editing after hours filming you the editor will take the footage and craft the story from the
greatest moments making a watchable experience for your audience there is no right way to edit
but only one main rule to create a natural energy and pace while providing details for the story to
make sense so to maintain that energy and convey that information there are a couple of techniques
that you'd need to know in order to make your edits amazing hi i'm tom from fxhome and if you're
new to editing i highly recommend you checking out our free editor hitfilm express and it's
worth checking out our basics masterclass as well where you'll learn the workspace
and tools needed to create your videos in the best way possible now let's go over the essential
cuts that every editor should know standard this is your super simple straightforward cut
placing two clips either side of each other and snapping them together like legos easy no fuss
no flare but completely necessary for your edit it's essentially your bread and butter you can
actually make that snapping a lot more effective as well if you use the ripple delete all you have
to do is right click the gap in the timeline and go up to ripple delete ripple delete will actually
eliminate all the empty frames so there's no guess work there's no worry of just random flashy frames
straightforward to the point cut the jump cut you will see a lot of youtubers doing jump cuts
i'm actually doing one right now it's the process of having one long continuous take
trimming the fat making the pace quicker snappy easy and to the point imagine what it's like
to keep all the breaks and pauses it can sometimes feel very awkward and uncomfortable so jump cuts
eliminate all the dead space use the audio waveform as your guide
grab the slice tool by hitting c get those gaps out of there and ripple delete the gaps the j cut
you will actually see these everywhere you go from this point onwards getting its name from the shape
that it makes on the timeline the j cut is the step up from your standards imagine two clips a
and b now by introducing the audio from clip b a couple seconds earlier while clip a is still
playing this will create a smooth transition into your next scene j cuts create a sense of intrigue
about what's about to come so ask yourself what is about to feature in the next take or scene the
seaside rain by introducing that familiar sound you are peaking the interest of your audience
these are great for conversational pieces voice over and transitions between location
so if you're finding that the standard cut is a little bit too harsh try a j cut the l cut now
that you know where j cut is take it flip it around you got yourself an l cut these may not
be used as much as a jacob but in conversational pieces they are vital by doing this the editor
is allowing the audience to hear the dialogue while seeing the reaction of a character giving
the audience a better overall understanding of what's happening in the scene see it as
j-cuts are to lead into the next thing while l-cuts are reactionary to what's just happened
i mean what what do you what do you think does that does that make sense
you can either make an l or a j cut by holding alt and dragging your clips image or audio
stretching it any way you want cutting on action cutting on action is the approach where we
kind of hide our cuts using the camera or actors motion we are trying to hide any cuts
very seamlessly punches being thrown is a good example running you use their momentum to hide
and mask the edit the cut will often go unnoticed because the audience will be paying attention to
the motion on screen cross-cutting cross-cutting is as it sounds you're switching back and forth
between scenes to give the impression that the action is occurring in two separate
locations and unfolding at the exact same time usually the two narratives will then collide
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a like it really helps us out when when did you leave thanks oli christopher nolan films
in particular have a great use of cross-cutting inception and dunkirk in particular heavily
feature huge sequences that are part of the same story or event but over different times parallel
editing there is an argument to be made where this can also be considered as cross-cutting but i'm
going to call it parallel cutting this is usually character driven and designed to illustrate the
differences between two opposing characters often your antagonist and protagonist or the loose canon
cops that can't see eye to eye but will eventually learn to love each other like brothers this method
works in a way that is designed to compare and contrast the image cutaways the cutaway is just
that it cuts away from the main story to provide some visual information occurring anywhere in
relation to your scene and not really having any strict geological requirements these can really
help you out when you're in the editing room and may have come across some complications on set
cutaways are particularly great for documentaries and interviews if you want to try and tie in
different conversations that were happening over different time periods so when you come back from
a shoot and you have all that b-roll just lying around put it to good use with a cutaway montage
if you have a character that's on a mission to change you need a montage montages help
communicate a large amount of information to an audience over a shorter span of time
by juxtaposing different shots compressing the time through editing or intertwining multiple
storylines of a narrative most famous for training and travel sequences but done right you can tell
a narrative spanning over years in no time at all the match cut a match cut is an edit that is
focused in on the cinematography using elements from one scene to move into another the purpose
is to have a visual match for two different scenes that may not inherently actually have
a link like locations we've covered the match cut in our seamless transitions tutorial and if you
want to learn more about transitions and how to pull them off in your edit i highly recommend you
going to check that out the oner no cut cheat cut not really a cheat but it does allow the editor
to relax a little bit and allow some time and breathing space the editor then passes on to the
audience you are now able to pick and choose where you're gonna focus and what you're gonna look at
as there's nothing to cut away to or from no different takes just one continuous moment
feels weird doing a oner always comes down to planning in pre-production so that is something
that can't really be helped in post-production and in recent years filmmakers have been experimenting
more and more with how to do a one-take for a feature-length film such as birdman silent house
and 1917 to name a few i think that might be all of them now that we've covered the type of cuts
let's answer the big question how do you know when to cut the short answer is instinct i know
i know now that you know these essential cuts it's all down to you to experiment and play with them
you'll eventually develop a sense of pacing and timing and a gut reaction of when and how to use
these different techniques practice makes perfect and is the greatest way for you to master your
craft so open up hitfilm and get slicing we really enjoy making these type of videos for you guys
if there is a topic that you would like us to cover in future let us know in the comment
section down below and we will be sure to get on it right away i will make it my mission to answer
that until next time don't forget to like and subscribe and we will see you in the next tutorial