Videos are part of life today; there is no such place where videos are not used, and this is why there is a great demand for the best video editing skills.
Even since videos are in trend, more people are looking at how to create and edit videos. Everyone now wants to use it for personal or business purposes as a medium of communication. But beginners may find video editing a bit intimidating.
Learning video editing tips can be beneficial. It can help you to convey your messages effectively.
Like any other creative job, there is no right or wrong way of editing videos. This is why this article has jotted down all the best video editing tips for beginners that can help them easily learn this high-end skill.
Want to find out how to get better at video editing? Please stick with us till the very end, and you will find a pool of information.
Table of Content
- Choose the Correct Software
- Use Fast Pace System
- Utilize Keyboard Shortcuts
- Learn the Basic Terms Used in the Industry
- Take Help from Video Editing Tutorials
- Watch All Your Footage Before Editing
- Weave A Story in Your Video
- Organize Your Projects
- Assemble Material as per the Storyboard
- Maintain a Flow
- Watch Your Character’s Body Language
- Chop Out the Errors
- The Rough Cut/Edit
- Use Constraints on the Wide Shots
- Split Edits for Professional Touch
- The Final Cut
- Color Correction
- Finalize & Publish
18 Video Editing Tips for Beginners
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Choose the Correct Software
Before kick starting any video post-production project, the first and foremost thing that must be followed as a Bible is choosing the right video editing software per your project needs. It is an important initial step that decides the whole process of your project.
There are multiple free and paid video editing software options available, targeting various needs of the video editing work. It is the job of the video editor to choose what works best within his or her budget as a beginner.
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Use Fast Pace System
The second most important step in the right direction regarding video editing is using a system or any fast-paced technology that doesn’t lag. The simple reason behind this is to keep the tools and technology ready for the project, as sometimes huge file sizes or certain tools affect the system’s speed and lead to a complete system crash.
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Utilize Keyboard Shortcuts
Another easy tip to start video editing is to know the keyboard shortcuts. Many tools allow the use of these shortcuts making the whole task easy. It is very important to review, memorize, and customize the different sets of shortcuts according to different tools. Keeping this hack will help you in the longer run.
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Learn the Basic Terms Used in the Industry
If you are a beginner, it is crucial to have certain video editing terminologies at your fingertips. The simple reason is every sector has its language and way of working. To gel up with the other working force, you should know what terms and words are commonly used in your industry.
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Take the Help of Video Editing Tutorials
Various platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, and more have a lot of educational videos that can help you wherever you feel stuck during the process. Apart from that blogs and other educational websites are also available to help beginners by answering the most important questions. Most of these educational content and videos are free to watch and helps in knowledge building.
There are a lot of professional websites that offer very specific tutorials to help you improve your video content. As you look for tutorials to achieve certain looks and complete specific tasks, target the software version of your program. Many companies adjust functionality and menu settings from version to version.
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Watch All Your Footage Before Editing
This is very important to watch the complete footage of what you are working on. The reason is simple: before you start editing, you should have a plan in place as to what clips you want and what you find unnecessary that needs to be cut off.
Along with this, while watching the footage; you draw a story out of it, which helps you create the best output.
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Weave A Story in Your Video
Once you have watched the complete video footage, the next thing you have to do as a video editor is weave a story. Every video is a story, and a video should narrate what you want to convey to your audience; hence keeping a keen eye on the story formation will be fruitful for your growth as an editor.
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Organize Your Projects
As a video editor, working in an organized way is the best thing you can do during the project journey because you have multiple things to be taken care of with multilevel editing. Hence it is important to create two folders to ease your work.
Folder 1 can hold all your editing work, unedited/raw footage, and the final cuts to find everything in one place when needed.
Folder 2 can hold all your extra requirements that you call Assets, like music, company logos, lens flares, sound effects, background music etc.
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Assemble Material as per the Storyboard
It is important to assemble all the materials and arrange them per the timeline to make them usable for creating a storyboard.
To make this process more seamless, many creators and editors break down various clips per the requirement and later join all these clips to make one seamless video output.
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Maintain a Flow
This step is often ignored. But creative artists need peace of mind before working on any project. The same goes for video editors too. They also need to refresh their mind to get their creative juices flowing.
Another thing that can improve the workflow is systematically organizing your files and folders. If you have many folders on your desktop, try moving them to an external hard drive.
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Watch Your Character’s Body Language
Good video editing consists of many things to make it look attractive by every means; this may include filler footage, wide shots and even a special focus on your character to build a connection with the audience.
The audience uses it to pick up your character’s body language, which helps build a story out of your video. This is why it is very important to focus on your character.
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Chop Out the Errors
The raw footage contains errors during the shooting process; not to worry, the video editing gives you a chance to erase or cut off all those errors during the editing phase only so that you come up with a clean and hard-hitting video that your audience will like.
Cutting a shot and adding transitions to the video or showing everything from a different perspective or camera angle can save you from showing the flaws in your footage.
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The Rough Cut/Edit
Once you are ready with your material, after going through all the necessary steps, comes the editing stage, where you create a blueprint for your final video.
In the rough-cut stage, editors make the initial cuts or basic editing for the footage to make it go for the next stage. In this stage, nothing is done in terms of deep edits. It is just that you prepare the footage concisely for the later stages.
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Use Constraints on the Wide Shots
Wide shots never disappoint as these give a complete idea of the video and its surroundings, especially in some entertainment-related videos or series.
However, these wide shots should be used with a limitation as more users can turn up like fillers in the video.
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Split Edits for Professional Touch
This is basically a transition of one clip to another and if you achieve perfection in the same, the video output gives a professional feel. Generally, there are two types of split cuts known by the name J-Cuts & L-Cuts.
Both of these work in the direction to make your audio and video in sync and the transition looks smooth.
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The Final Cut
This stage requires your keen eye on every bit of video footage you are making edits on. In this, you perform deep edits; add titles, narration audio clips for the narration, or some background music to sync with the video.
This is the stage where you finalize the video to make it seamless.
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Color Correction
Color is one of the most important elements that must be manipulated while editing videos. While color-correcting the clips, try to highlight important subjects, maintain an appropriate mood, or invoke emotions.
Thankfully, you will find various video color grading software and apps that can help you with options to color-correct the footage.
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Finalize & Publish
The last stage in the video editing process is finalizing work done in the fourth stage, making it error-free to be published and consumed by the audience.
It includes multiple steps like video color grading, audio and video sync check, background noise reduction, and more.
Conclusion
Videos are the most advanced and eminent section of the marketing strategy today, and every business that has a presence online or offline needs to include them. You will need hands-on experience in video editing services to enhance the brand value and bring more professionalism to videos.
People tend to watch videos as they are more engaging and interactive than images or still ads. So, it is important to have an in-house video editing team, or if not, then you must have a connection with video editing companies to edit your videos in the right tone and manner, bringing the output desired by you as a brand.