- If you're wondering how to edit your videos faster,
then in this video,
we're gonna cover a simple video editing process
that can save you a ton of time
and boost the quality of your videos.
Along with a stack of our best video editing tips and tricks
to get you awesome results fast.
(upbeat music)
Hey, it's Justin Brown here from Primal Video
where we help entrepreneurs and business owners
amplify their business and brand with video.
If you're new here,
then make sure you click that subscribe button
and all the links to everything we mention in this video
you can find linked in the description box below.
So let's jump into it.
Video editing is definitely the part
in the video production process
that most people hate or try to avoid.
If the thought of wasting a heap of time
in front of the computer trying to edit your video down
and move all the pieces around in the timeline
is up there with watching paint dry, watching the cricket,
changing a dirty nappy,
or I really thought I'd have some better ones, but I don't.
But either way,
in this video we're gonna run through
the ultimate video editing process
to help you efficiently edit your videos down
without any wasted time or re-work.
And along the way,
I'm also gonna share some of our best video editing tips
that I've found over the years
to help speed up your workflow even further.
And while you're watching,
drop a comment below and let us know
your number one video editing tip that you wish you knew
when you were starting out
to speed up your video editing workflow.
And as an added bonus,
make sure you stick around to the end
'cause we have also put together
a short downloadable guide
that you can use as a quick start reference
for all of these tips next time you're editing.
And before we jump into the editing process,
depending on the type of videos you're creating,
you can make your editing easier
by doing these three things.
The first one is to be conscious of your editing
while you're filming.
So don't overshoot, think about your end product.
Are you going to actually be using
all of this extra footage in your finished product?
If not, then stop recording right now.
So focus on your end goal.
What do you need to shoot?
How much do you need to shoot?
If there's any chance at all
that you might use the footage,
then definitely keep rolling.
But if there's a lot of stuff in there
that you're shooting that is unnecessary
and that you're not going to use,
then definitely don't record it.
So dialing that back in
and reducing the amount of footage
that you're actually going to have in your editing software
is going to speed up your editing process
because you've got less there to worry about.
The second tip I have for you
is to make your last take, the last sentence
the last dot point, your best one.
So don't move on until you absolutely nail it
or until you're absolutely happy with your last sentence
or the last thing that you say
and then you can edit backwards in your timeline.
So what this means is, instead of, in your editing,
editing from left to right or start to finish,
as you normally would,
if you're doing a content video like this
and you only move on when you're happy with the last one,
then you can actually edit backwards,
because what that'll let you do is hit that best take
or the one that you know you wanna use first.
Then you just go back through your timeline
until you find the next sentence
or the previous sentence or dot point or whatever you said
and that one will be the one that you want to use as well.
So that will speed up your editing massively.
This will also remove having to cut your sentences in half
and trying to use the start of one take
and then trying to find a good ending from another take.
It's gonna speed up all of that
because you know at the time of recording
you're creating one take or one dot point
that you are happy with
and only moving on once you've nailed that.
And the third tip I have around the filming side of things
is to leave notes for yourself while you're filming.
So essentially you're sending yourself messages
or your editors messages in the future
while they're sitting there going through your footage.
So all you need to do is to get their attention.
So something when they're scrubbing through the timeline
that they see that there is a message for them.
So you could clap three times,
and that way they'll see in the audio wave forms,
that there's a couple of spikes there.
So something for them to take notice of.
You could put your hand up to the screen,
you could wave crazy for a few seconds.
Something where they're scrubbing through
they're going to notice that there is a message for them
or a message for yourself.
And the messages that you could leave will be things like,
the audio might not be good,
let's do another take or I forgot to mention this.
Can we put this back at the start of the video?
So you can leave messages for yourself
while you're presenting
to speed up your editing
because you're essentially editing as you go.
All right so now let's jump into the actual editing process.
Step one is to copy off and organize your footage first.
So this is where you'll create
a folder on your hard drive for each overall video.
Inside it, you could have things like a footage folder,
and inside of that
you could have things like camera one, camera two.
It could be named by your camera guy's name
or the type of camera, Panasonic GH4, GoPro.
So at least this way
your footage is easy to find at a later date.
You also have folders for audio,
for graphics, for animations.
You want a folder in there for your project files
and that's where your editing software
project is going to sit,
Premiere, Final Cut, whatever it is.
You can also create a folder for draft exports
or draft renders that you're doing.
If you know that it's not the final
but you wanna get feedback on it,
put all of those in that folder.
And obviously you'll want one
for your completed videos, as well.
So this is a great step to set you off
on the right foot with your editing
by having everything organized
so that whether you're gonna be editing right away
or whether you're editing two months down the track,
it's easy for you to find all of your files,
or have another editor find all of your files.
Step number two is to import your video footage
and your assets into your video editing software.
Now as you've already organized your footage
from step one, a lot of video editing software
will actually let you just drag and drop
that parent folder, the main one,
into your editing software
and it will keep all the sub-folders in there as well.
So that your footage is all organized
inside of your editing software.
And not all of your video editing software
will let you do that so easily,
you may need to manually recreate the folders
or the bins inside of your video editing software
and then import your audio, your footage,
and all of your other assets manually
but it's another really important step
to speed up your efficiency
because it would be so easy to find things
because everything is in a logical place.
Step number three is to create your project or your timeline
and to drop all your footage into the timeline.
Now here's where you wanna drop your footage down
in the correct sequence
or the sequence that they were shot at
and depending on the gear that you're using
and the record quality and record settings
that you've used to record your videos
is a good idea to set your project up to be exactly the same
unless you've got a specific output that you need,
try to match the two.
So if you're shooting in 4K, 30 frames per second
then ideally you're creating
a 4K, 30 frames per second timeline
or project that you are editing in.
So that when you export and match those settings again,
you're getting the best quality output all the way through.
Step number four is to sync up any video or audio tracks.
So if you're shooting with multiple camera angles
or if you're recording audio externally,
then this is where you will sync all of those up
so that you don't have to worry about doing it later
once you've started editing.
Step number five is to start cutting down
and refining your edit.
So in this first pass when you go through your edit,
you wanna remove anything in here
that you 100% don't want in your finished video.
So this would be things like any bad takes,
any mistakes, any unusable content
but anything that's questionable
and you're thinking I might use this, it could work here,
definitely leave it in on this first pass.
So go through and remove anything that you 100% don't want
in your finished video.
Now you can actually speed up this step
by bringing in a couple of the tips
that we mentioned earlier.
So if you did only move onto the next sentence,
the next dot point while you were filming,
once you are happy with the last one
then in this step you can go back and edit backwards.
So starting at the end of your timeline
instead of at the start,
hitting that best take or the one that you wanna use first.
Now you can also look out for the markers
or the notes that you left yourself while filming.
So if you did grab your attention or clap a few times
to leave some markers in there,
then you can apply whatever you left there
in this step as well.
Maybe it's to use the second last take
instead of the last one
or maybe it's to move a chunk of your footage
from the end back to the start
because you've forgotten or left something out.
So you can go through and process those
to speed up this step.
And another way that you can speed up this step
where you're refining your footage down
is to use the keyboard shortcuts J, K, and L on the keyboard
and these will help you
play through your timeline much faster.
So pressing J on the keyboard
will play back your timeline in reverse
and pressing it a couple of times
will actually speed that up.
If you press K, that will pause the playback
or stop the playback
and if you press L, that will play forward
and pressing it multiple times will play forward faster.
And one more really quick tip
that is an absolute game changer
is if your video editing software supports it,
then find out the keyboard shortcuts for trim top and tail.
On Premiere it's Q and W,
on Final Cut it's Option, square brackets left and right
and this will save you so much time
cutting down a heap of video footage
down to something short and manageable
in a short amount of time.
Step number 6 and this might be
dependent on the video editing software that you're using
but it is to duplicate your timeline
so that you've got a back up at this point
with just the usable content
in case you need to come back to it at a later time.
So it'll save you going all the way
back to the original footage
because you've cut out already
all the things that you definitely don't want in your video
and it's also a really good idea
to remember to save your work as well.
In step number seven you're gonna build out the story.
So after the first pass is complete
and you've removed everything
that you definitely don't want in here,
now it's time to reposition anything
that might be out of sequence or move things around
so they're in a more logical position
now that you're seeing it in the timeline.
So after you've done that,
your video should really be starting to take shape.
So step number eight,
is to add all of your audio into your timeline,
so your music, your sound effects,
or any other pieces of audio that you wanna have in there.
Drop them in and put them in position.
So after that, step number nine is where
you can further refine your edit.
So this is where you will trim, reposition,
and really refine your edits for both audio and video.
So if you're editing to the music
this is where you can start to match the two together
and start to cut to the beat,
start to really tweak and refine it.
Really get into the nitty-gritty, frame-by-frame editing
to really start to tighten this edit up
and to get it looking how you'd like.
So this step is where your video really starts to take shape
and it's where you start to see
the light at the end of the tunnel
and your video is really really starting to come along.
Now it is an iterative process
where you playback through,
you make tweaks and adjustments,
play back through again
until you're happy with the edit.
Once you're happy with the edit,
step 10 is to add in any text,
any titles, or graphic elements into your video.
Step 11 is where you'll add in
any video effects or transitions.
So this is where you'll really start
polishing up your video
and making it look good.
Next up in step 12,
you're gonna adjust your audio levels.
So this is your music, this is your sound effects,
this is any vocals or anyone speaking in your videos.
Go through and adjust them all
so that they're where you need them.
Step number 13 is where you'll apply any audio effects,
so if you've got any background noise reduction
you need to do,
you need to tweak the equalizers,
add compression or master up any of your audio tracks,
then this is where you do it.
Step number 14 is color grading.
This is where you'll apply all of your LUTs,
all of your color effects or any color tweaks
that you wanna make to your entire video, that's now.
Once that's done,
step number 15 is to export your video and review it.
So here, play it back on your computer,
play it back on multiple devices if you can
because the look and the sound
can be different on different devices.
Not all of us have access
to professional color grading screens and monitors
and most of our videos these days
are probably gonna be played back
on mobile or tablet devices.
So you wanna test it on a couple of those two,
if you can to make sure that it's looking
and sounding exactly how you'd like it.
And obviously, if you've got any changes
then go back and make those to your video.
So step number 16
is to make your final changes or adjustments
and export your video for release.
Now while you're exporting
make sure you're picking the best quality settings
that match your project settings
and also match your camera settings ideally.
So if you're gonna be doing things
like changing frame rates or resolutions,
they can lower the quality of the video
and they can also change the motion
or how the video will actually look and playback as well.
So you wanna make sure that wherever possible
your camera settings and the files that you've recorded
match your editing settings,
match your export settings as well.
So that's the entire efficient video editing process.
Now every time you stray away from this process
and start out jumping
straight into color grading or effects,
you're gonna slow down your system
or you're gonna need to come back later in the process
and make adjustments.
So you're gonna be wasting time
by doing these sorts of things upfront
which is the logical place most people start.
They'll jump in and they'll throw a heap of color grades on
to make the footage to look good
but they haven't gone through the fundamentals
and cut that footage down first.
If you'd start with all of those effects,
you're gonna slow down your computer,
slow down your phone, if you're editing on your phone,
and you won't even know
if there's a problem with your content
until much much later.
If something happened to your content,
you missed something or something was unusable,
you'll wanna find that out
as soon as you get into your edit or very soon after,
not when you're much much further down the process.
Now to make this simple for you to implement this process
and all the tips in your next editing project,
we've put together a short PDF guide
that you can use as a quick start reference
to help guide you through step by step.
So hit that link on screen now
or there's a link below in the description
to grab your copy and I'll see you soon.