Digital Film Editing - First steps

Happy New Year from UK Video Skills Training!

With great digital editing packages out there suiting every budget everyone is 'having a go' and, in some cases, producing some great work. 

However for many people editing is their biggest nightmare so in this post I thought I'd look at some tips and tricks to make editing less daunting and much more fun.

1/ Before you even pick up a camera think what you want the end film to achieve. Using only one mic is fine if you want to create an authored piece where the interviewers voice is edited out. However what if you then decide it will make a great podcast you'll be kicking yourself in editing trying to splice in those pesky questions. Plan in pre-production not post-production!

2/ Film a variety of cutaways and short sequences – they'll only add a matter of minutes of your total filming time but will enable you to create a voiced package easily and get you out of a jam editing if you want to avoid jump cuts all over.

3/ When you import your footage make sure you spend time labelling each segment for example:
I/V – John Smith “What do you want to achieve”
I/V – John Smith “Why should people buy”
CU John reading
MS John reading
CU book
 WS Book

When it comes to the edit having a system will make it so much easier to deal with clips especially if it's a long edit. Everyone has their own labelling system – find one that works and stick to it.

4/ Save your video on a second hard drive – video slows down even the fastest computer.

5/ Organise your clips before you start editing once you've started editing do not move the clips until you've finished editing. Most editing systems do not import the actual video but point to the clip using a shortcut. If you move the clips after editing you will come up with various versions of “I can't find where you've moved the sodding media clip to!!!”

6/ Remember to delete auxiliary files – editing creates a huge amount of these temporary files.

7/ Watch as much as you can – you can learn how professionals edit (and film for that matter) but just watching how they've done it. Be realistic though. If you're filming lots of talking head interviews watch the news rather than French indy productions.

Above all once you've mastered editing remember less is more especially when it comes to those tempting transitions – there really is no excuse for the flying bird transition EVER!

Have fun experimenting