Problem: Pesky internal slates on videos.

Jay Brooks, our CTO, frequently addresses ways in which Simian can help solve problems that our users face on a daily basis. Here’s one of his regular blog columns, which we like to call ‘The Problem-solver.’

Not a week goes by here at Simian without someone asking for an easy way to remove slates — typically internal slates from production or post companies — from videos. It can be a difficult task to find the right person to edit the video or find someone with editing software that’s capable of removing these unwanted frames.

But there’s a super-simple way to do this if you are on a Mac:

1. Open your video in the native QuickTime X player
2. Select ‘Trim’ from the edit menu
3. From here you can drag the play head to the desired starting point
4. Finally, save the video to a new file

Now you have a clean video without the unwanted slate. Just upload your video normally to Simian and you’re good to go!

Problem solved!