seconds, mapped beat by beat and handed to an editor as a ticket.

## Why does it matter?

The sign of a weak editor is the inability to trim down. Mapping the whole recording first means every clip is one idea, and nothing good is lost in the edit.

## How does it work?

1. Map who said what, with timestamps, before picking a single clip.
2. Hold every clip to one idea and 40 to 75 seconds. Two ideas become two clips.
3. Give each clip a 3 to 5 word hook with a number or a name in it, and put the hook first.
4. Make one ticket per clip, titled from the question asked.

## Where has Tom used it?

One hour of Creator Hotline recording became a bank of 59 clips, two months of daily posts, each one handed to the editors as its own ticket.

## Related terms

- [Recording day](https://tomsharman.com/glossary/recording-day/index.md): One booked studio, one person asking and a bank of questions written in advance, turned into clips and tickets.
- [Fake pod](https://tomsharman.com/glossary/fake-pod/index.md): A podcast built for the clip: real answers to questions written in advance, recorded in one sitting in a studio, with a guest who is there to ask.

## Where is it explained?

- https://tomsharman.com/playbooks/how-i-work/the-clip-bank/