Selectively Hide Captions in Descript Using Scenes

If you are looking to manage caption (or other object or layer) visibility in your Descript video for specific portions, this tutorial is for you. Whether you're creating educational content, presentations, or social media videos, there are times when you need to temporarily hide captions to prevent text overlap or create cleaner visuals.

Let me show you exactly how to do it.

Prerequisites: Before diving into this tutorial, you should be familiar with Descript's basic interface, know how to import videos, and understand basic transcript editing.

Key Terms to Know First

Before we begin, let's clarify some important terms you'll encounter:

Descript's main interface with labeled callouts

Timeline: The horizontal strip at the bottom of your screen that shows your entire video's duration and lets you navigate through it
Playhead: The vertical line that shows where you are currently positioned in your video
Canvas: The main visual workspace where you see your video and can arrange or edit elements
Transcript: The text version of your video's audio that appears in Descript's interface
Scene: A segment of your video where you can control how elements appear independently from other segments

Understanding Scenes in Descript

Scenes are powerful tools in Descript that go beyond basic caption management:

Layout Control: Scenes let you manage the layout, placement, and visibility of any element across your timeline. An element can be positioned differently in each scene or hidden entirely.
Multi-Camera Management: You can create dynamic viewing experiences by switching between: Picture-in-picture layouts (where one video appears in a smaller window over another video), Side-by-side views (showing two or more videos next to each other), Full screen displays (showing just one video that fills the frame)

In order to show or hide various layers (such as captions) in one scene only, we need to separate the content into scenes first, and create a separate scene for the content with captions, then one scene without captions, and then another scene going back to the captions layout.

To create scenes, we use something called 'scene boundaries'. They are the separators between scenes.

Three Ways to Create Scene Boundaries

Method 1: Text Selection (Fastest for Visible Text)

Select text and press / to create a scene surrounding the selection

Select the portion of text in the transcript where you want to create a scene
Press the forward slash key (/) while your selection is active
This automatically creates scene boundaries at both ends of your selection

Note: While this is the quickest method, it might be challenging if your desired scene text spans multiple screens.

Method 2: Manual Boundary Placement

Navigate to where you want captions to disappear
Press (/) to insert the first scene boundary
Go to where you want captions to reappear
Press (/) again for the second boundary

Method 3: Timeline Precision

Add scene boundary directly on the timeline

Click "Show timeline" to reveal the timeline at the bottom
Position the playhead exactly where you want the scene to start
Press (/) to insert a boundary at that precise point
Repeat for the end boundary

Removing Captions from Your Scene

After creating your scene, select that scene either by:

Selecting it from the left sidebar's scene thumbnails
Clicking directly inside the scene in the transcript

Then remove the captions:

Select the captions within the canvas area
Delete them from this specific scene

Select the scene, select the captions, delete

After following these steps:

Captions will disappear only in your designated scene
They'll automatically reappear when the playhead exits this scene
Other scenes retain their original captions
The flow remains seamless during playback

Descript's scenes are a powerful way to control layout across your entire episode or video. When they were introduced, they opened up a world of possibilities for changing multi-camera angles, making layers appear, disappear, or change positioning.

I have several videos on my YouTube channel, all dealing with Descript's scenes, converting Zoom calls into multi-cam edits, and more.