Editing a video involves a lot more than just making a few cuts, adding some clips and fixing some mistakes. In fact, editing a video is very involved, and is essentially the most important part of video production.
Why? It’s how the right emotions and drama are evoked when creating a film.
Video editing is about improving the flow of a film, and creating illusions that boost the entertainment factor. It’s about effectively communicating your message to your audience.
Before you begin the editing process, you’ll need to choose your editing software, and take the time necessary to understand it.
As important and seemingly complex as video editing seems, you can simplify this process with the following 10 steps:
- When shooting, keep the editing in mind. Take a variety of shots, including wide shots, close shots, zooms and pans. Make sure to film enough footage to work with during the editing process to make it easier to cut out what you don’t need later.
- Stay organized. This is particularly important if you are creating a long movie. To do this, start by naming your video clips in your editing software according to the names being used in your storyboard. Failure to name your clips will cause you to be highly confused when you’re trying to sift through the large pile of clips with generic names. Naming them will make looking for the one you want much easier and quicker.
- Create a rough edit. This is done after you’ve loaded your footage into your video editing software. Build a frame for your edit by putting the main footage in chronological order in the timeline.
- Cut out what’s not needed. Trim out the beginnings and endings of all clips being used, and cut out what’s not useable.
- Start telling your story. Decide what sorts of effects you can use to do this, such as where to add close ups, what shots to add a dramatic effect, and trying out different things that evoke the emotions you want your audience to feel.
- Don’t cut out too much. Essentially you want your shots to last longer than one second, with static shots lasting anywhere between two to 10 seconds. Should there be a lot going on in a particular shot, it can be longer. Switch up between short and long shots. Clips that are too long will leave your audience losing sight of the details.
- Add some effects. This will help draw your audience closer to your film, making it more meaningful and effective. Play around with transitions and get a feel for the various effects in your movie. A soft transition here and there, as well as some color enhancement, will do for most films. Basically, do what you feel is best for the movie you are developing.
- Create an intro and some titles for the end. This will provide a proper beginning and end to your movie. Play around with different effects – such as going to black at the end of the movie with the title following to create a dramatic effect.
- Add music and sound effects. You can essentially create a very different message just by incorporating specific songs and sounds to your film. Test out various music tracks for your video and see what sort of difference each one makes. This can essentially give the movie that “wow” factor that your audience is looking for.
- Get the minimum requirements for RAM memory. This is crucial, regardless of what type of editing software you’re using. If you plan on editing videos on a regular basis, invest in some extra RAM memory to make the editing processes run more smoothly. This will avoid any lagging in your software and videos.
If you’re looking for a superior video editing software, consider downloading Adobe Premiere Pro.