Video Editing Tips for Beginners

Professional-grade videos always arouse a desire to learn the skill of video editing. It doesn't matter if you want to polish your cat videos or create a branded video, the skill of perfecting a video is pretty rewarding. If you've never edited in your life, you might not know where to start. So, a beginner-friendly guide wouldn't hurt. That's why we're going to help you in this endeavor with simple and clear tips.

Choose an appropriate tool

Depending on the device you're going to use for video editing, you need to check software and tools on the Internet. As you're only in the early stages, don't invest in advanced software. Surely, they have robust features but you won't make any use of them since you don't know what they mean. That's why you should pay attention to apps for beginners without steep learning curve. 

While working on short videos, it might be great to consider only a free video cutter for minor edits. It might be enough to just trim and split clips. 

Avoid a cluttered workspace

If it's not one video you want to improve but you have tons of raw footage that you want to merge, a mess in the workspace would lead to disaster. You should organize your footage by naming clips and adding them to a separate folder.

Let's say you want to produce a travel video. In this case, you might divide landscape shots, food shots, and people interactions. As your story goes on, you'll know where to look for the next shot. 

Learn basic features

The most necessary features you need to learn in the early stages are basic cuts and transitions. Learn how to make precise cuts so that your video doesn't seem awkward. Clean cuts will maintain the flow of your clip.

Most video editing tools offer hundreds of transitions. It might be tempting to use an unusual one but it'd be better to stick to simple transitions. The most popular transitions are crossfade and dissolve. While using them, you'll see that your projects get a more professional look. 

Keep your story going

Teachers always tell students to have a beginning, middle, and end when writing an essay. And they tell it for a reason because without them your story won't be compelling or simply logical. The same goes for a video story.

You should also ask yourself what message you want to convey and what emotions you want to evoke. Those are the basics of storytelling. 

Amplify the experience with music

Most videos without any soundtrack or background music would seem boring. Your story is just as important as sound. Depending on the type of content, you can improve the experience with background music, voiceovers, or syncing audio.

For instance, if it's a cooking video, then some cheerful music in the background would be nice. Moreover, you can add sound effects like chopping or sizzling for engagement. 

Change the look of your clip with color grading

It might be beneficial to experiment with color grading if raw footage lacks brightness or contrast. However, don't overdo it. While correcting the picture, you can make your footage look more natural. 

Moreover, you can add creative looks. You can achieve a nostalgic vibe with warm tones or a futuristic feel with cool hues. Just enhance your shots, but don't distract viewers from the footage. 

Provide context if necessary

Let's say you make a motion picture about some historic event. Viewers won't be thrilled if you overload your movie with too much information. There should be as much information as the audience can easily perceive. However, if there are details important to the event, you can add them in the form of text or captions. Texts in videos should have simple fonts and they should be short.

Conclusion

You can add a touch of your creativity to a video project while you edit it. It might seem daunting at first. But as soon as you learn to do the basics, nothing will stop you from making flawlessly edited videos.

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