Recording and production are only the first steps of your project. Consistent and creative editing is a “must” element of post-production. I will provide professional editing of your videos and audio recordings, and we will work together to achieve the results that satisfy you.
Step by Step Approach To Editing
The editing process of a video or audio project will depend on several factors including the type of video or audio piece you’re creating, the audience you want to reach, your creativity, and more.
This guide is meant to give you a general way to approach the editing your video or audio, letting the specifics be determined by your needs.
1. Create a Project and Import Footage
When you first open your video editor and start your process, you’ll have to decide on a few things:
Your video/audio editors will create a folder with this project name in which all of the files will be held. If you’re only making one or two videos/audio pieces, just pick something descriptive so you can easily tell what it is. If you’re going to be making videos regularly, decide on a way to organize your projects so that you can keep everything straight as more and more projects are created.
2. Organize Your Media
If you only have a few clips and maybe one piece of music, simply dragging all of your media into the editor will suffice. But for more complex projects, it is essential to keep everything well organized.
For a simple project, import the media and edit as you go. Most video editors nowadays allow you to detach the music or the audio from the images, which is really a handy way to reach the desired results.
You can also create a folder for video files, one for audio and music files and one for graphics.
3. Watch and Mark Footage
Go through all of your footage and select the parts you are going to use. The easiest way to do this is to “mark” the proper clips by placing in and out points on the parts of the clip you want to use. In most programs there will be keyboard shortcuts for adding these marks.
Make sure you mark every clip that you think you want to use. It’s easy to remove clips you decide later you don’t want, but it can be much more annoying (and time consuming) to have to go through every clip again looking for a moment that you didn’t mark before.
4. Cut and Place Footage
Now comes the part you’ve been waiting for: assembling your video/audio! To do this, you’ll go to the clips you marked earlier with in and out points, and drag them into the timeline. Your timeline is exactly what it sounds like: a long line of all of your clips lined up from start to finish.
Keep in mind that you can always rearrange clips in the timeline, so if you drop one in too early or too late compared to where you want it in the final cut, it’s not a big deal. Just drag the clip to the place you want it.
DON’T FORGET TO SAVE YOUR PROJECT AS YOU GO!
5. “Clean Up” Your Timeline
There’s a lot of nuance and personal taste that goe into making your video flow well. Feel free to look to other videos or even listen to music to try to find inspiration for the overall pacing of your video/audio.
6. Add Effects
With the overall video at least mostly assembled, it’s time to put in any effects you need. These can be things like transitions, graphics/overlays and various “filters” to enhance the look of your video/audio. This also includes things like adding your color grading and cleaning up your audio.
Be sparing with your application of effects! Especially when it comes to transitions. You do not want the viewer to be dizzy! Show restraint, “less is more”.
7. Export And Share
Your final step is to export and share. For many people, that will be sharing directly to an online platform such as YouTube or Facebook. Many video editors have settings built in to optimize for those platforms or even directly post for you.
For other uses, such as embedding it on your personal website or sharing with clients on flash drives or discs, you’ll want to make sure you choose the best file formats and settings during the export process. The current most common setting is to export as a .mp4 file with H.264 compression (though the more space efficient H.265 will likely soon overtake H.264 as the standard for video). Finally, remember, most video/audio editors are good and easy to use. Generally, it is best to use the video/audio editor that is most user-friendly, at least to start!