Video Editing

Introduction
From capturing family memories to taking entire businesses online, more people
than ever are looking to get started creating videos. And this is undeniably a great
time to do it. Most people have a capable camera already in their pocket. Of
course, capturing video is only one piece of the process. Learning how to edit
video is also important.

There is a wide range of video editing software available to make editing your
videos easy. Whether you’re looking for a simple drag and drop editor or a fully-
fledged, professional grade editing suite, you can get it, and often at a surprisingly
affordable price.

So, here’s everything to consider when taking up video editing.

Computer Type

All of your video editing is going to be done on a computer, so you do need to

consider whether or not your computer is capable of handling the editing you want
to do. As you might expect, the more complex features you want to add to your
video (e.g., computer generated special effects), the more powerful computer
hardware you will need.

One thing to note: there has long been debate over what operating system is best
for video editing. The current reality is that, with the exception of a relatively small
number of programs only available on one OS (like Apple Final Cut Pro X) or the
other, there’s no significant difference between choosing a Windows or a Mac for
video editing.

The best way to find out what computer specs you need is to look at what the
software you’re going to use recommends. Less powerful software requires less
powerful hardware. As a general rule of thumb, though, the following should give
you a decent starting point:

 Processor – A relatively recent Intel Core i5 or Core i7 should work well.

For budget builds, newer AMD Ryzen 5 gives good performance at a low
price.
 RAM – While some software recommends at least 4GB of RAM, you
probably want to make sure you have at least 8GB, though more is better. If
you’re doing particularly complex or very high-resolution video editing (4K+),
you’ll be happier with 16GB or more.
 Graphics Card – Whether or not you need a graphics card depends on your
software and what you’re trying to do. For some software, you don’t really
need a graphics card. If you’re going to be doing more rendering, or if you’re
using DaVinci Resolve (which is specifically made to utilize a GPU) you’ll
want at least an RX 570 or GTX 1650.
 Storage – Video, especially 4K video, requires a lot of storage. HDDs (hard
disc drives) will work, but SSDs (solid state drives) will be faster and more
pleasant to use. Get the most amount of storage space you can afford if you’re
going to be doing a lot of video.
 Other computer considerations – Aside from these, there are a few other
things to consider. Because of the file sizes for video, you’ll want to have fast
ways to get video on and off your computer. USB 3.1, USB-C, and
Thunderbolt will give you relatively fast ports for transferring to and from
digital storage devices. A fast internet connection will help if you upload
videos online. None of these are absolutely necessary, but expect to spend a lot
of time waiting for things to transfer if you have to work with a slower option.

Editing Software

There are a lot of video editing software options out there. Some of them will
genuinely be better (if you have certain goals) than others, but there are few, if any,
right or wrong answers to which video editing software you should use.
The reality is that the best software is the one you are most comfortable using.
Some software you’ll be able to pick up quickly but it may be limited in options.
Other software will take time to learn but will give you unlimited opportunities.
Figure out where in that spectrum you fit and take the time to learn the ins and outs
of whatever software you choose. That time spent will pay off once you’re
comfortable with an editor.

There are a few video editors that are popular options:

 Adobe Premiere Pro CC – Adobe Premiere Pro is the industry standard for
video editing. It’s a deep program, with a huge number of features and a
correspondingly steep learning curve. As part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud
Suite, just about anything you want to do is possible either directly in Premiere
Pro or through close integration with other Creative Cloud apps. Because of
Premiere’s huge popularity, there is an enormous amount of content available
(e.g., YouTube tutorials, blogs, etc.) to teach you how to use it.
 Adobe After Effects CC – After Effects isn’t really a program for editing
videos (though you could theoretically use it for your full edit, you probably
wouldn’t want to), but it’s on this list because of how naturally it pairs with
Premiere Pro. Because they’re both part of Adobe CC, you have access to both
if you have the full subscription. If you want to create your own graphics or
special effects, After Effects is invaluable.
 Apple iMovie – When it was first introduced, Apple iMovie revolutionized
the ability for home video creators to combine and edit video by offering an
intuitive and easy to use editor. It was one of if not the first to bring the ability
to edit movies to the everyday user. Apple has continued to develop iMovie,
and while it won’t give you the full feature set of Premiere Pro or Final Cut
Pro X you get a lot of capability in an incredibly easy to use software that also
happens to be free (but does require a Mac).
 Apple Final Cut Pro X – Final Cut Pro X is only available for Apple
products and offers an editing solution that tries to find a balance between
professional performance and accessibility, straddling the line between
professional and prosumer. The most recent version has made a controversial
choice of using a nontraditional timeline approach that has turned off some
experienced editors, but overall Final Cut Pro X offers powerful features for
Mac users.
 Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve – DaVinci Resolve started as a tool for color
correction but has grown to become a powerful fully featured video editor,
including timeline editing, color correction, effects, and even audio editing
tools. It’s become increasingly popular thanks to a free version that offers more
than enough features for all but the most demanding users.
 Corel VideoStudio Ultimate – Corel VideoStudio Ultimate is designed for
beginners, making it an easy way to get into video editing. It has an easy,
intuitive layout that helps beginners jump right into editing but still offers a
number of more advanced options as you further your skills.
 CyberLink PowerDirector – CyberLink PowerDirector is similar to
VideoStudio Ultimate in that it offers a gentle introduction to editing while still
providing a surprisingly deep suite of tools. It aims to bridge the gap between
beginner and pro by streamlining the basics, though this comes with a tradeoff
of more advanced options getting buried deeper in the program.
 HitFilm Express – HitFilm Express offers an impressive selection of
features with a particular focus on high end special effects capabilities wrapped
up in an intuitively designed package. The free version offers an impressive
toolset, but you also have the option to upgrade through premium add-ons or
various pro bundles with even more capabilities.
 Lightworks – Lightworks, like DaVinci Resolve, is another high end,
professional grade video suite that offers a generous free license. In
Lightworks’s case, you get a huge range of tools in the free version, but with
limitations in what it allows you to output, though there are a variety of
licenses depending on your need. Like the other pro-grade tools, there will be a
bit of a learning curve to get a strong level of comfort with the program.
 Shotcut – Shotcut is a free, open source video editor for people who want to
move up from the most basic editors but don’t want or need a fully featured
editor. It offers an interface that is friendly for new editors and a rich set of
features, though it won’t meet the needs of especially complicated projects.

Top favorites include After Effects, Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, Final
Cut Pro, and DaVinci Resolve, which offers a free and comprehensive Lite
version. You may also want to try Lightworks, Autodesk Smoke, and Sony Vegas,
if you’re looking to try other less-popular yet highly capable alternatives.
Story Telling Element
One of the most important takeaways from this article is to remember your creative
goal: to tell a great story. Go beyond the basics—cutting away extraneous footage
and correcting the order of your clips—and take the opportunity to make your film
aesthetically-pleasing and dramatically compelling so as to evoke the right
emotions and effectively impart your intended message. Use your practical and
technical knowledge in achieving this instead of just adding a bunch of effects to
impress your viewers.

You can simply follow the storyboard used during filming, but there may be times
when the director—or you, if you have the liberty to call the shots—will decide to
make on-the-spot changes to the predetermined flow, scene transitions, effects, and
other editing elements for the sake of improving the story.

File Organization
Even with a super-fast computer system and editing software, you’ll also need to
be systematic and organized in order to become a more efficient editor. One way to
improve your workflow is to organize your projects and files in folders that you
can use again and again. Create homes for your projects, footage, audio files,
images, and graphics, in which you can also create more subsections and folders.

Another way that you can work faster is to use external hard drives for storing
your footage, so you can free up more computer memory. We recommend that you
choose hard drives that can be connected via USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt to enable
faster file transfers. Also consider allocating your RAM to be able to use more of
it for editing and getting a gaming mouse that allows you to set specific editing
functions for its buttons.

Keyboard Shortcuts
Speaking of buttons, keep in mind that most editing programs allow you to use
keyboard shortcuts to perform a range of in-app editing functions. Feel free to
review, memorize, and customize the different set of shortcuts for software
programs.

Split Edit
Any TV program or movie that you see today contains B-roll. In the
vernacular, A-roll is raw footage where there is a person on-screen talking. B-roll
is everything else. If you were to film a high school play, the raw footage would be
almost pure A-roll. On the other hand, a nature documentary can be created with
nothing but B-roll, and then a narration is laid over the top of it. If you are creating
a movie that explains something, it is very common to use B-roll to provide close-
ups of the thing you are explaining. You see this technique all the time in any
video that HowStuffWorks creates.

The process of cutting a piece of B-roll into a piece of A-roll is often referred to as
a split-edit. For example, earlier in this article we talked about a scene where
someone is talking on camera about an emotional topic. In the middle, the director
cuts to a tight shot of the person's hands holding a Kleenex. During the scene, you
see the person talking, then the Kleenex, and then return to the person's face, and
the sound track is uninterrupted by the B-roll.

To add B-roll and create a split-edit in Premiere, you simply add the B-roll footage
to the time line using video track 2. Premiere's protocol is to use whatever video is
in the highest numbered track when playing the movie. For example, let's say you
set this up:

You have the shot of the polar bear lying around. For contrast, you want to cut to a
shot of two grizzly bears wrestling. You simply place the grizzlies on video track
2. When Premiere plays the movie, you will see the polar bears, then the grizzlies
and then back to the polar bears.

In some cases, you want to completely discard the sound track of the B-roll. Right-
click on the B-roll and select "Split Video and Audio." Then click on the audio
portion and delete it. Or you may want to eliminate the sound in the original
footage. We'll see how to do that easily in the next section.

Adjusting Video Sound

If the visual part of a movie is perfect but the sound is not, then the movie looks
amateurish. Fortunately, Premiere offers sophisticated tools for getting the sound
right. We've already discussed how to add new sound tracks to the timeline. Now
you need to understand how to adjust each sound track so that everything sounds
perfect.

On every sound track, there is an arrow icon. Clicking it will expand the view and
make an adjustment area for the sound track available, as you can see here:

In this adjustment area, you can add new control points simply by clicking
anywhere along the red line. Then you move the control points by dragging them
with the mouse. The control points control the level of the sound. For example, in
the following illustration, the level of the sound in video track 1 has been taken to
zero so that the sound on a split-edit is used instead:

What you will normally do is listen to the sound track and "even out" or "sweeten"
the sound by adjusting things so that the sound is uniform throughout your entire
piece.

It is important to mention that having a good microphone can really help sound

quality, especially when you are filming someone talking. A good lavaliere
microphone (the kind that you clip onto the front of the speaker's shirt) can make a
huge difference. Lavalieres come in both wired and wireless versions. You will
especially notice the advantages of lavalieres when you are filming indoors -- a
lavaliere will completely eliminate the echoes and "booming" sound that you will
frequently get from recording someone indoors with the camcorder's built-in
microphone.
 Music Selection and Narration
Don’t just focus on the visuals; it should only be as good as your music. If you’re
creating a drama film, for instance, you’ll want just the right song or instrumentals
to make key moments (where you want to trigger certain emotions from your
audience) more effective. Cheerful comedies can be a little forgiving, but it can
also be easy to overdo it with upbeat songs. It can be difficult if you’re doing it on
your own, so having a musical scorer can help take the guesswork out of it.

But before you even think of using just any music, remember that the safest option
is to get music from a royalty free music provider. You may be able to find free
music, but the best audio usually comes at a price. If you’re doing a professional
project, music is usually included in the production budget.

When you shoot your raw footage with your camcorder, it has a sound track. There
are three reasons why you might want to supplement or replace the existing sound
track:

1. Many of the TV shows and videos you see today, and almost all movies,
have a musical background during all or part of the action. Music can lend
atmosphere and create a certain feeling. In the case of amateur production like we
are talking about in this article, music can add a lot of professionalism to the
finished work.
2. An additional sound track is frequently used to handle narration.
Most documentary and nature films use this technique.
3. In many cases, the sound you record is unusable, or just not quite right, for
the movie you are creating. For example, if a lion roars at the zoo and you capture
the image, you may not be able to capture the sound because the lion is 50 feet
away and you are using a zoom lens to film him. In that case, you'll want to
substitute a better roar for the one you have.
To handle music, you have several options:

 You can make up your own music and record it yourself. For example, I
recorded a music loop using a little $45 keyboard by connecting its headphone jack
into my computer's line-in jack. I used the Sound Recorder built into Windows to
 record it at 48K samples per second. Obviously, you can get a lot more
sophisticated than that, but it shows you how easy it is.
 You can buy CDs full of royalty-free music loops and sound effects.
You can import many different types of sound files (including WAV, AIF, etc.)
into a Premiere project and then position it on the timeline in Audio Track #2. Now
when you play your movie, Premiere will automatically mix the original sound
track of your movie with the new audio track and play it.

To handle narration, probably the easiest thing to do is simply read your narration

into the camera, and then capture the video as you normally would. You can
separate the narration sound track from the video track and use the sound track.
Simply drop the raw narration footage onto the timeline, right-click on it and select
"Split Video and Audio." Click on the video portion and delete it. Now you have
the narration sound track that you can lay on the timeline at the proper point.

Particularly with narration, timing the video with the audio becomes important.

Once you have the narration sound track on the timeline, you can slice it up with
the razor blade tool to either add gaps or delete sections to help with timing.

In a big project, it is not unusual to be working with half a dozen sound tracks.
Premiere can manage an unlimited number of audio (or video) tracks. To add a
new sound track, all you need to do is right-click on the timeline and select the
Track option. Select to add a new track.

Color Correction
Color is a major design element that can be manipulated to highlight certain
subjects, evoke specific emotions, and set the mood or atmosphere of your scene.
Fortunately, today’s video editing programs give us a lot of color editing options
that used to be only possible with photos.

Most editors do two things: color correction, to make sure that the colors of your
footage are consistent in each scene, and color grading, to give your film a
different look. Both are essential when you want most of your scenes to look as
realistic as possible, or to differentiate certain scenes from others, such as when
you use presets like sepia and monochrome on “flashback” scenes.

Graphics and Text

Depending on your film type, you may have to include more text aside from the
title, opening/closing billboards (for broadcasting), and film credits. You’ll usually
want to keep it simple, with a clean and white sans-serif font that doesn’t grab too
much attention. Have them dissolve in and out, and see how it works for your film.

But if you need to add flashy graphics, you can create them using your editing
software. Adobe After Effects is a popular choice for creating some of the best
motion graphics. If you’ve yet to learn how to make your own by hand, you can
always get impressive ready-made After Effects templates from RocketStock.

Adding 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. This also includes things like adding your color
grading and cleaning up your audio.

Being judicious with your application of effects can make or break your video. A
certain amount is required to polish and bring out the best in your project, but it’s
easy to go overboard and create something gaudy. Show restraint and operate with
a “less is more” mentality.

Important Terms
The video editing industry will require you to communicate with other video
editors or clients, which means you’ll have to learn a lot of lingo. To those who
haven’t heard of them, some of the terms used in video editing can be impossible
to figure out without any research, which is why you’ll want to learn them early
on. Basic concepts include the following:

 Jump Cuts – Cutting out portions to skip boring or predictable moments

and preserve visual interest.
 J Cut – Audio precedes the video.
 L Cut – Video precedes the audio.
 Montage – Sequence of clips showing the passage of time, usually for a
transformation or character development.
 Cutting on Action – Cutting when the subject is moving instead of after
each movement to create a more interesting and fluid scene.
 Match Cut/Match Action – Cutting together two visually similar shots or
scenes
 Cutaways – Adding transition pieces that don’t include the main subject or
action to show the surrounding environment and set the mood, add meaning to
the scene, or aid dramatic tension.

These are just a few, as there are certainly many other cuts and terms to learn. All
you need to do is take the time to read and do your own research.

References:
1. https://computer.howstuffworks.com/video-editing.htm
2. https://www.borrowlenses.com/blog/how-to-edit-video-for-
beginners/
3. https://www.adorama.com/alc/video-editing-tips-for-beginners