Coming soon · macOS

Story,
first.

Paper Cut is the story stage before the edit. It works beside you as you build — quietly surfacing the next piece that fits, honest about what’s there and what isn’t. You open your NLE with the arc already in place, and spend the edit refining instead of searching for it.

Coming to macOS first, then Windows — we’ll email you when it ships.

First frames first

The problem

100 hours of footage. A blank timeline. And no obvious place to begin.

You can’t hold a hundred hours in your head — so Paper Cut does. It surfaces what’s in the footage and organizes it by theme, scene, collection, and through-line, so you start with a leg up instead of a blank timeline.

The principle

Collaboration,
not automation.

Paper Cut works beside you, not instead of you. As you build, it reads what you’re making and offers the next piece — quietly, and only when it’s a real fit. It proposes; you decide. Every call stays yours.

What it does

It learns your footage,
and finds the next piece.

Working together

It proposes. You decide.

As you build, Paper Cut offers what might come next — a scene to open with, a clip for the moment you’re on. Quiet suggestions, never auto-everything. Promote what lands, wave off the rest — and it learns your taste with every call.

  • Suggestions, not decisions — you’re always driving.
  • Sharper the further you get.
papercut · story sense · day 6

✦ Here’s what I’m seeing — Day 6

Intimate moments, reflective drives, and the practical rhythm of RV life — strong emotional beats, a mix of verité and context.

Arrival at the Vintage TruckRejectPromote

Establishes the dynamic between Brian and his subjects — the human connection, the Americana setting.

●●●●○ verité · 3 clips · ~16 min raw Brian’s Journey
The Suburban PortraitRejectPromote

A more intimate, artistic portrait — widens the range of subjects in the project.

●●●●● verité · 27 clips · ~70 min raw The Portraits

The landing

You open Paper Cut to your film, not a folder.

Every clip clustered by what it’s actually about — theme, region, shoot day, visual quality. Your strongest material rises to the top. Filter, and the whole board recomputes on the spot.

  • The shape of your story, the second you arrive.
  • A thousand clips — never a wall of filenames.
papercut · drive bys · 1,080 clips

Top picks — your strongest material

5★
0142_B-roll★★★★★

By theme

By region

By visual quality

The memory

A memory of every moment.

Every clip watched, rated, and transcribed down to its moments — that’s the memory Paper Cut draws on. Layered like your own, it connects a feeling to the exact place it lives, which is how it knows what to suggest next. The more you build, the more it connects.

  • Moments, timecoded and remembered.
  • Ask by feeling, not by filename.
L1140381.MP4 · ★★★★★ strong
INOUT00:00 / 01:08
Narrative · StrongCraft · Excellent

Highlights

00:00 Opening close-up — masked Elvis, full glitter. The image is the thesis.

00:21 “So that’s why the king’s wearing the mask.”

Transcript

brian You live in Vegas?

subject Twenty years. First time I’ve put the suit on in a month.

The hand-off

Build the story. Leave the fine cut.

Cut at the story level — arrange scenes on the node canvas, even edit by transcript inside a node — without the ticky-tacky frame-trimming of an NLE. It’s an approximation, not the final cut. When the shape holds, send it to Premiere, Avid, or Resolve and spend that time refining, not rebuilding the arc.

  • The shape of the film, not the final frames.
  • Straight to your NLE — the fine cut stays yours.
papercut · story center · act I
Vegas — JessicaAct I · 2 beats
The shape Opens on Jessica’s backstory, builds to her portrait, pivots to Corona Elvis.
BeginningJessica — open
MiddleCorona Elvis — pivot

Honest, always

If the footage isn’t there, Paper Cut says so. It never pads results or oversells a clip to look busy.

Version as you go

Bookmark a scene, branch it, revert in two clicks. Every version lives side by side — nothing’s ever lost.

Local or cloud, your call

Run fully private on-device, or switch on managed cloud AI with Sync. Either way, the footage stays yours.

Collaboration

Pass the story around.

A cut is a conversation — between you and the footage, and between everyone with a stake in the film. Paper Cut keeps that conversation in one place, wherever the work happens.

Your projects, anywhere

With Sync, every project lives where you do — the edit bay, the hotel room, the kitchen table. Open any machine and pick up on the exact frame you left.

Bring the room into the cut

Invite a director or producer in as a collaborator. They shape a scene, hand it back, leave a note on a clip — the story moves between you, instead of living in one person’s head.

Straight to the timeline

When a cut is ready, load it onto your active Premiere or Avid sequence from the in-app panel. No exports to chase, no round-trips to untangle.

Questions

The honest answers.

Is Paper Cut an editor?

It is — just not an NLE. You edit in Paper Cut, but on a node canvas instead of a timeline: expand a node and it opens an edit-by-transcript view, where you highlight the passages you want and it sequences them for you. It handles the story-level cut and skips the ticky-tacky frame-trimming. When the shape holds, hand it to Premiere, Avid, or Resolve for the fine cut.

Is my footage uploaded anywhere?

No. Paper Cut runs locally. Only AI requests — thumbnails plus a small set of frames per clip — are sent to Anthropic during analysis, using your own API key. Your original media stays on your drive. When cloud sync ships, it’s opt-in and encrypted, and you choose what to share.

What does it cost?

Paper Cut runs on simple monthly plans — from $12/mo Standalone (local-only, fully private) up to the Sync tiers with managed cloud AI and remote collaboration. See Pricing for the full breakdown.

Will it work with Premiere, Avid, or Resolve?

Paper Cut ships with dedicated Premiere and Avid panels that load your stringout straight onto the active timeline — no round-tripping. It also exports AAF and FCPXML, covering Avid, Premiere, Resolve, and Final Cut. The catalogue itself is editor-agnostic — you can use Paper Cut purely as a logging tool even if you cut elsewhere.

What footage formats are supported?

Anything ffmpeg reads — ProRes, H.264, H.265, BRAW, R3D, DNxHR, ARRIRAW (via proxies). Mixed-framerate projects are handled. The catalogue tracks source timecode so AAF relink is reliable.

Who’s building this?

Paper Cut is the first software product from Supergiant — a documentary post-production specialist and software label. Built by a working editor, for anyone who has to find the story in a mountain of footage.

Where’s the Windows version?

macOS first. Windows is on the table once 1.0 ships. Linux later, maybe.

Plans

Local and private,
or synced and shared.

Standalone

$12/mo

Everything runs on your machine.

  • Local-only AI — no cloud, nothing leaves your drive
  • The full catalogue, suggestions & exports
  • AAF + XML to every major NLE
Notify me

Sync Teams

$50/mo

Bring the whole room into the project.

  • Everything in Sync Solo
  • Up to 25 hrs scan time / mo
  • 3 remote collaborator seats included
  • Add more seats anytime
Notify me

Enterprise

Let’s talk

For large teams and companies.

  • Volume scan time & seats
  • Priority support
  • Custom terms
Talk to sales

Need more hands? Add remote collaborator seats to any Sync plan — $8/mo each.

Where the story
begins.

Paper Cut · coming soon to macOS, Windows to follow