Guide2 min read
AI voiceover and captions for reels: a practical guide
Short answer
Most people watch reels with the sound off, so a good reel needs both: an AI voiceover for people listening and captions for everyone else. Brandreel writes and voices a line per scene, stretches each scene to fit its line, can put a talking presenter on screen, burns in word-by-word captions on request, and exports an SRT captions file with every render.
Voice gives a reel personality; captions make sure the message lands even on mute. You don’t have to choose — and you don’t have to record anything.
AI voiceover narration
When narration is on, the draft includes one short voiceover line per scene, written to match the on-screen headline rather than repeat it. Each line is voiced separately and each scene stretches to fit its line, so the cut never rushes a sentence. Voicing a whole reel costs about $0.03, so rewriting lines is cheap.
- Write for the ear: short sentences, one idea each.
- Say numbers the way people say them: “about three minutes”, not “2.8 min”.
- Spell brand names phonetically if the voice stumbles — “wanderply dot com”.
A talking presenter
For testimonials, founder intros and explainers, add a talking presenter: a person on screen who speaks the script with matching lip movement. Choose a stock actor or upload a photo, write what they should say, and pick a voice. Presenters work best as the hook and the close — exactly how Wanderply used one.
Word-by-word captions
Switch on Word captions in the editor’s Audio panel to burn TikTok-style captions into the video, highlighting each word as it’s spoken. Brandreel times them from the actual audio when transcription is available, and estimates timings otherwise.
The SRT captions file
Every render also produces an .srt file from the scene text, timed to the final cut. Download it next to the MP4 and upload it wherever a platform accepts caption files, such as YouTube.
Loudness
Voice and music are mixed and normalised to −14 LUFS at render, the level the major platforms aim for, so your reel plays at the same volume as everything around it.
Start a narrated reel with how to make a brand reel from one sentence.
Questions
- Should reels have captions?
- Yes. Many viewers scroll with the sound off, and captions make the reel accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. Burned-in captions show everywhere; an SRT file lets platforms that support it show their own.
- Which voices does Brandreel use?
- Ten natural AI voices — Alloy, Ash, Ballad, Coral, Echo, Fable, Nova, Onyx, Sage and Shimmer — each with a described tone, such as “female, bright” or “male, storyteller”. Talking presenters speak with the same voices.
Try it on your product
One sentence in, a finished reel out — with AI hero clips, voiceover, captions and publishing built in.