Get this effect
Switch to Code in your Claude Desktop App
Install the skill (once)
Show the prompt
Install the Recharm video effects skill: download https://recharm-growth-staging.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/website/downloads/recharm-video-effects.zip and unzip it into ~/.claude/skillsAsk for the effect
Add a square crop to input.mp4 Output width and height in pixels: 1080 Where the square sits along the long side: 0 is the left (or top) edge, 0.5 the middle, 1 the right (or bottom) edge: 0.5
Several videos, several effects, one ask
Put your clips in the folder, mention them with @, and ask for everything at once. Claude runs one tested script after another on each clip, then joins them.
Add a square crop to @clip1.mp4, put a sale badge on @clip2.mp4, give @clip3.mp4 a VHS look, then join all three with crossfades.
Settings you can change
Ask Claude to change any of these, or edit them at the top of the command.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
SIZE | 1080 | Output width and height in pixels. |
CENTER | 0.5 | Where the square sits along the long side: 0 is the left (or top) edge, 0.5 the middle, 1 the right (or bottom) edge. |
Without the skill
Don’t want to install the skill? Paste this prompt into Claude Code and Claude writes the command itself.
Show the prompt
Turn the 16:9 clip input.mp4 into a 1080x1080 square video by cropping, not padding: take a full-height square from the middle of the frame (540x540 for a 960x540 clip, so 210 pixels come off the left and 210 off the right), and scale it up to 1080x1080. No black bars and no blurred background. Keep the 6-second length, 30fps and the audio. Use ffmpeg and save it as output.mp4.Run it without Claude
This is the exact command we tested. Save it as square-crop.sh and run:
sh square-crop.sh input.mp4 output.mp4Show the command
#!/bin/sh
# Square crop: cut a 1:1 square out of a wide or tall clip around its center and scale it to 1080x1080.
# Usage: sh square-crop.sh input.mp4 output.mp4
set -e
IN="$1"; OUT="$2"
SIZE=1080 # output width and height in pixels
CENTER=0.5 # where the square sits along the long side (0 = left/top edge, 1 = right/bottom edge)
ffmpeg -y -i "$IN" -vf "\
crop=trunc(min(iw\,ih)/2)*2:trunc(min(iw\,ih)/2)*2:(iw-trunc(min(iw\,ih)/2)*2)*$CENTER:(ih-trunc(min(iw\,ih)/2)*2)*$CENTER,\
scale=$SIZE:$SIZE:flags=lanczos,setsar=1,fps=30,format=yuv420p" \
-c:v libx264 -crf 18 -c:a copy "$OUT"
