Ahoj! Great video editing has nothing to do
with learning fancy video editing program.
It is all about learning basic editing concepts
you can do in any editing software
and then practice, practice, practice.
Filming is important,
but what will truly make or break your video is video editing.
So in this video, let's go through some mistakes.
Let's go through edit before and after
applying more effective technique. And for the new faces,
welcome. My name is Zdenka Darula.
If you're all about video and photography, consider subscribing.
Let me start by saying this.
Don't include all the shots you took.
Shots from different angles, with different lenses,
with different cameras.
Some creative shots.
You might be thinking, those are amazing shots and they need to be included,
but does it really go with your story?
The pace of the video will be slow.
You are not going to get straight
to the point of your story, which will result in a boring long video.
Obviously, people will click away.
You might be proud of those slow motion coffee shots,
but does it really, again, go with your story?
Comment below how many times you've seen
coffee B-roll montages on YouTube.
If it goes with your story, great.
If it doesn't... out. Respect your audience
by not keeping those clips or way too long
scenes just for the sake of showing off your skills
or showing off the quality of your expensive lens.
On the other hand, don't remove all the best shots.
If you need those shots for a very specific reason,
or if they are going with the story, then yes, don't hesitate to include them.
Let's get to cutting the clips.
Can you take a moment, think and answer a question.
When to cut the clips?
What is it that makes you decide on when to make a cut?
I bet most of you were thinking, I'm going to be talking about
cutting to the music, cutting to the beats.
Cutting to the beats creates a rhythm to the video.
It makes it feel more purposeful.
It makes you flow nicely.
But if you always cut on a beat, it'll be boring
and everyone will expect to see new clip.
You can change the sequence and cut on different beats to mix it up.
This is not, however, what I wanted to talk about.
I wanted to talk about two other techniques.
First one. Let's say I shot the same action
with two different cameras, or
I shot the same action two times
with different lenses, different focal lengths or different angles.
Many options there.
I'm going to make a cut like this. First clip
and then second clip, which is the action.
What will make the cut way better is if I cut on the action,
it will be more interesting and you will emphasize the action.
And you can do the same thing when you are talking,
you are teaching.
You can zoom in right on the punch line.
A little bit too close.
Yeah, that's that's that's better.
I use it sometimes when I just want to say something personal or something
very important or I want you,
I want you, the audience, to get into my story.
I just want to kind of talk like a friend to a friend.
Maybe, you know, one on one type of thing.
So that's a good way to use it. When you edit,
keep in mind that there is a human on the other side with feelings.
Edit for that person.
The second technique. Don't always keep all the clips very quick, very short.
If there is an action or if there is an expression,
don't just cut yet, keep it a little bit longer.
Here is if I just cut it fast and move on.
And
here is
when I just hold the clip a little bit longer.
If you are going to post videos on YouTube,
you're going to be doing everything possible to get a very good of watch time.
You need to make people watch your videos
as long as possible. To get there,
you must have a very good story or very good teaching,
and also the pacing of the video
will keep people engaged.
If you have long breaks in the video, the video will be boring.
For example, if you will be recording the whole process of getting ready
to go outside to clean the snow. You can make a way faster transition
while keeping the pacing of the video with the help
of jump cuts, just like this.
Very short clips showing the process.
I'm going to introduce you to two clips.
Clip A
and clip B.
Let's play it again and look at the cut.
It's just a plain cut.
You can make the cut way more interesting and way more engaging
if you think about the way you are going to cut the audio, not the video.
Let's talk about J and L cuts.
What is a J cut?
I'm going to select only the audio of clip B and drag it over
clip A. It's going to create a J shape, J cut.
Now, the audio is going to play first before the actual clip.
Your mind is already going to register that you are hearing this sound,
that something is happening, and then you will see
the actual video.
J
cut can be used in many ways.
It can create suspense.
It can build tension or drama, or you can simply make video editing more seamless.
L is the same as J cut, but
the other way. The audio from Clip A continues to play
as you see Clip B. It will create a sense of continuity between scenes,
especially when a clip A and B are drastically different.
For example, you wanted to transition from an indoor scene to an outdoor scene.
The carried sound over will maintain
the reading of the story and keep your audience engaged.
You will get one month free through that link
and now let's play the final B-roll.
Let's stay with the audio a little a little bit longer.
Let me show you this mistake, which could be quite distracting
to your audience.
It's a simple cut between two clips.
The first clip ends up with a bit of a sound, and the second clip starts silent.
If you play those two clips, you will certainly notice that there is a cut.
It's not seamless.
He's like, Well, it's not doing anything.
I'm pressing the shutter, but it's not doing anything.
So he came down and he gave me the camera and I was like, Yeah, that's weird.
It's normal for new video editors to only think about video transitions,
but don't think about audio transitions.
For example, here in Adobe Premiere Pro, once I go to the effects,
I can see audio transitions.
Once I hit that, it will give me three choices for crossfade transition.
Crossfade is going to smooth out the audio between those two clips.
I personally use constant power or exponential fade
most of the time. If clip A stops and there is a lot of sound at the end of the clip,
I want to transfer the sound to clip B, which has a silent start.
It's very much the same as an L cut.
Now it sounds way smoother.
He's like, Well, it's not doing anything.
I'm pressing the shutter, but it's not doing anything.
So he came down and he gave me the camera and I was like, Yeah, that's weird.
The exponential fade I use if clip A ends
with the end of sentence, and naturally
there should be a short pause before continuing on.
If there is a bit of a sound, I will tone it down
by using this transition.
Yeah, I was out of work for a good two weeks.
Lesson learned If you are working for release dates.
Many of us film is smartphones these days.
Many of us don't have sliders or don't have time to set them up,
so we end up with many static shots
like these during this product review.
Or you might be filming yourself
so naturally the camera will be on a tripod.
If you leave the clips static like this,
it will be quite basic and a bit plain.
What you can do is add slight movements in a post, add fake camera movement.
Zoom in or zoom out
by using keyframes. You can also make a move to the side
but keep in mind that you have to first zoom
in onto the clip to give it a space. With that move,
you can also add easing.
It will gradually stop or gradually start a movement.
And here's the result.
Once you add a bit of a movement.
If you are editing a travel vlog
or a more casual video and you are finding that you have way too many static shots
and you want to make it look more believable, more realistic,
a bit less professional I would say, there are many handheld
plugins you can download online for your specific video editing software.
It can be also used for clips where you film yourself.
It will look like someone else was present there with you.
Not all videos need to have a super smooth look.
Camera shake or a handheld shake is used quite a bit too.
There are times and places very suitable for this.
You just need to know when to use it and when not.
People spend
long hours watching the screens these days.
If you're going to be editing a video and you're going to make people
look left and right, up and down to find the focal point,
it's going to be disruptive and they are not going to be entirely into your story.
It is similar to cats choosing laser light.
Make it easy on the eyes, use eyes trace technique.
Follow action from the first clip
and place another clip in the same movement.
Or if there is a movement in one area of the clip
place another clip with a movement in a similar area.
This way the eyes don't have to move as much
and the mind will stay involved in this story.
There will not be any interaction because I still need to search
for what it should be looking at.
These little things can make a big difference.
If the next clip has the action
not exactly where you want it to be to match the first clips
action, just zoom in a tiny bit and move the clip.
If you are worried about loss in quality, people are not really going to notice.
I sometimes really zoom in on the clips
and I cannot even see the difference when I rewatch it on YouTube.
On the other hand, if you need to switch a position, the focal point,
if you need the viewer to look elsewhere,
don't do fast paced cuts.
Hold the clip there a little bit longer
so the eyes stay a bit and then move on to another clip.
Movement left and right is another thing.
Don't have one clip going to the right,
then to the left, then to the right again.
You don't have to keep all the clips in the same direction.
You can certainly break the pattern, but just don't do it all the time.
Make it go with a flow.
Easy on the eyes.
There are many things you need to think about when you are editing a video.
It's not only about placing the right order of the clips
on a timeline, those little details that will make the video
edit great, exceptional.
It is honestly about
if you are using DaVinci Resolve or Luma Fusion,
those programs won't edit exceptional videos for you.
It's all about your thinking and brain.
The edit can look way simpler than the rest of the videos,
and yet it can beat the other ones full of crazy effects
so that timeline looks like a spiderweb.
This is how my timeline looks most of the time.
Just simple.
One more. Beautiful drone shots.
The long flight towards the lighthouse.
You have an emotional attachment to that shot
because you feel the scenery is beautiful.
You've been there, you want to show off your flying skills,
but the shot is too long
by the time you get there,
your audience will be finished
with their hamburger. Speed ramp will make the shot dynamic.
You still show where you started and how you are getting there,
but then there will be a punch to it once you slow it down
and show the final frame of the lighthouse.
Here is just a basic speed ramp.
Slow beginning, fast middle
and slow ending. To level it up
you can ease up the transition of going from slow to fast and vice versa.
You can also use blur effect. Here
I'm going to say this. There are many presets.
There are many plugins you can download for your video editing software.
I didn't create this effect.
I didn't create that blur.
I downloaded the plugin and I used it.
It's a year 2023.
All these AI tools are coming out
which can drastically speed up our video editing.
It's no more about learning how to do it all manually and spend another
half an hour just to putting that effect together.
Add sound effects the right music and you have a great edit. By the way
all the music and sound effects I was using in
today's video is from Epidemic sound.
I've been using them for four years.
Link is below. You will get one month Free.
I will also list all the other assets and plugins I was using in today's video.
Hopefully that can help you out.
Well, give it the thumbs up if you found this video helpful and don't
forget to subscribe for more. Questions, comments, greetings, whatever,
leave them below and I'll see you in the next video... Cau... Ahoj...