How to use Claude Code in Premiere Pro with MotionUI

Premiere Pro’s own AI features help with single tasks: extending a shot, cleaning up speech, finding a clip. “Cut a 60-second version from the three strongest statements and mark the beats” is a different kind of job. Claude Code can do it, as soon as it can reach your project.

That connection is what MotionUI for Premiere does. It isn’t an animation tool, and there’s nothing to click in it. It’s a small panel in Premiere that lets Claude Code read and edit the project you have open. You describe what the film needs. Claude reads the footage, the transcript and the timeline, and builds the edit in a new sequence next to your original.

This guide covers the setup, how you steer Claude once it’s connected, what it can do in Premiere today and where it saves the most time. Codex works the same way, but we’ll stick to Claude Code here.

What you need

• Premiere Pro 2026 (version 26.0 or newer) on Mac or Windows.

• The MotionUI app, version 2.0 or newer, with MotionUI Pro. Premiere is part of Pro.

• Claude Code, in the Claude desktop app or in the terminal.

• Optional: your own OpenAI API key for transcripts. MotionUI uses it for speech-to-text with the timing of every word, so Claude can cut cleanly between words.

How to set it up

1. Install the plugin. Open the MotionUI app, go to the Premiere tab and click Install plugin. It installs the panel plus a small audio helper that MotionUI needs for real audio fades. Restart Premiere Pro once afterwards.

2. Open the panel. In Premiere, choose Window > UXP Plugins > MotionUI for Premiere. When it says “Connected to MotionUI”, you’re ready. Keep it open while you work, because it’s how Claude reaches your project.

3. Connect Claude Code. In the Premiere tab of the MotionUI app, click Connect next to Claude Code. MotionUI adds its Premiere tools and a short house rule, so Claude works in Premiere through these tools only. Paste your OpenAI key in the same tab if you want transcripts.

Then start a new Claude Code session so it picks up the tools. To check, ask “Which Premiere project is open?” Claude should answer with the project name, the active sequence and the list of sequences.

How you steer Claude in Premiere

You brief Claude the way you’d brief an editor. There are no commands to learn. A good brief names the sequence to work from, the goal, the length and anything that has to stay.

Claude then follows a fixed routine. It checks which project and sequence are open, reads the footage and the transcript, builds the cut in a new sequence, looks at frames to check its own work and saves the project between larger steps. Your original sequence stays as it was.

Three habits make a noticeable difference:

• Ask for a plan first. “Read the interview and suggest three possible cuts before you build anything” lets you steer before the timeline changes.

• Review with markers. Let Claude mark the strongest statements in your raw footage, with the full quote in each marker. Listen to them in Premiere, then say which ones go in.

• Give feedback like in a review round. “Swap the second statement for the one about the budget” or “Music 3 dB quieter under the interview” is enough. Claude changes that part and leaves the rest alone.

What MotionUI can do in Premiere

The panel gives Claude 31 tools. Grouped by what they’re for:

• Read the project. Bins and footage with frame rate and size, every clip on every track, markers, and frames from the timeline or straight from source clips. That’s how Claude picks B-roll: it looks at it.

• Work with transcripts. Word-level transcripts mapped onto the sequence, so cuts land in the pauses between words instead of in the middle of one.

• Cut. A complete edit list in one step, on exact frames and without gaps, with a short audio fade on every cut so nothing clicks. Single clips can be placed, swapped or removed.

• Set markers. Selects with a name and a comment, and beat markers from the music: kick, snare, hit and change, each in its own color.

• Mix sound. Levels per track or clip, volume envelopes, and real audio fades as transitions on the clip edge, so they move along when you trim.

• Grade. Waveform, RGB parade and vectorscope with the skin tone line, a contact sheet of all shots, shot matching to a reference, film looks, grain, glow and power windows. MotionUI grades on its own layers, and your own Lumetri stays untouched.

• Deliver. Captions as an SRT file built from the transcript, reframing and punch-ins for vertical versions, After Effects comps through Dynamic Link, and exports rendered in Premiere itself.

Every edit happens in your project, with your footage. MotionUI doesn’t generate shots, and you can change anything Claude did by hand afterwards.

Use cases

These are the jobs where Claude saves the most time. Each comes with a prompt you can use as it is.

Turn an interview into a short cut

The classic for testimonials and case studies: a long interview, and you need 60 seconds. Claude reads the transcript, picks the statements, cuts them sentence by sentence and checks the result with frames.

“Use the sequence Interview full. Cut a 60-second version from the three strongest statements about the problem, the solution and the result. Build it in a new sequence and leave a little air between sentences.”

Find selects in hours of raw footage

Before you cut, you want to know what you have. Claude transcribes the raw material and marks every statement worth a look, with the full quote in the marker comment. You review in Premiere and decide.

“Go through the sequence RAW and mark every statement about the benefits of the product. Leave out anything that’s already in the cut v3.”

Cut to the music

Claude analyzes the music track and puts markers on the beats, named and colored by what happens there. With snapping on, your cuts land right on them, which makes a trailer or a social clip much faster to cut.

“Mark the beats of the music on A2. Only the accents, not every beat.”

Match two cameras

Camera A is warm, camera B a little cool and too dark. Claude reads both on the scopes, measures the difference and balances B to A on its own correction layer. Your Lumetri stays as it is.

“Match all shots on V1 to the first shot of the A camera, then put a subtle film look over the whole sequence.”

Make versions for social

From the finished horizontal edit to a vertical version with captions. Claude builds a 9:16 sequence, reframes every shot on the speaker and writes the captions from the transcript. You drag the caption file onto the sequence once, and Premiere creates the caption track.

“Make a 9:16 version of Case study v4, keep the speaker centered in every shot and create captions with at most 32 characters per line.”

Do the sound pass

Music under the interview, fades on the clip edges, even levels across speakers. Each job is small, and they come back on every single edit.

“Set the interview on A1 to -6 dB and the music on A2 to -18 dB, and fade the music in and out over two seconds.”

What it doesn’t do

• It doesn’t generate footage or extend shots. Claude works with what’s in your project.

• Claude doesn’t watch the film in real time. It reads transcripts, timelines and frames, which is why a clear brief matters.

• Premiere has to be open, with the MotionUI panel open.

• Captions arrive as an SRT file in the project. Premiere doesn’t let a script put them on a track, so that one drag is yours.

Codex works the same way

If you use Codex instead of Claude Code, connect it in the same Premiere tab. The tools and the house rule are identical, and so are the prompts in this guide.

Get started

MotionUI for Premiere is part of MotionUI Pro and runs on Mac and Windows. The getting started guide walks you through the install. If you also work in After Effects, the same app connects Claude there too: How to connect Claude Code to After Effects.