Are you brand new to editing? Fear not! We have some useful tips to get you started.
There are lots of ways to approach editing and everyone will find a way that suits them best. These are just some general guidelines that will hopefully get you moving in the right direction:
- Go through all of your footage. Check out what you’ve got; sort through and find the best sound bites, the best visuals, B-Roll.
- Shape your story with key clips. Pick out and arrange the relevant sound bites to create a rough skeleton to start with, then fill it out with B-Roll.
- Evoke a mood or tone with music. If it turns out you don’t have an exact narrative, then try to evoke a mood or tone with music. Try putting lots of different music tracks to your video to see what fits best.
- Think about distribution. A really crucial thing to think about when editing is where you want your video (or videos) to go. Will it be something short and snappy for social? Or something a bit longer that tells a fully fleshed story? This will affect how quickly you cut your clips together.
- Less is more. Sometimes you need to be brutal. Not everything will or should make the cut. Clean up your clips, chop off any 'ums' and pauses. If a clip only has 2 seconds that are useable, chuck the rest!
Top tips from some of our editors
- Never underestimate the importance of B-Roll
- Keep congruency
- Don't just edit your video, edit the music as well