Winter closure notice video: a reusable caption-cue template

For a closure notice that you will post many times this winter, make one calm background clip once, then burn a new set of caption cues for each closure instead of regenerating video. Sume's caption endpoint accepts authored cues with text, start and end, so a notice like "Closed today, reopen Thursday 6 am" is a small text-only job on a clip you already own.

Why reuse the clip?

A closure is urgent and the facts change: the day, the reopen time, the class that moves online. Regenerating video each time spends time and money on pixels nobody reads. The captions page says cues are authored overlay text without speech-to-text, so the same silent clip works every time. That also avoids the caption_no_speech failure, which the docs return for silent clips when you ask for speech captions.

How do you build the base clip?

Generate one 5 to 10 second loop, for example a quiet front door with snow outside, through POST /v1/videos. Pick a model whose documented duration covers your length; gemini-omni-flash-1.1 lists 3 to 10 seconds. If your first take runs long, the video trim page describes cutting a [start, end) range from a Sume-hosted clip into a new MP4 without changing the source.

What should the cues say?

Three lines are enough, and each should stand alone because people screenshot. Put the status first, the date second, the next step third.

• Line 1: CLOSED today, plus the date
• Line 2: the reopen day and hour
• Line 3: where updates will appear, such as your site or phone line

How do you keep it accurate?

Treat the cues as the single source of truth and keep them in a text file next to the clip. When plans change, edit the text and re-run the caption job. Check the style choice too: the docs say Latin text defaults to slam, and you can select black-outline if you want a calmer look for a serious notice.