Video Editing Tips

There are a lot of factors that have to be satisfied from which none is actually accomplished but satisfying most will result in a decent length of film. Do plan ahead for the planning allows you to get to know the area and gets you to find the best places to take shots from. It might not have anything to do with editing but it sure helps with the amount of material you need for that perfectly edited video. If you are going to film solemn moments like baptisms, weddings and other formal activities, do plan to go to the venue so you can familiarize yourself with the person who is in charge (priest, rabbi….) so you get to introduce yourself. Try to establish a rapport so you get to ask the do’s and don’ts of the ceremony. You get to show respect and are allowed to film during the event itself without getting thrown out as a nuisance.

Ask any professional videographer and they would always tell you that for a 2-hour length of processed video, they would have taken more than twice that and from all the best angles. Also, most videographer work in teams from two to more depending on the price for they allow the coverage of events from all angles, a relevant and important shot may suddenly have the subjects move in a way that the view of one camera is obscured with another to take over giving the shot continuity. You can overcome this by combining video with still shots as fill in’s to prevent gaps or jumps from scene to scene and venue to venue. There should also be a lot of shots of the background and venues well before the event for not even the celebrants get to see the in their full splendor.

After investing in all the necessary hardware and equipment, you need to determine the software you would wish to base your work on, they come in several versions from dedicated ones or so-called proprietary formats and general or free ones that are free for all to use. The best software might be to expensive for the home video buff so invest in a manageable piece of software that is easy to use and easy on the wallet. Decent free ones are found from the internet that even have free updates available for download on regular intervals. There might be a bit of trial and error when you begin which is okay for it familiarizes you with the capabilities of your system.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

The software you choose as your platform may have a lot of hidden features that may escape your attention the first time round. Learning to do the basics such as cutting and pasting scenes is good but for effects, each and every editing software product has their own strengths and weaknesses. Try to learn something new about the software as you get confident with it. Some have transition effects that allow the insertion of other scenes to gaps and some allow you to totally change the type of footage (removing elements from the frames say an ugly flower in the middle of a perfect shot replacing it with something from another shoot or photo libraries). These types of operations can be maximized better for video camera’s already come with nifty effects (black and white, panoramic, time lapsed, fast action settings and more). Your software too has a ton of these features that allows shifting from shot to shot better and softer, not giving you that jarring motion that shocks you every time you shift from shot to shot.

After finishing the editing process, you then have to translate so-to-speak, the raw video into the format you wish to become your final product. In the case of DVD’s which can hold up to 4 Gigabytes of footage data along with all the support files (audio and others) they have to be converted to the DVD format which takes from as little to 4 hours to 10 hours depending on the length of film. In doing this, disable all background tasks such as anti-virus and disconnect you internet connection so you disable all the distractions that can cause spikes in the processor use. The conversion/encoding process takes a lot of computing power so any disturbances to the processor during this critical step results in hick-ups or gaps in the final product.