How to Draw on Video Frames to Show Your Editor Exactly What You Mean

When to draw instead of write

Written notes work well for timeline decisions — cuts, trims, transitions, b-roll timing. They work less well for anything spatial. As soon as you're describing a location on the frame — "the element in the bottom right," "the text near the top," "the thing overlapping the speaker's face" — you're forcing your editor to hunt for what you mean. A circle on the frame removes all ambiguity instantly.

Use the drawing tool whenever you're dealing with: elements to move or resize (lower-thirds, graphics, titles); faces or objects to blur, mask, or remove; specific frame areas to color grade, darken, or vignette; b-roll coverage requests where the framing matters (you want the close-up on this object, not a wide of the scene); or any situation where two on-screen elements are colliding and you need to identify which one needs to move. The rule of thumb is simple: if you find yourself writing "the thing in the bottom right" or "the text near the top," draw it instead.

Opening the drawing canvas

On the video notes page, scrub to the frame you want to annotate and pause the player. Then click the "Draw" button, which sits next to the note-at-timestamp button above the notes panel. A canvas overlay appears directly on top of the paused video frame — the video underneath is frozen, and you're drawing on a snapshot of that exact moment in the timeline.

The canvas is full-size relative to the player, so your marks are proportional to the frame content. You're not drawing on a thumbnail — you're drawing on the actual video frame at playback size, which means the spatial relationship between your marks and the on-screen elements is accurate and unambiguous.

The drawing tools

Four pen colors are available: red (the default), yellow, green, and light gray. Red is the best choice for marking things to remove, fix, or replace — it reads as "problem here." Yellow works well for highlighting or calling attention without the urgency of red. Green is useful for "this is correct, keep this exactly as is" — helpful when you want to flag something for your editor's reference without implying it needs changing. Gray is good for subtle outlines when you don't want the annotation to dominate the frame.

The brush width slider runs from a fine line on the left to a thick highlight stroke on the right. Fine lines are good for precise circles and arrows; thick strokes are better for broad highlights over a region of the frame. An eraser tool lets you correct specific marks without starting over — activate it, brush over the marks you want to remove, then switch back to the pen to continue drawing.

Saving a drawing with a note

When you're done drawing, the Save flow captures both the drawing and the note text as a single annotation. You write the note text in the field below the canvas — or above it, depending on the layout — and the drawing is bundled with it. The note and the frame annotation are inseparable from that point on: wherever the note appears, the drawing comes with it.

In the notes panel, notes that have drawings attached show a small badge indicator on the note card. Your editor sees this badge in the shared read-only view and knows to look at the frame annotation before acting on the note. The badge makes it easy to scan the list and identify which notes require visual reference and which are text-only.

Editing or clearing a drawing

If you need to revise a drawing after saving, click the edit icon on the note card. The drawing canvas reopens with your existing marks visible exactly as you left them. You can use the eraser to remove specific marks, draw new marks on top, or switch colors to add a new layer of annotation to the same frame. Save again when you're done — the updated drawing replaces the previous version.

If the drawing is too far off to fix with spot erasure, click "Clear drawing" to remove all marks from the canvas and start fresh on the same frame. You can also remove the drawing entirely and keep just the text note — useful if you realize the written note is specific enough on its own and the drawing is adding visual noise rather than clarity.

What the editor sees

In the shared read-only view your editor opens via the share link, every note with a drawing displays the frame annotation inline in the note card. Your editor can expand the note to see the drawing at full resolution alongside the note text. No special app is required — the drawing renders directly in the browser, on the same page as the video and the notes list.

Because the drawing is attached to a timestamp, your editor can also click the note to seek the video to that exact frame and compare the annotation against the live video. For spatial adjustments — moving a graphic, cropping a frame, repositioning a title — this comparison is exactly what they need to execute the change accurately.