# Topic Shorts: Turn a Topic into a Short Story | Clip Studio > Turn a topic into a faceless short with a hook, story beats, stock footage, voiceover, and captions. Choose four formats and edit your story before generating. Canonical page: https://clipstudio.ai/topic-shorts ## What it is Turn one idea into a hook, a reveal, and a payoff. Clip Studio plans the story, finds stock footage, and adds voice and captions. Generate straight away or edit the story first. ## How it works ### Name the topic Start with one idea. Choose a mini documentary, myth check, story with a twist, or how-it-works format. ### Give the story a shape Generate with an automatic story plan, or open Edit story to review the hook, narration, and visual direction before rendering. ### Download and post Stock footage, narration, and captions become a finished MP4 for TikTok, Reels, Shorts, or landscape. ## Why this path - **An opening with a payoff.** The story plan connects a hook, setup, reveal, and payoff, so the ending answers what the opening promises. - **Four ways to tell it.** Mini documentary, myth check, story with a twist, and how it works give the script different structures. Pick the approach that fits your idea. - **Visual direction for every beat.** Each story beat pairs narration with a visual brief and stock search terms to guide footage selection. Stock illustrates the story; it is not evidence of an event. - **A quick path, with room to revise.** Go from topic to Generate, or edit the story first. The finished short includes narration and burned-in captions without a timeline to assemble. ## FAQs ### What are Topic Shorts? Topic Shorts turn a written topic into a faceless short. Clip Studio plans a hook, setup, reveal, and payoff, then assembles stock footage, voiceover, and captions so you can post without filming. ### Which storytelling formats can I choose? Choose Mini documentary, Myth check, Story with a twist, or How it works. The format guides the script structure and visual direction, so you can match the approach to your topic. ### Can I review the story before generating? Yes. Open Edit story to review the opening, narration, and visual direction before generating. Spoken narration is written to fill the length you pick, so a 30-second short is about 30 seconds of voiceover with matching stock. You can also press Generate directly and let Clip Studio plan the story automatically. ### Do I need to film or appear on camera? No. Topic Shorts are faceless by design. You provide the topic; the video is assembled from stock footage, narration, and captions. ### Can I choose the narration voice? Yes. Pick a narration voice before you generate so the short sounds like your channel, not a generic read. ### Is the footage cleared to post? Topic Shorts use stock footage. Check the source footage terms and any rights needed for your intended use. ### What do I get at the end? A finished short with voiceover and captions, downloaded as an MP4 for TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, or landscape. ### What caption and cut styles can I use? Captions come in six looks, burned in from the voiceover: Spotlight (default — each spoken word lights up on a blue highlight), Impact (bold outlined caps), Highlighter (caps with one yellow key word), Editorial (quiet lower-third phrases), Boxed (phrases on a dark pill), and Kicker (phrase chunks with one oversized cyan word). Off leaves the frame clean. Transitions default to Dynamic (punchier motion between clips). Classic keeps the current cuts and dissolves. Off is hard cuts only. English only. These choices do not change this month’s generation limit. ### How is this different from Video Lab? Video Lab generates original motion from a prompt or still across frontier models on your monthly plan. Topic Shorts start from a topic and assemble a faceless stock short with voice and captions — the fast path when you need a post, not a directed shot. ### Do new accounts get a free story part? Eligible new accounts get one free story part. Topic Shorts are a secondary one-shot. No card required. ## Related - [Talking Shorts](https://clipstudio.ai/talking-shorts.md) - [Video Lab](https://clipstudio.ai/video-lab.md) - [Free tools](https://clipstudio.ai/tools.md)