People love food.
So naturally people love food videos.
Even if you can’t cook, there’s something about a well shot and edited food video that
makes us all stare.
And salivate – if done right.
Today I’m sharing how I edit my food videos that inspire folks to get cookin in the kitchen.
This is a short recipe video I shot and edited for Instagram.
While the method you choose to shoot a food video is important, it all really comes to
life in the editing process.
I’ve been using Adobe Premiere Pro to edit all my videos for years whether I was at home
on a desktop computer or traveling and using my laptop.
It has everything I need built right into the platform.
And I’m really excited to show you a new feature called the Scene Edit Detection tool
which lets you bring in footage and it’ll automatically detect the original cut points
in your video.
That’s what I used for this one.
I took an old food video I shot that needed to be updated with color correction and graphics
to narrate the story.
It was a very rough rough cut.
So I imported this file and used the scene edit detection tool to automatically chop
up the video at all of the original jump cuts so I could go back in and color correct each
individual scene, giving the video a second chance at life by transforming it from rough
cut into a beautiful finished piece that I could upload to Instagram.
So here’s a step by step tutorial on how I put this food video together.
Let’s dive right in.
So first I’m going to launch Adobe Premiere Pro and create a new project.
I’m going to name my file vegan chocolate cake.
Once inside Premiere, I’m going to right click and create some bins.
One for my sequence and one for my video clips.
Now I’m right clicking in my video folder and importing my video footage.
I’m going to select the file with the old clips strung together and drag it to the timeline.
This will create a new sequence, which I’ll store in my sequence folder to stay organized.
Before I start editing, I need to change the dimensions of the video so that it’s vertical
for Instagram.
So I right click on the sequence and select the sequence settings.
Here I adjust the frame size to 1080x1350.
Now as you can see it’s vertical instead of horizontal, which is the perfect size for
Instagram.
But now the shots looks super zoomed in, so we need to scale it down so that it fits the
new frame size.
One effect that’s a real timesaver is the “Auto Reframe” effect.
So let’s go into our effects tab and do a search for “Auto Reframe.”
And there it is.
The Auto Reframe effect is located under Video Effects in the transform folder.
Let’s apply that effect to our video clip.
And boom just like that, it automatically reframed the video so that all the shots fit
beautifully into the frame.
Now as I scrub through, you can see this video I edited needs some work.
Some clips are too dark, some are too light and the overall edit is way too long.
It needs to be cut down to under a minute for Instagram.
In order to color correct each individual scene, I need to chop this up at all the edit
points.
To save time, I’m going to right click on my clip and select the scene edit detection
tool.
It’s going to apply a cut at each detected cut point.
And then I’m going check this box to also create a bin of subclips from each detected
cut point.
And hit analyze.
Premiere is analyzing the clips to detect where all the jump cuts are so that it can
automatically chop up my video at those points.
And voila.
It chopped it up perfectly.
With it chopped up like this, I can go into each individual scene and color correct as
needed.
Now when editing a food video, the first step I like to take is importing the music.
SO i’m going to create a new bin, name it audio, right click and import my music track.
Let’s double click and play it to give it a listen.
Yeah nice.
I like it.
So then I’m going to drag the audio clip down to the timeline.
Next, let’s work on editing the music track.
I’m going to give it a listen to see if it needs to be trimmed down.
Yeah we don’t need those extra beats so I’m trimming it.
I just want a couple seconds of intro music before the main beat drops.
The intro part is where you’ll out your beauty shots and when the beat drops, that’s
when you want your recipe instructions to start.
So I’m moving the start of the recipe to the exact moment when the beat drops.
Right here.
And I have roughly 3 seconds before that to show some beauty shots of the food.
You always want to start your food video off with beauty shots of the finished dish to
give your viewers a preview of what it is you’re about to make.
So I’m going to pick a couple of closeups and maybe a medium shot of the finished cake
and drop that down into my timeline.
Now let’s play it to see how it flows.
Perfect.
Next we need to cut this video down to under a minute for Instagram.
To do this, go through all your recipe steps and trim them down to just the most important
action of each step.
So for these, I just want to show the ingredients going into the bowl.
Another way to quicken the pace is to adjust the speed.
So to make this clip go faster, I’m doubling the speed from 100 to 200.
And I’ll continue adjusting the speed and/or trimming clips down throughout the rest of
the timeline until I get it down to under a minute.
And voila.
44 seconds.
Perfect.
The last big thing to add to your food video is text.
You want to spell out for your viewers what the name of the ingredients are that you’re
showing in your recipe.
And also the measurements if you want.
So for that we tap the graphics tab which brings us into the Essential Graphics Panel.
Adobe Premiere Pro conveniently has built in graphics that you can tap into for your
project so you never have to leave the program.
So start by finding a nice graphic for the intro of your video.
This is where you’ll display the title of your dish so your viewers know the name of
what it is you’re making.
When you find the one you want, drag it above your video track.
And to edit the text, make sure it’s highlighted and the text key is selected.
Then make your changes.
You can adjust the size of your text, the placement of your text.
There are a ton of controls to play with.
Next you’ll want to add the text for the ingredients.
For these, just a basic title is sufficient.
So I’ll drag the basic title template over my first ingredient clip and edit it the same
way I did my title.
Then I’m going to copy this and paste it all throughout my time line for the rest of
the ingredients.
And whenever I paste it, I just go in and edit the text.
And I’ll continue doing that for every recipe step.
When I get to the step where I remove my pan off screen, I want to add an effect that makes
it look like my text is being revealed as the pan is moving.
For this we go into the effects tab and drag the wipe transition onto the beginning of
the text.
Then adjust the transition handles to the point where you want the text to finish revealing
on screen.
Play it back to see how it looks.
And that’s it, you’re pretty much done.
Save your work and then play your video from the beginning to make sure you like it.
Let’s see what mine looks like.
And just like that.
We have a food video.
I hope you found this tutorial helpful.
Between the essential graphics panel and the new scene edit detection tool, Premiere is
hands down the most efficient editing software for creating the kind of videos you want to
put out into the world.
If you enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up, comment with any questions you have, and
subscribe for more tech and food videos headed your way.
Thanks for watching and until next time, stay green y’all.