remotion-best-practices
Domain-specific knowledge base for building videos with Remotion and React.
- Covers 30+ rule files spanning animations, audio, assets, 3D content, charts, text, transitions, and composition management
- Includes specialized guidance for captions, FFmpeg operations, audio visualization, and sound effects integration
- Provides patterns for dynamic metadata calculation, media inspection (duration, dimensions, frame extraction), and parametrizable compositions
- Supports advanced features like Lottie animations, light leak effects, Mapbox integration, TailwindCSS styling, and AI-generated voiceovers
When to use
Use this skills whenever you are dealing with Remotion code to obtain the domain-specific knowledge.
New project setup
When in an empty folder or workspace with no existing Remotion project, scaffold one using:
npx create-video@latest --yes --blank --no-tailwind my-video
Replace my-video with a suitable project name.
Starting preview
Stsrt the Remotion Studio to preview a video:
npx remotion studio
Optional: one-frame render check
You can render a single frame with the CLI to sanity-check layout, colors, or timing.
Skip it for trivial edits, pure refactors, or when you already have enough confidence from Studio or prior renders.
npx remotion still [composition-id] --scale=0.25 --frame=30
At 30 fps, --frame=30 is the one-second mark (--frame is zero-based).
Captions
When dealing with captions or subtitles, load the ./rules/subtitles.md file for more information.
Using FFmpeg
For some video operations, such as trimming videos or detecting silence, FFmpeg should be used. Load the ./rules/ffmpeg.md file for more information.
Silence detection
When needing to detect and trim silent segments from video or audio files, load the ./rules/silence-detection.md file.
Audio visualization
When needing to visualize audio (spectrum bars, waveforms, bass-reactive effects), load the ./rules/audio-visualization.md file for more information.
Sound effects
When needing to use sound effects, load the ./rules/sfx.md file for more information.
How to use
Read individual rule files for detailed explanations and code examples:
- rules/3d.md - 3D content in Remotion using Three.js and React Three Fiber
- rules/animations.md - Fundamental animation skills for Remotion
- rules/assets.md - Importing images, videos, audio, and fonts into Remotion
- rules/audio.md - Using audio and sound in Remotion - importing, trimming, volume, speed, pitch
- rules/calculate-metadata.md - Dynamically set composition duration, dimensions, and props
- rules/can-decode.md - Check if a video can be decoded by the browser using Mediabunny
- rules/charts.md - Chart and data visualization patterns for Remotion (bar, pie, line, stock charts)
- rules/compositions.md - Defining compositions, stills, folders, default props and dynamic metadata
- rules/extract-frames.md - Extract frames from videos at specific timestamps using Mediabunny
- rules/fonts.md - Loading Google Fonts and local fonts in Remotion
- rules/get-audio-duration.md - Getting the duration of an audio file in seconds with Mediabunny
- rules/get-video-dimensions.md - Getting the width and height of a video file with Mediabunny
- rules/get-video-duration.md - Getting the duration of a video file in seconds with Mediabunny
- rules/gifs.md - Displaying GIFs synchronized with Remotion's timeline
- rules/images.md - Embedding images in Remotion using the Img component
- rules/light-leaks.md - Light leak overlay effects using @remotion/light-leaks
- rules/lottie.md - Embedding Lottie animations in Remotion
- rules/measuring-dom-nodes.md - Measuring DOM element dimensions in Remotion
- rules/measuring-text.md - Measuring text dimensions, fitting text to containers, and checking overflow
- rules/sequencing.md - Sequencing patterns for Remotion - delay, trim, limit duration of items
- rules/tailwind.md - Using TailwindCSS in Remotion
- rules/text-animations.md - Typography and text animation patterns for Remotion
- rules/timing.md - Timing with interpolate and Bézier easing, springs
- rules/transitions.md - Scene transition patterns for Remotion
- rules/transparent-videos.md - Rendering out a video with transparency
- rules/trimming.md - Trimming patterns for Remotion - cut the beginning or end of animations
- rules/videos.md - Embedding videos in Remotion - trimming, volume, speed, looping, pitch
- rules/parameters.md - Make a video parametrizable by adding a Zod schema
- rules/maps.md - Add a map using Mapbox and animate it
- rules/silence-detection.md - Adaptive silence detection using FFmpeg loudnorm and silencedetect
- rules/voiceover.md - Adding AI-generated voiceover to Remotion compositions using ElevenLabs TTS