If you make AI video for a living — or just for fun on a high-volume schedule — your toolkit ends up looking pretty boring. The flashy generators get all the attention, but the work actually gets done by the unglamorous tools that come before and after the prompt. Here's the short version of a stack that works.
1. The generator
Pick one and go deep. Sora is the strongest at long-form, coherent motion; Runway is the most editable; Pika and Klingeach have specific strengths (anime-style, dynamic camera moves). The mistake is treating them as interchangeable. Spend a week with one until you can predict what it'll give you before you hit generate.
2. The watermark remover
Almost every free or trial-tier output comes watermarked. If you legitimately own the clip (you generated it on your account, on your subscription) but the watermark is still there because of tier or export settings, you'll want a clean way to remove it. Our own image and video watermark remover uses content-aware inpainting rather than blur, which is the difference between a clean result and an obvious smudge.
3. The editor
DaVinci Resolve (free) is the best non-Adobe option. CapCut is fine for short-form social. Premiere is still the standard for any team workflow. Whatever you use, get comfortable with masks and tracking — they're the bridge between "AI clip" and "edited shot."
4. Captions, transitions, exports
Don't skip these. Captions are the difference between a video that gets watched and one that gets scrolled past. Premiere's auto-captions are fine; CapCut's are better; Submagic is best if you're churning out volume. For exports, target H.264 at a reasonable bitrate (8-12 Mbps for 1080p) — nobody's phone needs your 80 Mbps master.
5. The unglamorous one: a project file
Keep a folder per project with the prompt, the raw generation, the cleaned version, the edited cut, and a notes file. Future-you will thank present-you the next time a client asks for "the version without the text overlay."
That's the whole stack. Five tools, in roughly that order. Everything else is a nice-to-have.