8 Best Video Editing Tips For Beginners

You’ve just finished shooting the perfect movie, vlog, or music video and now it’s time to tackle the next phase of video production; post-production. One problem, you’re an absolute beginner. Well, the good news is you don’t need to know everything there is to know about video editing to produce a high-quality final product. Knowing the most important video editing tips and tricks will help you create a smooth workflow and a fantastic result. Here are 8 of the best video editing tips and tricks for beginner video editors!

1. Choosing the right software

This is the first and often one of the most important steps when starting your video editing journey. There is a plethora of video editing software to choose from so it is not always easy to decide which one suits your editing style and what works best for you.

The Top 3 video editing software on the market right now I would say are Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, and DaVinci Resolve. Even if you are using a Mac, my recommendation for the best video editing software for a beginner is still either Premiere Pro or DaVinci. 

Premiere Pro is pricey but offers some of the most powerful tools available for editors right now. Plus, there is an extensive and long-lasting community surrounding Premiere Pro with endless amounts of resources and tutorials online for any tool or technique to use in the software. With DaVinci, there is a studio-paid version but a comprehensive free version as well. The software can do almost everything Premiere Pro can do and has the best tools for colorists out there right now at the consumer level. So if you want to get started editing for free, DaVinci Resolve is the best choice. 

2. Don’t bloat your edits

If you shoot 5 minutes of footage, your final draft after editing should not be 5 minutes. We live in a busy world and taking on the task of trying to keep an audience’s attention span is a challenging one. The most common mistake amateur filmmakers make in the editing room is that their clips are cut out too long. 

You should only be putting the best of the best of your clips. Aim to look for clips with the best lighting, the cleanest movements, and the best composition to put in your final edit. Be brutal with your own work – a 30-second edit with the best clips will always be more engaging than a 5-minute edit with all of the clips; including the mediocre ones.

3. Cut on action

When cutting between takes, different angles, or even different scenes altogether, try to cut midway through an action rather than when things are not moving. What this does is create a smoother cut as our minds fill in the gaps with any movement on-screen. 

If you cut from a close-up shot of someone to a wider shot of the same person as they move their arms out for a hug, for example, our brain will fill in the gaps we miss from that motion even though we are cutting in between the motion of the arms moving to their new position. This is an important technique to learn quickly as it creates fluid and interesting sequences and it makes your films look more professional. 

4. Use cutaways to great effect

As filmmakers, we try to create stories that are dynamic and interesting to consume. And as an editor, we can accomplish this with a number of techniques. Cutaways are a great way to change the look of a shot that is lingering for too long. It makes your videos feel less static and increases the pace. 

The most common example of a cutaway is when there are spoken dialogue scenes with two or more people. If one person is talking, cutting away to catch the other person's non-verbal response can add an extra layer of depth to the scene. Another common example of this is using B-Roll to add visuals to what is being said like when someone is vlogging to a camera. 

5. Colour Correcting and Colour Grading

Colour correcting is an important process to go through with every sequence you make. The essential goal here with correcting the colours of each clip on the timeline is to gain a basic consistency with each clip. Footage from two different cameras will use two different sensors that capture colour and light differently, so in this scenario, it is especially important that they match each other both when shooting and when in post. Make sure to take the time to balance and match each clip on the timeline. 

The second step to colour correction is colour grading. Colour grading is an artistic process where you shape the current colours of the scene to match a certain “look” or “feel” that matches the tone of the story being told. Colour grading in itself is an in-depth process that serves its own blog post but most editing software come with pre-configured or user shared LUTs (Look Up Tables) that will apply either a good foundation to get you started or even grade the footage entirely with just the click of a button. At the end of the day, grading is a tool editors use for storytelling so use the right grade in the right scenario. 

6. Balance your Audio

You might be thinking, “what does sound have to do with video editing?” and the answer to that would be a lot! Audio is half of the viewing experience actually but in most cases, it is the most neglected part from beginner filmmakers. So before we can balance our audio in post, it is important that we capture good audio in the first place. That means using an external mic when recording important audio and taking the time to sound design.

When balancing our audio, a good rule of thumb is to balance speech first. Spoken audio is typically the most important part of a video's sound and thus takes top priority. If your music is too loud and it makes the dialogue hard to hear, you are doing more harm than good. Adjust the audio of the spoken dialogue so that the levels match closely to one another. Once that is set and locked in, adjust the other audio elements that surround your speech like music or sound effects. Make sure they don't overpower your spoken audio. 

7. Use these important cutting techniques

Two of the most important cuts every editor should know are the J Cut and the L Cut. The J Cut is when the audio from the next clip on the timeline comes in before the video of the previous clip on the timeline ends. J Cuts are fantastic when transitioning from one location to another. If we want to transition from the quiet indoors to a busy sidewalk, using a J Cut to bring in the bustling audio of the sidewalk before you show the sidewalk is a smooth and seamless way to transition. The J Cut gets its name as the cut itself when putting the video and audio elements on top of each other on the timeline is shaped like a “J”.

The L Cut is the opposite of a J Cut. It’s when the video of the next clip on the timeline comes in before the audio of the previous clip on the timeline ends. Like the J Cut, it is a smooth and seamless way to transition between shots. 

Here is a bonus technique – the Match Cut. A Match Cut is a cut between two visually similar shots or scenes. For example, if you end a shot with a close-up of someone’s eyes and start the next shot with a similar frames close-up of another character's eyes (or the same character's eyes at a different time period) that’s a Match Cut. Like the two previous cuts, it adds a smooth element to your sequences while at the same time, it makes things a bit more stylized. 

8. Always put story first

This notion applies to all videos we edit. Remember what your creative goal is for every project. What is the story you are trying to tell? When deciding on a shot to use or where to cut, always ask yourself this question and consider the impact the clip or cut adds to your product. Don’t just add a bunch of visual effects just to impress the viewer. Be purposefully in everything you do in the editing process. This way, your final product will always represent your vision and will always produce a stunning video. 

Conclusion

Keep these 8 video editing tips and tricks in mind when you edit your next project. It will make video editing seem like less of a daunting task. Always remember to put your story first and to use the techniques found here to create smooth and fluid sequences. Remember that audio is half of the viewing experience as well and to be brutal with your edits and show the best of the best takes. Do all this and you’ll be editing like a pro in no time!

Written by Zeeshan Khamis 

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How to Be More Creative

“Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work.” - Albert Einstein.

Often what comes to mind when we think of creativity is making beautiful art, writing a compelling and moving story, coming out with a hit single, etc. However, natural talent is not the major component of creativity, it’s hard work and determination. 

There are many ways to help spark creativity, you just have to show time commitment, effort, and a willingness to learn. 

1. Ask Questions

What is the best way to come up with the perfect question? Write multiple variations of the same question (around 10 variations is a good start). Often, you’ll find that you come up with a better question than the original question you started with. 

2. Become an expert 

If you’ve ever tried to learn something new, you’ve likely heard at least one of the two phrases “practice, practice practice!” or “practice makes perfect.” Research suggests that to be an expert at anything, 10,000 hours of practice is required. However, the well-known musician Yo-Yo Ma seems to believe this isn’t enough practice time. He practices 3 to 6 hours a day and estimates that after practicing 10,000 hours every five years, he has spent at least 50,000 hours playing only his signature work, the Bach Cello Suites. Whether you choose to practice 10,000 hours - more or less - the most important thing is that you’re practicing. 

3. Be open-minded

People who are known to be creative, always look for solutions to problems. Creative people act in unexpected situations because they are curious and want to learn more. By being curious and open-minded, you may find that new opportunities come along. Having a positive attitude and being willing to participate in various projects may lead you to new projects or style choices that you may not have considered but discover you enjoy.  

4. Build a creative network

Creativity and inspiration can come from many different places. It is important to have a network of people that you can work with so you can better explore your ideas. This exchange of information and ideas will encourage you to take risks and try new things. Everyone has a different perspective; take advantage of this. If you want to work with an award-winning audio/video production company that can take your creative vision further faster, feel free to reach out here, and we would be happy to help!

5. When it comes to creativity, do not conform

Growing up, we are primarily taught to conform to the general rules.  While this is important in general, it is very important to make sure this doesn't stop you from branching out and exploring your individuality. Have balance. No two people are the same; your creativity should also be your own. Anthony Burill, author of “Make It Now!” says “as soon as you start doing as you are told and following the rules you stop being truly creative.” 

6. Generate lots of ideas and choose the best ones

Know what you’re looking for. Trust in your intuition and go with ideas that are simple. One thing you can try is to make your ideas compete against one another. Choose two ideas and identify how they are different. If you have several ideas (around 50+), a good idea is to write them on sticky notes and move the ones that are similar, close together. 

You may be struggling with deciphering if an idea is good or not. A good way to know if it is good or not is to take your idea and write pros and cons. Assign each one a number between one and ten to define the amount of importance. The pros should outweigh the cons. If this is the case, chances are your idea is good and strong. 

Set a time to do some free writing. Find a time when your brain is the sharpest, relaxed, and free from distractions. The author of the popular self-help book “The Artist’s Way”, Julie Cameron, recommends that we take half an hour each day to free write in a journal. As this process continues, new ideas will evolve.  

Need an idea for something to write about? Journals with writing prompts may be something you should invest in. You can get these at your local bookstore and they are generally located near the stationary section. Don’t have the money? No worries. Create a list of prompts to help start your writing process.  Here are some writing prompts I sometimes use. 

• Today, I’m grateful for…

• Your favorite vacation

• A favorite gift you have received

• The best thing you have gifted

• What’s the last thing that made you smile?

• What is/was your biggest accomplishment in life?

• What is your biggest fear?

• It’s your last day to live. Without a budget, what would you do? What would you eat?

7. Be resourceful! Come up with many different ideas and combine them 

Try combining things that don’t normally go together. British neuroscientist, Paul Howard-Jones, asked people to create stories. Some people were given three words that relate well to each other, while some were given three non-related words. Results found that the people who were given non-related words created stories that were more creative.  For example, the three words could be mystery, delivery, stalker.

Another fun idea is to make remote associations. Turn to a random page of a book you own (for example, page 56) and find the fifth line. Then, find another book and do the same. Now, write a story that is based on the relation between the two sentences. How are these two sentences connected? By using your imagination and ideas in this way, you can often form new, unique ideas. 

One of our greatest resources is other people.  We typically hang out with people who are similar to us as it brings us comfort.  However, it is important to engage with people who are different from you to help you learn to expand your outlook on life. These different perceptions, outlooks, and experiences can help you become a better-rounded person and help your creativity. 

8. Don’t Be Afraid to Take Breaks

While hard work is a very important factor in being creative, it is also important to take breaks to give your brain some time to rejuvenate. Oftentimes, the best ideas will come at the most random times when you aren’t trying to put your brain to work. This might happen when you’re in the shower, in the car, trying to fall asleep, etc. Have you ever had a dream but forgot what it was about shortly after waking up? What about having your answers to a problem solved for you while you are sleeping? sleep? Breaks allow you to come up with ideas without getting brain block and not being able to keep your thoughts organized. A journal may be useful so that you don’t forget important ideas or thoughts.

HubSpot's CEO and co-founder, Brian Halligan, advocates for naps at the workplace. He finds his best ideas come to him when he is just about to fall asleep or when waking up. In a New York Times interview, he says he wants to make the workplace an environment where employees can “work less and think more”. Now I bet you’re thinking, “I’d love a boss like him!” Make sure that you allow yourself some time to recoup from all the work you’ve done during the day so you aren’t overloaded. 

Conclusion

Everyone goes about being creative differently. Everyone finds inspiration differently.  By familiarizing yourself with the different ways to be creative, I’m sure you’ll find your creativity expands in no time. Where these tips helpful for you? Which techniques are you using? We’d love to hear your opinion in the comments below. Thanks for reading and don’t be afraid to let your creativity shine! 

Written by Amy Anstett

If you’re wanting to learn more about creativity, music production, and business, we are developing a course called Producer Launch that will take you from beginner, all the way to knowing how to become a successful producer for a living!

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Sound Design: 6 Essential Tips for Cinematic Sounding Films

Sound design is an essential part of the filmmaking process. It can be a time consuming process and most of the professional films you see today have outsourced studios dedicated to just this element of filmmaking do the work. Not everyone’s budgets can account for this so here are the 6 essential things you need to know for cinematic sound design. 

Using Sound Effects

Sound effects are a critical component to creating cinematic sounding films. What sound effects do for our films is add realism to our visual content and set the mood for each moment within our story. There are a plethora of techniques for using sound effects but a couple of the most important are layering and using ambience.

Layering sound effects together is an easy way to make your films sound unique and original.  You can use layering to add more depth to your sound like adding transient sounds to match a visual such as footsteps. 

Using ambience sounds can make a sequence of shots feel more coherent with each other. If you are filming deep and close in a city filled with traffic, capturing what your characters hear immerses your audience within the scene. Using the sounds of gridlock traffic up close is a good starting point into doing that. 

Adding Background Music

Use background music to elevate the story you are trying to tell. Background music is used to evoke emotion especially in the absence of dialogue. It sets the mood of a scene and can be used to represent a character’s feelings and emotions. Background music is also a great tool to alert the audience of things unseen or unknown by your characters in the story. 

A good rule of thumb when sound designing is to score first. Setting up a foundation with the overall framework or rhythm of your sequences with music or other sound effects used for scoring purposes can allow for all the other elements of sound design to fall into place naturally. It ensures that every beat and impact hits where intended! 

If you have a scene with no background music, you can still score the scene with clever sound effects. Using repetition of sound effects can give the illusion of a score and keep a consistent theme within your piece. 

DIY and Foley

When you don’t have or can’t find the right sound to portray the certain emotion you want to portray, record Foley yourself during post-production or create sounds using custom plug-ins offered in your video editor or a DAW. Foley itself is a great way to add realism to the sound of your film.

You don’t have to be an expert to add custom foley into your projects. Try recording everyday sounds or sounds that peak your interest and enhance your work with truly one of a kind sound effects. 

Another way to DIY your sound design is to use effects and plug-ins to modify existing sounds. Pitch shifting a sound for example can be an effective way to change the mood of a sound. Generally, pitching sounds up will make them sound more serene, while pitching sounds down can make them sound more intense and terrifying. 

Dialogue

Dialogue is the main motivating factor that keeps audiences captivated in your films so it should be your top priority when sound designing. 

Keep your dialogue as clear as possible. Be mindful of background noise when recording dialogue and choose to record lines of dialogue in isolation from each other. It’s best to use post-production to your advantage in this case to stitch together pieces of dialogue with fades. This way, you have full control over every line spoken and can make the dialogue flow seamlessly.  

Another tip when working with spoken dialogue is to use an equalization plug-in to enhance the vocal frequencies. Many plug-ins tend to have presets built specifically for this!

Effects and Plug-ins

Modifying sounds with effects and plug-ins are an important part of sound design ‒ even if the intended outcome is subtle. Using techniques such as increasing the intensity of a sound, panning a sound from ear to ear, or adding reverb to a sound can enhance the sound of a film tremendously. All of these can be done by using effects and plug-ins!

A riser is a specific type of sound effect that builds intensity with sound. You can create a riser with a consistent tone just by starting with the volume low and then raising the volume exponentially. Doing this when leading up to a climactic moment in your film can be an easy way to fully immerse your audience and raise their heart rate.

Panning sounds such as foley or dialogue can be a good way to add depth to your films. Let's say a car is to drive past the frame from right to left. Using foley sounds of the car driving past adds to the realism of the sequence but if you also pan the shot accordingly to move the sound in 2D space from ear-to-ear, you can effectively increase the realism of the sound even more with minimal effort. 

Adding reverb to sound effects can alter the scale of the sound at a dramatic scale. Reverb increase the scale and distance of a sound. Use it wisely to add weight to your sound.

Focus on Telling a Story

Sound design as a whole is a tool filmmakers use to tell their story. It’s one thing to add matching sound effects to a sequence to simply add realism to your work, but it’s another thing to add sounds that portray the mood of the film purposefully throughout a sequence. So at the grand scale, always have sound design in mind before starting production. 

Try to look for the right sound effects, music, and foley that match the mood you are trying to portray. The feeling of your scene is what matters the most when it comes to cinema! An example of this is using powerful hits of sound (also known as an impact sound) to punctuate an impactful moment within your story.  

Conclusion

And those are 6 of the most important tips to keep in mind when sound designing cinematic films. Use sound effects, background music and ambience to marry your visuals with sounds that fit the mood you are going for. When in a bind, look to creating sounds yourself and using effects to enhance existing sounds. And lastly, always keep your dialogue clear and always prioritize what story you are trying to tell when choosing the perfect sounds for your film.

Written by Zeeshan Khamis

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If you’re wanting to learn more about sound design, music production, and business, we are developing a course called Producer Launch that will take you from beginner, all the way to knowing how to become a successful producer for a living!

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