Video editing is one of the most exciting aspects of film production but it can also be intimidating. Video editing is an art that not everyone masters quickly. In the same way, you may struggle with making PowerPoint presentations, in the beginning, it takes time to learn video editing.
As a beginner who has never edited a video before, you have to know certain things about how it works before jumping in. You want to do a good job so you don’t lose hold of your audience, and a lot of that comes from a sound knowledge of how to edit videos well. While there are many resources available to us today, it’s important to start your journey by following some simple beginner tips.
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6 Video Editing Tips
The below 6 video editing tips for beginners will help take your video editing skills to the next level.
So let us quickly begin!
Tip 1 Always begin with a rough cut
Editing is about deciding what to cut. Sometimes that means deciding what to leave out. Thus, when working with video, always begin with a very rough cut. Good editing is about understanding your story. The scenes and shots you choose are a crucial way of telling that story. By editing well, you help tell the story you want to tell. The advantage of starting with a rough cut is that you can edit out all the rubbish, and see what’s left. Then, you can work in more order and speed up or slow down the scenes and make everything fit together a bit better.
Tip 2: Choose the right video editor
Video editing software has reached the point where you don’t need to be a highly trained professional to create great-looking videos. The online video editing tools available in the market are easy to use, and most of them also handle some basic audio editing (making music loops and voiceovers).
There are many video editors online to choose from. However, most of them are either too complicated for beginners or limited in features. If you want an easy-to-use online video editor, then you should definitely try InVideo.
InVideo is user-friendly and a great choice for beginners. This advanced online video editor has hundreds of effects and transitions to choose from. There are also video filters and themes. Hence, all these built-in features allow you to create professional-looking videos.
Tip 3: Always have a backup of your videos
If you’ve ever lost a video, you know the pain of realizing how precious it is. With digital video, it can be very easy to lose everything. A hard drive can crash. Or a virus can wipe out everything. Or something can be accidentally deleted.
Thus, it is crucial that whenever you’re editing a video, keep the video in more than one place. Then you don’t have to worry if your hard drive fails.
If you’re editing video on your computer, copy it to a second computer, or to a hard disc. Copy the same file or files to another hard drive on your editing computer, or backup your hard drive once in a while.
No matter what you do, carry a portable hard drive around. If you edit videos on your laptop then you can make a copy of videos you edited on your laptop to another hard drive or flash drive, so you don’t lose the original.
Tip 4: Don’t go overboard with effects
Video editors like effects. They like special effects. But too many effects can overwhelm a scene, distract the viewer, and make everything look fake. The better approach is to use a subtle effect at the right time.
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Use effects to create a single mood, not a multitude of moods.
- Start with a style. Do everything you can to keep your own personality out of the editing.
- Focus on what is important. Don’t get sidetracked by anything that doesn’t move the story forward.
- When editing, find a balance between smoothness and roughness.
- Find a balance between detail and clarity. Too much detail can be overwhelming, while too little detail makes the viewer wonder what is going on.
Tip 5: Organize your media
It doesn’t matter how talented you are, video is hard work. The trick to making effective videos is organization and preparation. Start by organizing your media which includes all the edited footage, graphics, b-rolls, etc in one place. Then, take the raw material you have leftover from your shoot: interviews, b-roll, and pictures. Organize them in the order you need to present them and record a script.
This would come in very handy when you want to use any of these while editings. Also, by doing so you’ll be able to plan your video shoots, record them, edit them, and publish them very easily.
Tip 6: Use B-roll shots in sets of three
In video editing, B-roll shots are “extra” shots that don’t play a big role in the story, but that help make the video look more professional. B-roll shots are worthless on their own. They don’t convey much information on their own. But they can add information.
Furthermore, a B-roll shot isn’t necessarily just a shot of the same thing over and over; it can be different each time. For example, you might have a shot of your office, a shot of your team member, and a shot of your office equipment.
The advantage of B-roll shots is that they add variety to a video. And variety makes viewers more likely to watch the whole thing. Further, B-roll shots also expand your story’s time range.
Wrapping up
When it comes to editing videos, there’s a lot to learn. With the help of these six helpful tips for those who are just starting out, you should be able to approach video editing with a little more confidence. If you have any questions about video editing or would like some additional advice, please leave us a comment below!
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