Caption area

The caption-safe area is where most vertical edits start to fail.

The bottom of the frame looks roomy until the app layers wake up. Keep subtitles readable without letting them crawl into the face line.

The safe move is to treat the caption-safe area as a dedicated subtitle lane, not a dumping ground for every extra label. If the clip needs price text, promo copy, or a speaker tag, make those compete somewhere else in the frame.

Two lines of subtitles can work, but only if the font stays compact and the speaker is not framed too low. Once the subject sits in the lower half, the typography has to shrink or move.

If hook text and subtitles are fighting each other, switch to the text-safe area guide and rebuild the lanes before export.

What usually goes wrong

  • Centering subtitles too low because the preview canvas hides the caption drawer.
  • Stacking speaker names, subtitles, and promo text in the same lower block.
  • Using a giant two-line caption style that steals room from product tags.
  • Ignoring the first busy shot, then discovering the caption sits on top of the CTA.

Subtitle lane rules

Use a lane system so subtitles stay readable even when the UI changes shape.

ElementBest laneWhy
Single-line subtitlesTop edge of the caption-safe blockGives the app caption room to expand below the frame content.
Two-line subtitlesMiddle of the caption-safe blockWorks only if the speaker is not already framed too low.
Speaker tagsAbove subtitles or in the upper halfDo not stack them under the subtitle lane unless the cut is extremely clean.
Promo textMove it up or build a separate ad-safe framePromo copy competes with captions faster than most editors expect.