Video Editing Tips – A Complete Guide

Once you are done filming or shooting a video, the next step is editing. But if you are new to editing and don’t know how to make an edit to a video, then this article is here to simplify the process for you.

Creativity, innovation, and technology play essential roles while creating a video. Video editing falls in post-production, requiring tons of creativity and technical knowledge.

Most newbies spoil their projects due to less knowledge of the video editing processes and tools. Video editing is a vital step in video production. If you fail in editing, you might end up in wasting all the time and resources you have invested in the production.

To save you from that disaster, today, we are going to tell you everything you need to know about video editing.

So, without any delay, let’s jump into it!

What is Video Editing?

Video editing is the management and arrangement of video shots. It is used to structure and present all the visuals in a presentable format.

For some processes, video editing and polishing are considered the same thing, but eventually, they are slightly different.

There are a lot of terminologies that are used to describe editing, but the following are the processes we consider video editing:

• Video clip manipulation.
• Arrangement and rearrangement.
• Addition or deletion of the segments.
• Addition of the voiceover, special effects, speed variation (slow or fast motion).
• Alteration of color schemes, background, filters, and other enhancements.
• And apply video transition effects to the clips.

P.S: You can learn video transition and get an idea for your project with video transition effects with examples.

The Goal of Video Editing

There can be various to edit a video, and the editing approach will depend upon the result your desires from your video.

Most importantly, before you begin, you must evaluate and clearly define your video editing goals, which might include any of the following:

1) Remove the unwanted segments

Removing unwanted clips in a video while editing is the most common and simplest task in video editing. Many videos can be improved and enhanced by just getting rid of flawed and imperfect footage.

2) Choose the best clip

It is understandable to shoot more (extra) footage than you actually need, but you only choose the best clips for the final edit.

You pick the clips from the pile and merge them into your final video to make it look on-point and as desired.

3) Don’t break the flow

While editing, the one thing you keep in mind is maintaining the story flow. Every video revolves around a story, and sometimes due to some issues, you need to edit to cover the flaws. But while fixing the fault, if you break the flow, you won’t e able to achieve the goal.

The story and information you want to deliver to the targeted audience should not get compromised due to editing but get enhanced and delivered better.

4) Add special effects

Now, this is the exciting part of the editing, where you add the music, voice-over, graphics, and special effects to your video.

You add extra element and the video look glamourous, on point, and enjoyable. In addition, it improves the video quality visually and contextually.

5) Alter the styling

Any editor aims to make the video pleasing to watch, attractive to remember and justify the topic. The styling does that for you and sets the video’s mood according to the subject of the video.

One of the popular video styles these days are vertical videos, usually posted on TikTok & IGTV, and if you are making those videos, you surely will need to edit them.

Here are some top vertical video editing apps that you can use without professional help.

6) Video with an “Angle”

Your video editing must set an angle in your video that justifies the topic of your video. The video should be tailored to support a viewpoint, impart a message, or elaborate an agenda.

Video Editing Tips, Every Editor Needs

We have gathered 12 pro video editing tips that you will need while editing a project. These tips will not teach you how to edit a video but will help you save time and produce a good quality video.

Let’s take a look!

1) Pick a Right Software

To improve your video editing skill, the first step is to choose the perfect video editing software for your project.

The best video editing software provides everything you need to perform video edits, but you prefer the software with a user-friendly interface and easy to learn.

We suggest you give a test run to the software before landing the actual project on it. This will help you get familiar with the features and interface, and you will be frequent to use it while editing.

Some of the best video editing software are:

• Adobe After Effects
• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Final Cut Pro
• DaVinci Resolve
• Lightworks
• Autodesk Smoke
• Avid Media Composer
• Sony Vegas

Some are very popular and free to use, but some are not famous yet competent alternatives to the others. These video editing software are best for the pros as well as the beginners.

2) Use a Fast Machine

It is one of the popular discussions that people usually put on the table that what computer they should prefer, The Apple’s or The Window’s.

Well, we are not going to talk about it today but recommend using a system that is fast enough to handle the editing processes and compatible enough to store huge files.

A faster storage drive will help you access the software and your files faster. So, invest in the machine that speeds up your rendering, loading, and exporting time.

If you are not in the state of investing in a new machine, then try to increase your computer’s RAM to a minimum of 8 gigabytes. It will be enough for you to perform professional and commercial-editing.

P.S: We recommend getting an appropriate video card and processor to run smooth editing software.

Upgrading and customizing a PC is way more easier than buying an entirely new system. But if you are into smartphone video editing, then your job can quickly be get done without upgrading your PC.

3) Watch Some Video Editing Tutorial

Youtube is full of how-to, instructional, and tutorial videos about creating video content. Not just YouTube, there are other blogs and educational websites that can help you create awesome videos, like Skillshare, Video Copilot, and Red Gaint Tutorials.

These websites have various tutorials that can actually teach you to improve the quality of your video.

4)  The Project File

While learning from tutorial videos, try to get the same file the instructor (editor) uses in the video.

This will help you learn fast and gain experience for the real-time project. Many instructors attach the link to their project file below the video so that their students should be on the same page.

5) The Rule 321

Every skill learning lesson follows a particular practice or rule to prevent errors and damages. For example, the tailor or carpenter follows the “measure twice and cut once” rule to avoid material waste.

Just like them, video editors should follow The 321 Rule, where they should create at least three files (copy of the same file), save them in two different places, and one file should be physically placed away from the other.

This tip is the most important practice that every editor or video creator should follow. In the end, everyone prefers the save and retrievable project.

6) Edit for a Story

As mentioned before, the soul of the video is the story, and the goal of the video is to deliver it efficiently to the targeted audience.

When you are editing your video, make sure that you eliminate and delete all the unnecessary elements from the video.

It will give an aesthetically pleasing and intensely captivating look to your video and help evoke the viewers’ emotions.

Perfect editing with a compelling story can help your audience bond with your goal and let you achieve the result your desire.

If you are a company and want to impart your message or business idea to your prospects, then you will need practical and technical knowledge instead of some video illusions.

You can follow the storyboard to implement the video transitions and other special effects to enhance the visualization of the story.

7) Maintain The Workflow

Every task requires an organized workflow to avoid chaos and distraction. Even with a supersonic machine and excellent video editing software, you won’t be able to achieve the goal if your project and files are not in order.

To improve your workflow, keep your projects and files in the folders that you can frequently use and avoid the daily file search. Create folders and subfolders to keep files apart from each other.

Another effective way is to use the hard drive to store the video clips and the footage. Again, it will reduce the load of your computer’s hard drive.

P.S: We recommend USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt hard drive to speed up the file transfer.

8) Use the Keyboard Shortcuts

Most of the video editing tools allow you to perform multiple in-app editing activities via keyboard shortcuts keys.

Evaluate the various sets of shortcuts keys on the keyboard for the software like  Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, and DaVinci Resolve to examine, memorize, and customize them.

If you have money, buying an editing keyboard with keyboard shortcut icons is a better substitute.

You don’t have to worry about keyboard compatibility difficulties with video editing software because these keyboards are usually software-friendly.

9) Learn the Important Terminologies

You’ll have to acquire the terminologies in the video editing industry if you want to communicate with other video editors or clients.

Some of the phrases used in video editing can be difficult to figure out for the individuals who haven’t heard of them, which is why you need to learn and understand them early on.

The following are some fundamental ideas:

• Jump Cuts – Cutting out chunks of a scene to avoid dull or predictable scenes while maintaining visual interest.
• J Cut – The audio comes before the video.
• L Cut – The video comes first, followed by the audio.
• Montage – A collection of clips that depicts the passage of time, usually to portray a transition or character development.
• Cutting on Action – To create a more exciting and fluid scene, cut while the subject moves rather than after each movement.
• Match Cut/Match Action – Cutting two visually similar pictures or scenes together is known as a match cut or match action.

10) Color Correction

If your video will be with fading and blur colors, how will the video look? Umm, not good!

Color is one of the essential design elements that can draw attention toward specific themes, evoke several emotions, and set the scene’s mood.

Today’s video editing software let us perform color altering that was previously only possible with images.

Most editors focus on two things while editing their video projects:

• Color correction
• Color grading.

Color correction ensures that your footage color schemes are constant throughout every scene, and color grading gives your video a unique aesthetic look.

Both color correction and color grading are required if you want most of your scenes to appear as convincing as possible, and if you want to differentiate each scene from others, you can use sepia and monochrome preset on the recurring moments (flashbacks).

11) Choose a Good Music

The chosen music should be as good as the footage because sometimes the music uplifts the scene’s spirit.

For example, if you’re doing a drama film, you’ll need just the suitable song or music to enhance the feel of key moments (where you want your audience to feel some emotions in a certain way).

It might be challenging if you’re doing it yourself, so having some musical assistance then the uncertainty might get eliminated.

Note: Before you use any music, keep this in mind that getting music from a free music provider is the safest alternative.

12) Add Text & Graphics

Apart from the title, opening/closing, billboards (for broadcasting), and film credits, you may need to integrate other text depending on the type of video or film.

You’ll want to keep it simple with a clean, typical white typography that doesn’t stand out too much, then allow them to fade in and fade out to watch how it affects your film.

However, if you need to include some flashy and catchy graphics, you can add them to your video with your video editing software. Adobe After Effects is the most editors’ choice for producing some of the finest motion graphics.

You may always use some excellent ready-made After Effects templates from various free-template platforms if you haven’t learned to design your own by hand.

The Writer’s Choice

Learning things is good, but practicing it on your projects can be risky. There are top video editing companies that you can trust with your video editing projects.

One of the best video editing companies includes BuzzFlick, an award-winning video animation agency, expertise in all sorts of video and animation production.

The team at BuzzFlick is known for its explainer videos, whiteboard animation, 2D & 3D animation, 3D modeling, motion graphics, educational videos, promotional videos, corporate videos, video ads, and video editing services. So if you are ready to edit your video, trust BuzzFlick for this work.