What to Do When Editing a Bad Video
New to the beautiful and terrifying world of video editing? Here are ten tips to reduce headaches and maximize your workflow.
As an editor who's been cutting for over a decade, there are a few things that I often see new editors get wrong—fairly regularly. This is mostly because when you get started, you don't even know what you don't know.
So, I thought I'd share ten quick tips on a couple things to avoid to really improve the quality of your work. I've included four tips on organization, three on audio, and three more on assorted other topics.
1. Messy Bins
One of the most important work habits you can develop as an editor is organizing in such a way that, if necessary, another editor could sit down in front of your project, recognize the latest sequence, and start cutting on their own. Finding things should be intuitive and logical.
So, keep the bins inside your project well-organized, and maintain the same logical system for your backups on an external hard drive. Make sure you copy all downloads, screen grabs, and imported files to this hard drive, as well.
It's frustrating to open a project and find files are offline and the source path is on the desktop or system downloads folder. So, save yourself some extra work.
2. Helping Your Timeline
Keeping an orderly timeline makes it easy to find clips and keep your sequences organized. This "cherry picked" timeline is just one more way to keep your footage orderly.
No matter the scale of your project, it's easy to let your cuts and sequences get out of hand.
So, to keep things in order, here are a few rules I try to stick to:
- Name your tracks.
- Keep each component on its specific track.
- Use and maintain color coding for different clip types.
- Don't leave random junk at the end of your timeline.
3. Saving Your Timeline
This next one is fairly simple—make sure your work has been backed up properly.
So, let's go over how to do this:
- Make a copy of your editing timeline.
- Name it clearly.
Normally the * (or an empty space in a file name) means that the named clip or timeline will sort to the top of the bin when arranged in alphabetical order. So, adding the date into the name of the timeline quickly lets you see which sequence is the most recent.
This is just a simple way to make sure you know where your work is at all times. The dates are good too for projects that are long-term and you'll need to come back to.
See how easy that was? Moving on.
4. No Autosave/Project Back-up
Closely related to what we just discussed is making sure to set up your autosave preferences to save at a regular interval (say every five to seven minutes), so that if your computer crashes, you don't lose too much work. I obviously don't need to tell you how important it is to save your work, especially while working in Premiere.
Most NLEs default to either deactivating the autosave or saving in intervals that are too far apart. In fifteen to twenty minutes, I've made too many decisions, fine adjustments, and major changes to lose all that work. So, I need the software to save more often.
The first thing I do when I start working on a new system is check the autosave (and levels of "undo") preferences. Then, I can have some peace of mind and get started on the project.
5. Audio Pops
Another bad editing giveaway is clips and pops in the audio. These happen when someone makes an edit but doesn't join the audio signal at the zero crossing point, so you get a jump in signal between the two sides of the edit and a slight click or pop.
The easiest and fastest way to get smooth audio transitions between all your clips is to set your default audio transition to about two frames. Select your entire audio edit and hit Add Default Transition.
In the video above, Zach Ramelan from PremiumBeat walks us through some potential reasons you get these audio pops, and how to fix it in Premiere.
This one-size-fits-all approach might not work in every area of your edit, depending on what you've got going on, but it's a solid start that you can finesse later.
6. Lackluster Audio Mixing
One of the best ways to keep up the energy and emotion in your audio mix is to bring up your music in the quiet spots, and drop it down when you need to hear someone talking.
But, make sure you transition the volume switch accordingly using Premiere's Audio Transition effects. This just blends the two volumes together so there's not a jarring volume bump or drop.
There's also the issue of noisy audio. So, let's look at how you can approach this problem and fix any unwanted sounds in a matter of seconds.
I made this tutorial a few years back. but the process still works today for any Premiere user.
7. Not Enough Music Edits
It's no secret that the overall pacing of video content has sped up. Video edits tend to be faster because people's attention span is lower because there's already too much content—blah blah blah—you know the deal. So, how does this translate for you, as a video editor?
Faster cuts is the obvious answer, but also, switching the music cues up every fifteen to sixty seconds is a smart way to keep the pace flowing, and hopefully help you retain your audience's attention. Hopefully.
The video I've included above is an older video but I think it's still relevant. There are some editing tropes out there, specifically when it comes to editing trailers. But, it's a good lesson for how you think about using audio to keep the pace moving at a digestible speed.
It might feel like they're all from the same track, but there's no doubt that it's a complex music edit that creates seamless transitions between the sections of the narrative, and delivers the necessary level of emotion and intensity throughout the video.
Taking the time to find the correct piece of music for each section of your edit, then seamlessly weaving them together will sound a lot better than a one-track-slap-and-run.
8. Bad Title Design
Continuing this list of crimes and misdemeanors of new editors, we come to bad title design. I think of title design and fonts in the same vein as audio. If it's good, you don't notice it. But, if it's bad, it sticks out like a sore thumb. It's totally a thing and you probably see at least one example of it every day.
While good or bad creative design sometimes just comes down to someone's personal taste, there are a few rules of thumb to look out for and keep in mind when creating and looking for fonts and titles to use.
Here are a few things to watch out for:
- Spelling mistakes.
- Difficult to read text (lack of shadow, background, or poor font choice). Make sure the colors you use contrast with the background in a visible way. Always think about Suicide Squad.
- Overly large font sizing.
- Misplaced text (for example, too close to the edge of the screen). Always consider how your viewers or clients will be seeing this for the first time.
If in doubt, stick to one font (the client's font), and keep it small, discreet, and short.
Or, just check out our stacked library of free assets that just so happens to include a plethora of free animated titles and fonts, just for you.
9. Incorrect Codecs and Frame Rates
These days, most editing applications try to make your life easier as an editor by taking care of codecs and frame rates for you. It's usually only when something goes wrong that a new editor realizes you can't just chuck anything on a timeline and expect smooth sailing. Especially when productions give you a mishmash of different formats and codecs.
Mixing frame rates on a timeline might mean that your multi-camera shoot won't sync up, or you might see strobing or stuttering or strange motion artifacts. This isn't anything new, as dealing with frame rates is just an expected part of editing. But, once you start getting into bigger projects, having a good foundation for understanding the whys of it all will help you approach your project in a helpful way.
Also, if you've got a hodgepodge of codecs, resolutions, and file formats, the resulting image quality will be all over the place. Read up on a few of the basics, such as what the manual of your chosen NLE has to say about best practices regarding codecs, timelines, file formats, and supported frame rates.
10. Dedicate Yourself to the Craft
While "Dedicate Yourself to the Craft" can sound painfully superficial and watered down, there's something to be said about truly going "all in" on learning a new craft. There are a few things you know right now—you're not a master video editor, you're new to these specific programs, and you want to do this full time.
So, just know that it's okay to not be amazing, or that it's okay to be uncomfortable working in these editing programs. It'll take time. It'll happen gradually. But, trust the process and don't be afraid to make mistakes. Just try weird stuff, see what happens.
The best editors in the world all started out where you are. It's a craft and it deserves slow, focused time dedicated to it.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Good luck out there, sport.
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Cover image via zhao dongfang.
What to Do When Editing a Bad Video
Source: https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/10-video-editing-mistakes-avoid