u/magnillyray

If you don’t know already, Project Mina is an upcoming video editor that was inspired off my current distain for how greedy video editing softwares has gotten. Some may be free but charge for very simple and essential tools. As well as how simple and powerful phone editors like Videoleap can be. Which reminded me of how cluttered and confusing desktop editors can be to the point of scaring off beginners. Why can’t desktop editors be straightforward too? Why do phones get one click rotoscope, easy chroma keys, and perfect easy to use effects, but desktop can’t? My goal with Mina is to have something powerful as desktop, but easy to use like phone editors, declutter and have beautiful UI. Oh and it will be 100% free forever, no in app purchases or sign ups. 100% offline.

Welcome to Project Mina!

Hello, My name is Ray (creator of Star Wars: Bloodline) and I have been working on a completely free and I mean free, no monthly subscriptions, no in app purchases, I'm not selling your data, it's going to be free.

I love how simple and approachable editing on a phone feels. You can pick it up in minutes and start creating. But those apps often come with compromises. AI features are pushed everywhere, customization is limited, subscriptions are common, and there are walls that stop you from making something truly your own. Something as simple as adding your own fonts shouldn't be a premium or completely absent feature.

On the other hand, professional editors like DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere are incredibly powerful, but they can also be overwhelming. I don't think they're bad products. In fact, I think DaVinci is probably the best example of what I want in the professional space today. I also don't think creating professional looking videos should require hours of tutorials, complicated node graphs, expensive plugins, or saving custom Fusion templates just to reuse an effect.

It doesn't have to be that difficult.

Phone editors proved that editing can be intuitive. I believe desktop editing can be just as approachable without sacrificing power.

My goal is to build an editor where the tools you actually need are included from day one. Blur effects, lens flares, film scratches, transitions, motion graphics, color tools, audio effects, and everything else you need should already be there, ready to use and fully customizable. No hunting for plugins. No paying monthly just to unlock basic features. Buy it once, own it forever, and receive free updates for life.

The other core pillar is modularity.

Most editors force everyone into the same workspace, even though everyone thinks differently. I want your editor to adapt to you instead.

Don't use color correction very often? Collapse it into a toolbox and get it out of the way. Want your effects panel on the left instead of the right? Move it. Prefer audio controls at the top? Put them there. Organize your workspace however your brain works, not how someone else decided it should.

The goal isn't to make the easiest video editor.

The goal is to make the most intuitive one.

An editor that's powerful enough for professionals, approachable enough for beginners, customizable enough for everyone, and doesn't nickel and dime you every month just to create.

I’m not claiming my thumbnail to be super great, and I’m only going off very limited information. But I whipped this up very quickly, in the future just try to blur your backgrounds, add shadows (simple trick is to just duplicate the image and make it black and slightly off center it behind in the background), add depth with putting focus/defocus in specific areas of your thumbnail so it catches viewers eyes. You want the foreground of your thumbnail to pop! And don’t repeat exactly what the title of your video is in your thumbnail, do something else catchy or nothing at all!

I made it from an altoids container, an old broken blue yeti mic that I took apart, Polaroid batteries that I thought looked cool, some old chargers I didn’t use anymore, an adapter that both ends of the charger could feed into, a digital timer that I took apart, bottle caps, of course a shit ton of colorful rubber bands, gorilla glue, an extendable magnet for an antena, my goal with this was it for it to almost look like a kid made it. I wanted to feel as scrappy as possible.

Found it in my dads (passed away last year) jeep/glove compartment, when I was cleaning it up to try and sell it because it doesn’t run unfortunately.

I think it’s a homemade walkie talkie because I’m 99% sure the thing on top is a mic, but I’m confused because the antenna seems to be a magnet not a “antenna”. The batteries seem to be dead and I can’t change them for obvious reasons. I looked up the jones bottle cap and it seems to be recently from a 2025 release so it can’t be that old. The digital timer seems newer as well. It had an aluminum chassis on the front as well as an altoids can being the bulk of the support and holding the insides. I tried plugging and unplugging the white wires and trying different chargers that I owned and nothing worked :/ I can almost hear a faint ringing that’s so quiet like when a charger block is in the wall. Should I take it apart?

I’m watching more tonight you can’t stop me