Video Editing Tips

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If video editing sounds like an appealing job, there are a few stuffs you must bear in mind and learn before you take your first steps into the field:

The first thing to consider before you get on on your video editing career is training. Across the country there are a variety of schools and universities that have curriculums which focuses on enhancing one’s video editing techniques and skills. These courses are proposed to teach students the proper usage and application of a number of different digital video editing programs.

The next thing to remember is to make professional business connections. Broadcasting, whether it is in film, television or radio is all about who you know. It’s intricate to make a name for you in any professional field, and it’s especially true in the field of broadcasting. Due to the fact that film and video editing jobs rely deeply on the principles of what you know and how well you can adjust to new programs and techniques, entry level jobs are few and far between.

The final piece of advice is that don’t be afraid of experimenting with new techniques. If all editors followed the alike guide for creating a film, the industry would never progress.It is important to take risks at times and try to include the technology and your own skill in a way which that have not been done previous to.

If the processor is not able to handle such speeds frames or parts of your picture may be lost in the copy process. The memory and processor must also work in tandem at a certain speed to allow seamless editing and processing of video data in the production of the final product. As you edit your video and start combining them into the finished product, you would see that it occupies quite a huge amount of disk space for one, windows uses a swap file or a file where most frequently used information is stored onto the hard disk and treated as memory and two as the video editing/creation process is done, the editing software will use/create a temporary file as it integrates and compiles so to speak all the various elements (video, audio and effects) into the finished product.

As stated in the previous pages, decide on what you want to do which would have bearing on the amount of cash you�ll have to shell out for the required equipment. Video capture cards come from 100 to thousands of bucks each depending on the need. Memory, storage (hard disk) and processor (possibly the whole computer if desired to eliminate compatibility problems) will also cost quite a bit. You do not need the latest most expensive processors but something that can deliver respectable performance for video editing software are quite demanding on them. A good Gig or two of memory would also be nice along with a monitor that would be convenient and easy to work on. When these issues are resolved, then you are ready to begin.

After you burn your DVD and after a few hours of waiting for it, you are left with a copy or mirror of the project on your hard disk. This can amount to a lot of wasted files if you do not need them and deleting them would result in a seemingly miraculous amount of space. But if you do want to burn projects again and again, say after the preview is accepted and approved you have to burn a couple more of the final cut, you might want to have them in a safe place so you don’t have to convert and wait another couple of hours for a single copy. The mirror file has all the required information for your projects and it is used by the software to derive data fro the burning process. Without it, you can copy the master you’ve just made but lose it and you start over again.

A well edited film can have a narrator (with a nice voice of course) discussing th shot or the events that are understanding. But not all narrations have to be dead serious for they can liven up a rather lengthy piece of film turning it into a highlight. Narrations are placed over the audio tracks of shots which don’t have the perfect combinations of shot and voice (say you were a couple of hundred feet away from the shot and you’re zoom was already maxed out not to say your audio). The narration can carry on and voiceover is easily done with editing software. A nifty trick to get the same audio levels as with your shots is to use the video camera to record the narration so you get the same sound levels and the same quality as with the original ones.

To make your video more appealing and professional-like write a script so you get to have a guide to use and follow as you go along. If you intend to do this as a business, you can even have storyboards done to attain that smooth flow of video your work is to follow allowing you to come up with professional work. Stick to it and avoid skipping scenes too fast to maintain the proper storyline. It makes for good video as long as you get that smooth flow of ideas.

Transferring analog tapes to digital form can take some creative thinking but the best way we’ve seen to give the best output is by using the old digital camcorder. Have the lens cap on so you prevent accidental recording of footage you don’t need. If your camera won’t allow it set it in a quiet room where no one is present to mess up the process. You can also use nifty techniques like the one I used to do for capturing taped sounds, by using a couple of pillows on the bed I set up the recorder and player within cancelling most of the background noise and vibrations from the floors from getting into the recorded audio.

If you wish to have some archival footage included with your digital video, then you might have to do some copying from the old VHS player to your choice of either using a video capture card or your digital camcorder as conversion and recorder. The process has you setting up your VHS player to send out the composite signal sending it to the video and audio into the input jacks on your PC or camcorder. The nice thing about using a camcorder is that you end up with digital video and audio after you record the input from the tape masters with no more conversions for the PC sending it through the Firewire port ready for editing.

Effects and many more sounds can be used easily and audio conversion tools are widely available. Audio files can come in WAV, MP3 or other digital forms that may be too hard to manage so get a couple and convert them one day when you are not doing anything and save them onto a CD for quick retrieval. If you are doing a lot of commercial or business video’s, better get some free stuff or you’ll end up in the slammer for Intellectual rights violations. There are a lot of easily downloadable volumes of audio files that come straight off the net or you could order them for a fee. The good thing about the ones you order is that they are generally categorized and grouped saving you time as you look for appropriate tracks to go with your video.

Editing can be so enjoyable that most often than not, the basic act of saving your work is forgotten and a power spike that trips the surge suppressor sends your editing work in progress into video heaven. Save your work as often as you like and you can even set your program to save your work from time to time. If you have a ton of available space on your hard drive, you can save the work in progress in two files (one is the backup and the other is the copy of the last save). After importing the file, it would also be wise to have a copy so don’t have to re-import the file if you end up messing up your work. The back-up saves you time and it would also be nice to back-up unfinished work onto a RW CD or DVD so you have a spare of the one you have on your hard disk.