- Do you know the one thing
that all beginner video editors have in common?
We basically all start out making videos
that aren't that great, (text pops)
(chuckles) and that's totally fine.
The best way to learn video editing
is to jump in (text pops)
head first. (text pops)
So, if you make a few bad videos to start out,
that's so much better
than not making videos. (text pops)
Take it from me, a former bad video editor. (chuckles)
That being said,
there are some common pitfalls (text pops)
that we can all try to avoid
even if you're just getting started.
So, in today's video,
I'm gonna take you through a list
of the most common video editing mistakes
that beginners make.
And I'm gonna let you know how you can fix them.
Once again, I know these mistakes
because I myself was guilty of making them.
Let's go ahead and jump in.
Let's start with the most common mistake
I see new video editors make,
and even experienced video editors make.
And that is not properly organizing your files.
Even I'm guilty of this from time to time, I will admit.
But being organized with how you name your files
and store your files is gonna save you
so much time in the long run.
I only realized how important this was
when I was working on a bigger project
that had a ton of video files.
And every time I needed to add a new clip to the timeline,
I would spend so much time
searching through all of the video clips
to find the one I was looking for
when I could have just gone and named them
in the first place,
and that would've saved me so much time.
A common way to name your files
is first by putting the date.
It's especially important to put the date
if you're shooting a project
that takes you a long period of time.
If you shot all of your footage on one day,
then you might not need to put the date.
And in that case, what I usually do
is just name the files with a number
starting with 01, 02, 03, 04.
And that way your footage will stay
in the order that you shot it.
And then after either the date or the number,
put a short description of what's happening in the video,
enough that you'll be able to look at the title
and remember what shot it was.
And then I like to create a master folder,
and then inside that folder, I have separate folders
for images, videos, music, voiceovers, and special effects.
And then I go ahead and add the files
which I already renamed to the folders that they belong in.
And that's gonna make it so much easier for me
to find what I'm looking for while I'm editing.
The second mistake, a lot of beginners make
is jumping into the edit without having a workflow.
Basically, what I mean by this
is if you're jumping back and forth
between adding clips to the timeline,
then working on the audio, then adding sound effects,
then adding B-roll, then back to trimming clips,
you're gonna waste a lot of time.
It's a lot more efficient to do all of the trimming,
and then all of the B-roll,
or to have some kind of system in place
like that that works for you.
So the process I usually follow,
first, I go through my script and I mark all the points
where I'm gonna need graphics, where I'm gonna need B-roll,
where I'm gonna need text, maybe sound effects,
and different things like that.
I'll mark that on the script and then I'll go ahead
and arrange and trim all my video clips
so that they match the script.
And then I have a pretty good idea
of where everything needs to go,
so next, I'll go through and add B-roll,
then I'll do text and then graphics.
And then the final step for me
is usually adding the music track.
You don't have to edit in that exact same sequence
but I do recommend that the first thing you do
is go through and trim and arrange all of your clips.
And from there, you might wanna jump to color grading,
you might wanna jump to B-roll, whatever works for you.
But you do wanna have a plan
of what sequence you wanna edit in.
It's just gonna make things a lot easier.
The third mistake is letting clips run for too long.
There are certain times
when you're gonna wanna have a really long clip,
but in general, you want your edits
to be as concise as possible.
So basically, with every clip,
you're looking for the latest point
that you can jump into that clip
and the earliest point that you can jump out.
Even in a talking video like this,
if I let this clip go on for even just a second longer
than it needs to,
(crickets chirping)
it feels like it drags.
A lot of editors on YouTube will use the 5 to 7 second rule,
so basically, every 5 to 7 seconds,
the visual onscreen changes,
either by adding B-roll or switching to another camera angle
or even by adding text.
You can even see that rule play out
if you go back and watch this video from the beginning,
or if you watch some of the other videos on our channel.
It's a great way to keep your video
from being too monotonous.
And a few of the ways that can achieve this
is by cutting to a different camera angle
or even just zooming in the clip.
Or if you only shot with one camera,
you can even just crop in the clip.
You can also add B-roll, text or graphics.
The fourth mistake
is having too many jump cuts in your video.
A simple cut is the most common transition,
and it is the transition that you wanna use most often,
but jump cuts become a bit of a problem
when your subject moves just slightly
so that there's just that little jump in between frames.
Now, it is a good idea to remove pauses in your sentences
so that's why jump cuts show up so often in videos.
So here are some ways you can avoid them.
First, you can have a two camera set-up.
Then when you're cutting out pauses
in between your talking,
you can try switching to the other angle for the next shot.
Whenever you're using two cameras,
be sure to use the 30 degree rule,
which basically means that between camera 1 and camera 2,
there should be a 30 degree difference.
That's gonna be different enough
so switching between the two cameras won't look jumpy.
If you only have access to one camera,
then what you can do is zoom in some of the clips
so that they don't look like the exact same clip,
or you can always cover up jump cuts with B-roll.
The fifth mistake is not cutting on action.
Now, this is a big one.
Cutting on action is a small thing
that's gonna make a really big difference in your videos.
So let's say you took a video of someone playing guitar
and you took that video from two different angles.
You want to find an action in that video
that you can cut on,
so even something really small like strumming the guitar.
And then, basically, what you wanna do
is cut the first video right in the middle of the strum,
basically, where you see the most motion blur,
and then the second angle is gonna pick up
right in the middle of the action.
Here's what that looks like if we don't cut on action.
As you could see, when we cut on action,
it just feels like so much more of a natural edit.
You can even do this with talking head videos
where you have two different camera angles
by cutting on the action of your hands
or something like that.
Don't underestimate this one.
It really goes a long way, like I said before.
Number six is overusing transitions and filters.
This is a classic one.
Most video editing softwares offer a ton of transitions
and a lot of them seem just so much fun
to put into your videos.
So a lot of beginners will add a lot of transitions
to kind of stylize their video and make it their own,
but it actually ends up making your video
look a little bit amateur.
And the same goes for filters
like firework filters and stuff like that.
Of course, there are certain types of videos,
maybe music videos, or maybe sci-fi dream sequences,
where it does make sense to add filters
to really stylize the video.
But in general, you wanna keep it to a minimum.
And when it comes to transitions
between one shot to the next,
9 times out of 10, a simple cut is all you need,
every now and then a cross dissolve,
and then every now and then, something more fun
like a whip or light leaks or something like that.
The seventh mistake is not paying enough attention
to the audio of your video.
Most beginners focus a lot more
on the visual elements of the videos,
but the audio is a lot more important than you realize.
People are actually more likely to click off of your video
because of bad audio than they are for bad video quality.
First, it's really common
to have these really jarring sounding audio cuts
when you cut from one clip to the next.
And that's just because you filmed the two clips
in different environments
that had different sounds happening.
One way to avoid this is by using L cuts and J cuts.
So in this example, you're just gonna pull the first video
so that it plays for a little while
underneath the second video,
and then you'll have the audio just fade out underneath,
so that's gonna be a lot less of a jarring cut.
Have a listen to how it sounds now.
(cars whirring softly)
(wind wheezing gently)
You also wanna think a lot about the music
that you're picking out for your video.
You wanna make sure that the music
fits the mood you're going for.
So for a tutorial like this,
it wouldn't make sense to use
a really sad music track (gentle somber music)
or a really epic soundtrack (dramatic music)
sounding music track.
Instead, it makes sense to have
just kind of a happy, upbeat track.
So you might find that this is a little bit time consuming
but you do really wanna take time
to listen to a lot of different music tracks
and pick out the right one for your video.
If you don't know what kind of music track you want,
a hack that you can use is to think about
popular songs that you really like
and think about which one you would put in your video.
And then, even though you won't be able
to use that exact song because you probably
won't be able to get the copyrights for it,
when you're listening to stock music tracks,
you can listen for one that sounds similar enough
to the song that you had in mind.
Also, to help you out with this,
we have a video on our channel about the top eight websites
where you can find free stock music.
Once you've picked out your music track,
the next thing you wanna focus on
is balancing the levels of music
with the levels of the talking or the sound effects
or whatever other audio you have.
If you're creating a talking video like this one,
you wanna make sure that the music isn't competing with you
so you need it to be quiet enough
where you can really hear your voice clearly,
but loud enough where the music
adds a nice vibe to the video.
And the last component to perfecting your audio experience
is adding sound effects.
Sound effects really go a long way
in making your video more engaging
so I highly recommend that you experiment with them.
If a car drives by,
you can find a sound effect on the internet
of a car driving by and sync it up with your video.
If you're typing, add a typing sound effect.
Even if you're doing a talking head video like this one,
you could still find opportunities
to throw in sound effects like my favorite,
adding a pop sound effect (text pops)
when text pops up on the screen.
And that brings us to the last mistake on our list
which is inconsistent graphics.
A lot of new editors will add text and graphics
that are all over the place
in terms of font, size, color, and just overall look.
That's really gonna end up being pretty distracting
and just kind of make your video look casual.
So to avoid that, just pick out one font,
one color, one size, and stick to it throughout the video.
You might need to change the size a little bit
depending on how long that piece of text is,
but try to keep it relatively consistent.
I usually just copy and paste my text
to make it so much easier.
Basically, this one is just about remembering
that less is more.
That's gonna keep your videos clean and easy to understand.
And there you have it,
those were the eight most common mistakes
that we see new video editors make.
Which one of these mistakes have you been guilty of making?
When I was a new video editor,
I would say I was most guilty of number one and number five.
If you're looking for my video editing tips,
be sure to check out this video.
I'm Teresa with InVideo,
and I will see you in the next one.