Claude Fable 5.2 Video Editing: From Raw File to Finished Video

We gave Claude Fable 5.2 one raw video file. The file was 6 minutes 21 seconds long. It held 86 recorded phrases, and many of them were mistakes.

Fable 5.2 returned a finished vertical video of 45 seconds. It chose the takes, cleaned the voice, wrote the captions, added music and built each 3D scene.

Below is the brief that we use, the tools, the checks and the costs.

What Claude Fable 5.2 does when it edits a video

Claude Fable 5.2 is a model from Anthropic. Anthropic released it on 9 November 2026. Inside Claude Code, it plans a job, writes code and runs tools on your computer. A video edit is one such job.

Fable 5.2 is not a video model. It does not make new footage of you. It cuts your own footage, and it writes code that draws the graphics, the captions and the 3D scenes.

This table shows our test: the file that we gave it and the file that it returned.

Fable 5.2 also put real data on the screen. One scene shows 86 slides, one for each recorded phrase, and a counter runs to 86. A different scene draws the real sound wave of the voice.

The echo tail in the table is the room sound that stays after a word ends.

The tools that Fable 5.2 runs for you

You do not operate these tools. Fable 5.2 runs them. You talk to it in plain English.

Before you start

• A paid Claude plan. Claude Pro costs $20 a month, or $17 a month if you pay for one year. It includes Claude Code. On Pro, the plan page lists Fable as "paid with usage credits". Claude Max costs $100 a month and includes Fable for "up to half your weekly limit".
• Claude Code. It runs in the terminal, in the Claude desktop app and on the web.
• A computer with a graphics card. raea runs on a Mac with Apple Silicon, and on Windows or Linux with an x86_64 processor (the usual Intel or AMD type). Its README, the main information file of the project, calls the Windows version the "newest and least tested". We made our edit on Windows.
• An ElevenLabs account. The free plan gives 10,000 credits each month. The Starter plan costs $6 a month. Voice Isolator accepts a file of 500 MB and 1 hour at most. The music API is for paid subscribers only.
• Your raw recording. One file is best. Keep every mistake in it.

Step 1: Record with the edit in mind

1. Fix the camera. Put the camera on a stand. Do not move it. Then takes from different minutes look the same when Fable 5.2 joins them.
2. Say one line at a time. If you make a mistake, say the line again. Leave a short pause between tries.
3. Record at the best quality. We recorded in 4K. The edit only makes your face smaller, never larger, so your face stays sharp.
4. Keep the full file. Do not cut the file yourself. Fable 5.2 needs every take to find the best one.

The result of this step is one long file. Ours had 86 phrases for 21 lines. Some lines had four tries, and some had only one.

Step 2: Open Claude Code and select Fable 5.2

1. Make a new folder for the project. Put your raw file in it.
2. Open Claude Code in that folder.
3. Type /model fable. Press Enter. Claude Code changes to Fable 5.2.
4. Type /effort xhigh. Press Enter.

The effort level tells the model how much to think on each step. The levels for Fable are low, medium, high, xhigh and max. The default is medium.

We used xhigh for our edit. Anthropic's documents say that each level trades token spend against capability. They also say that max "may show diminishing returns". So start with xhigh, not max.

Step 3: Install the tools

1. Paste this line into Claude Code: Install raea from https://raea.io/install and show me what it can make. This is the install prompt from the raea website. The installer adds the engine and the raea skills for Claude Code.
2. Then paste this line: Install Whisper and FFmpeg. Tell me the version of each tool. Whisper needs FFmpeg on the computer.
3. Create an ElevenLabs API key, a password that lets Claude use ElevenLabs.
4. Save the key in a file with the name .env in the project folder. Tell Claude the file name.
5. If the raea install fails on Windows, install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (x64). You also need a graphics driver for DirectX 12 or Vulkan.

When this step is complete, Claude Code can answer one test: "Render a 3-second test video with raea." If a video file appears in the folder, raea works.

Step 4: Write the brief

The brief decides the result. A short prompt gives a simple edit. A full brief gave us an edit that we posted.

The short prompt (start here)

For your first try, use this short prompt. It asks for the best takes, a clean voice, captions and one animation for each line.

CopyI want you to edit my talking video. Here is the raw file: [add your video file here]

1. Turn every word I say into text, with the time of each word.
2. If I said a line more than once, keep the best take. Pick the one with no stumbles, nothing cut off, and where I look at the camera. Cut every mistake, filler word and long pause.
3. Clean my voice. Remove the echo and the room noise.
4. Add captions that match my words exactly, a few words at a time. Never put them over my face.
5. Add an animation for each line that shows what I am saying.
6. Export it as a vertical 9:16 video, 1080 by 1920.

Before you start, tell me which tools you need and help me install them. Show me which takes you kept before you make the final video.

Prefer a one-click copy? The same prompt is on our free prompt page.

The full brief (the one that we used)

This is the shape of the brief that we gave Fable 5.2. It has eight parts. Replace the text in square brackets with your own text.

CopyYou run on Fable 5.2. Edit one vertical video for me from start to end. You have full creative control inside the rules below.

THE FOOTAGE
- Raw file, read only: [full path to your file]
- I say each line more than one time. Watch every take and make your own picks.
- Keep every line in my real words. Do not write new lines for me.

DO NOT REPEAT
- My old edits are here: [folder with your old videos, or "none"]
- The new edit must look different from them: layout, type, colour and transitions.

THE STYLE
- The style in one line: [example: a premium product launch film, bright and calm]
- Before you build, write a style file. Put in it the look, the colours, the fonts, the transitions and the music idea.
- Add a storyboard: one visual for each line that shows what the line says.

TOOLS
- Build the edit in raea. Use Whisper for the words. Use FFmpeg for the cuts and the export.
- Clean my voice with the ElevenLabs Voice Isolator.
- Make the music with the ElevenLabs music API, with no vocals.

QUALITY
- Voice: clear, no echo, each line at the same level. Mix at -14 LUFS.
- Music: about 25 LU under my voice, and quieter while I talk.
- Sound: one soft sound effect for each motion, always under my voice.
- Colour: natural skin. Match every take to the first take.
- Motion: one main object in each scene. No object touches the frame edge. No text over text.
- Captions: a few words at a time, each word on the frame where I say it.

HARD RULES
- Put no object over my face. Do not blur or smooth my skin.
- Make my face smaller only, never larger.
- No end card. The video ends on my last line.
- Run one heavy job at a time on this computer.
- Do not delete a file until I say that the edit is final.

CHECKPOINT
- When the cut, the voice and the first 10 seconds are ready, show me a 10-second motion test and 6 stills.
- Do the full render after I say go.

DONE MEANS
- Every frame opens. No blank frames and no flash frames.
- Whisper reads every line right in the finished file.
- The loudness numbers are in your notes.
- My face is as sharp as the source file.
- The captions are inside the safe area.
- Write notes: what you made, every number, the check results, and a list of things that I must judge.
- Export 1080 by 1920, and one copy with no music. Then tell me the file paths.

Why each part is there

• The footage. "Read only" keeps your raw file safe. "Make your own picks" tells Fable 5.2 to compare the takes, not to keep the first one.
• Do not repeat. Our footage had five older edits. We told Fable 5.2 to make a look that matched none of them. It put contact sheets of all five next to the new edit to check. A contact sheet is a page with many small stills.
• The style. One line is sufficient. Ours was "a premium launch film". Fable 5.2 then wrote a style file with five colours, two fonts and a storyboard. The storyboard is a table with one picture idea for each of the 21 lines.
• Tools. Name the tools, so the model does not select a tool that you did not install.
• Quality. Numbers give the model a target that it can measure. "-14 LUFS" is a clear target (LUFS is a unit of loudness). "Make it sound good" is vague.
• Hard rules. These rules protect your face and your files. Write the things that must never occur.
• Checkpoint. A still costs seconds. A full render costs much more time. A render is the step that draws every frame. Find the problems before the full render.
• Done means. This part makes Fable 5.2 check its own work and give you the proof.

Step 5: Check the plan and the first 10 seconds

1. Read the style file. Each line must have one visual that shows what the line says. In our plan, the line about the takes got 86 slides and a counter.
2. Look at the 6 stills. Check your face, the colours and the caption size. Look at them on a phone, not only on a monitor.
3. Play the 10-second motion test. Check that the cuts land on words and that the motion feels smooth.
4. Answer. If the look is right, type "go". If not, send your notes first.

Fable 5.2 can continue to build while you look. Our brief told it to do that.

Step 6: Send your notes in plain words

Our first full version was not right. It had a pause of 0.60 seconds after the first line. We sent one note: the silence after the first line feels awkward.

Fable 5.2 cut the pause to 0.27 seconds. It started the next line while the title was still on the screen. The video became 10 frames shorter. It changed no other line, and it checked that sample by sample.

Write your notes this way:

• Name the moment. "After the first line" is clear. "Somewhere near the start" is not.
• Say what you feel. "The silence feels awkward" is sufficient. You do not need the technical word.
• Send one note for each problem. Then you can check each fix by itself.

Step 7: Check the finished file

Fable 5.2 wrote a set of notes with the finished file. These are the checks that it made on our video. Ask for the same checks.

• Frames: 1,356 of 1,356 frames opened. It found 0 blank frames and 0 flash frames.
• Words: Whisper read the full file in one pass and got every word right.
• Loudness: the file measured -14.1 LUFS, with a true peak of -2.42 dBTP. The true peak is the loudest point of the sound.
• Face: it compared the sharpness of the face with the 4K source. No frame had an object over the face.
• Captions: all the type was inside the safe area. That is the part of the frame that the app buttons do not cover.
• Music: it gave the music alone to Whisper. Whisper wrote only "Thank you.", a phrase that it often writes for music. So the track has no vocals.

Then do the checks that only a person can do:

1. Listen to the full video with earphones.
2. Listen again on the phone speaker.
3. Watch the video on a phone at arm's length. Read every caption.
4. Read the list of things that Fable 5.2 wants you to judge. Ours had six items.

Step 8: Make a side by side of the raw file and the edit

A side by side shows the result better than a description. It puts the raw footage in a small card on the left and the edit in a large card on the right.

CopyMake a side by side version of the finished video.

- Put the raw footage in a small card on the left. Label it "Raw footage".
- Put the finished edit in a large card on the right. Label it with the model that made it.
- The raw card must show the same camera frames that the sound of the edit comes from. My lips must match in the two cards.
- Put no colour work and no effects on the raw card.
- Keep the two cards flat. Do not put my face on a 3D surface.
- Export 1080 by 1920.

In our file, the raw card is 396 by 704 pixels and the edit card is 864 by 1536 pixels. Fable 5.2 checked 46 frames of the raw card, and each one was the correct camera frame.

What the settings mean

• -14 LUFS. LUFS is a unit for the loudness of a full file. FFmpeg measures it with its ebur128 filter, and its loudnorm filter can set it.
• 25 LU under the voice. LU is one step of loudness. The music sits 25 LU lower than the voice. Fable 5.2 also made the music 9 dB quieter between 1 and 4 kHz, so the music does not cover the words.
• 1.2 times the speed. The voice plays 1.2 times faster and the pitch stays the same. Fable 5.2 did this with Rubber Band. FFmpeg has a rubberband filter for the same job.
• Pauses. A pause of more than 0.45 seconds inside a line became 0.35 seconds. Most lines keep a pause of 0.2 to 0.3 seconds after them.
• Sound effects. Each motion on the screen gets one soft sound. Our video has 129. The loudest one is 13.8 dB under the voice.
• The style line. Change this one line to get a different look. We gave the same footage to a second Fable 5.2 session with the line "a bold kinetic graphic edit". It made a different video.

If you run two sessions on one computer, add the rule "one heavy job at a time" to the two briefs. A render is a heavy job for the graphics card.

What it costs

• Claude. Pro is $20 a month, and Fable use on Pro comes from usage credits. Max is $100 a month and Ultra is $200 a month. On these two plans, Fable can use 50% of the weekly limit.
• The Claude API. If you pay for each token, Fable 5.2 costs $8 for one million input tokens and $40 for one million output tokens. Fable 5.1 cost $10 and $50.
• raea. The engine and the desktop app are free. Renders run on your own computer, and there is no fee for each render.
• ElevenLabs. The free plan gives 10,000 credits each month. The Starter plan is $6 a month. The music API needs a paid plan.
• Whisper, FFmpeg and the Poly Haven light. All three are free.

We do not give a price for one edit. It depends on the length of your file, the effort level and the number of notes that you send.

Limits and problems

• Claude cannot hear. In its notes, Fable 5.2 wrote that it chose the music by its measured shape and could not hear it. You must listen.
• A speed change can change a sound. When Fable 5.2 stretched many lines as one piece, Whisper heard "Poach them together" for "Puts them together". The fix was to stretch each line alone. Ask for a Whisper check on every line of the finished voice.
• Names can fail a word check. Whisper heard "cloud" for "Claude" when it read that line alone. In the full file, it read the name right. Check names with your own ears.
• The model works with the takes that you recorded. For our first line, no take ended with a low pitch. Fable 5.2 could not fix that, so it put the line on the list for us to judge.
• Windows is the newest raea version. In our build, the 3D text could not load a font file on Windows. Fable 5.2 used the built-in font for the 3D letters.
• The raea license is not a common one. raea uses the Functional Source License 1.1 (FSL-1.1-ALv2). Read it before you use raea in a product.
• A long edit uses much of your plan limit. Do one edit, then check your usage before you start the next one.

Other ways to do it

• video-use by Browser Use. This free kit (MIT license) lets an AI agent remove filler words, grade the colour and add subtitles. It needs FFmpeg and an ElevenLabs API key. If you want a clean cut and no 3D scenes, use it.
• HyperFrames by HeyGen. This free framework (Apache 2.0) makes video from HTML pages. It needs Node.js 22 or later and FFmpeg. Our first edits of the same footage used it. The full tool list of those edits is on our free prompt page.
• A human editor. If the video is a large brand film, a person must lead it. Fable 5.2 can make the first version, and the editor can complete it.

If you do not want to use a terminal, this method is not for you. The same is true if your computer has no graphics card.

Frequently asked questions

Can Claude Fable 5.2 edit videos?

Yes. In Claude Code, Fable 5.2 can take a raw recording and return a finished video. In our test, it chose the takes, cleaned the voice, wrote the captions, added music and built 3D scenes. It runs tools such as raea, Whisper and FFmpeg on your computer.

Does Claude Fable 5.2 generate video like a video model?

No. Fable 5.2 does not make new footage. It cuts the footage that you recorded. It writes code that draws the captions, the graphics and the 3D scenes.

Is Claude Fable 5.2 free?

No. The Free plan does not include Fable. On Claude Pro ($20 a month), Fable use comes from usage credits. Claude Max ($100 a month) includes Fable for 50% of the weekly limit.

Do I need to know how to code to edit a video with Claude?

No. You write a brief in plain English, and Claude Code runs the tools. You must be able to open a terminal or the Claude desktop app and paste a prompt.

How long can the raw video be?

Our raw file was 6 minutes 21 seconds. The ElevenLabs Voice Isolator accepts a file of 500 MB and 1 hour at most. For a longer recording, ask Claude to divide the sound into parts first.

Is Fable 5.2 better than Opus 5.5 for video editing?

We used the two models on the same raw recording, and each one made a finished video. We did not do a scored test, so we do not name a winner.

Sources

• Anthropic: Claude Fable 5.2
• Anthropic: Claude plans
• Anthropic: model and effort settings in Claude Code
• raea: the Render Anything Engine
• raea on GitHub
• OpenAI: Whisper on GitHub
• FFmpeg: filters documentation
• ElevenLabs: Voice Isolator
• ElevenLabs: Eleven Music
• Poly Haven: Studio Small 08
• Browser Use: video-use on GitHub
• HeyGen: HyperFrames on GitHub