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Here are some more video editing tips that will enhance the value and content of your video.
Make People Look Good – If you have already taken videos and shots of people, you know the problem of first, getting them to agree to be filmed and second, to get them to act naturally or speak in a natural tone of voice. While editing, it is your prerogative that you do not make anyone look bad in it such that they regret allowing you to film them.
Edit all kinds of fumbling, stumbling, bloopers, etc. of people you have shot. You must endeavor to make everyone look so nice in your video that they will all clamor to feature in your next video as well. Do not hesitate to use tools to cover up mishaps of people during your video shoot:
Focus on the Story - Your editing process should flow in such a way that the shots should fit into a seamless smooth story with no sense of being disjointed or broken. If you do not focus on the way the story is moving during your editing process, you will definitely lose the attention of your audience. Your audience is not interesting in technique, tools, and other resources you have used to edit. If the story fails to capture and hold the attention of the audience, then nothing of the sophisticated tools you may have used for your editing process will have any value.
Edit on the action parts of the shots - While there are plenty of lulling and dulling moments that you will definitely need to cut out, you also need to focus special attention to cut on action scenes. You must keep the action parts as crisp as possible. Even if it means catching the eye movement of someone in the video, you must cut at both the start and finish of the movement so that there is absolutely nothing irrelevant remaining in your video. Lean editing is the only way you will get a tight video that is focused only on the story and leaves all else out.
Ensure your cuts are fast - Learn by looking at other videos. You will notice that any video that spends a moment longer than necessary on any element, you become thoroughly bored. No matter how cute the baby looks or how luscious the girl’s hair looks or how beautiful the scene of the setting sun is, if the shot lingers even for a moment longer than needed, you are bound to lose your audience.
This is especially for making vlogs. Do not hesitate to cut down parts that are totally irrelevant to your content. If you think you are looking very pretty and hold that beautiful profile of yours a little longer, your audience is gone. Indulge in your own time and not in your audience’s time. Respect that and you will find cutting easier than otherwise.
Edit to music - No matter what kind of video you have shot, an apt background score put in at the editing phase can do wonders for it. There is rhythm in every aspect of human life. There is a rhythm in the way we talk, in the way we nod our heads, in the way we blink, and more. Do not underestimate the power of music to enhance the quality of your video.
Choose good music. Listen to it first. Understand its dynamics, its peaks, and its lows. If you think the music fits your video, then ensure the scenes and climaxes are rightly matched with the upbeats and downbeats of the music. The right kind of music at the right place can calm or bring up anger in the minds of the audience depending on what is needed.
Cut, cut, and cut – Be ruthless about cutting everything that has no relevance to your video. A large part of your shooting will actually be needed to cut to get a video that will be valued by your audience. However, when you cut, it is important to prevent ‘jumps’ between scenes and shots. The cuts must not make the audience think that something has been left out deliberately. Cut-a-way is a professional cover up that editors use to prevent these jumps from appearing in the video or film. Here are some cut-a-way tips for you:
Continuity – This is a shot that is used to cover up cuts so that your story does not jump between the cuts. The cover shot is referred to as continuity. It is imperative that the cover shot you use for continuity makes sense to the story of your video. Else, your video will appear abnormal or strange.
Close-up cut-a-way – This technique is good for use in an interview. Use a cover shot of the speaker which is focused on the individual’s lips. A shot of the hands is a great concept. Hands gestures can be very expressive. If this shot is in the same line as the face of the speaker, then the cut-a-way cover up will be perfect in the final video.
Cut to an object in the room – This works just like the close-up cut-a-way except that this is an object in the room. It could be a clock on the wall or a cat that is sleeping in the chair close by. The critical thing here is that this cut-a-way object must have been introduced somewhere earlier. If you take the clock on the wall as an example, then an earlier shot should have shown this clock, perhaps, in a long shot. It is important to establish the connection of the cut-a-way object to the video so that the audience does not feel disconnected with it suddenly appears as part of the editing cover up.
Listening Shot – This cut-a-way shot is one that shows another person who is listening to the speaker. This person could be the interviewer, someone from the audience, or even a bystander. Again, it is important to establish the fact that this video has other people in the scene before you bring in this listening cut-a-way shot.
Advancing the story cut-a-way shot – This shot takes the story forward. For example, if a mother is talking about her child, a cut-a-way shot of the child is a great idea for the advancing shot. Or, if a reporter is working on the scene of an accident, the headlights of an ambulance can be a great advance shot.
For these cut-a-way shots, it is important to cut and not use other transition options such as dissolving, wiping etc. that are available in your editing system. Cutting the shots makes it appear happening in real-time for the audience. A dissolve option will tell the viewer that time has elapsed or a fading to black option will tell the viewer that this scene is over and something new is happening which is contrary to what you want to do. Therefore, use only cuts for cut-a-way shots.
Transition Options in Video Editing
The Fade – This is typically used at the end or even the beginning of a video or a film. A ‘fade in’ typically starts with a black background in which the scene slowly emerges and becomes visible. On the other hand, a ‘fade out’ is one in which a visible scene fades into black or any other solid color such as red or dark blue. These fades are used to wrap up one storyline to move on to the next giving the audience the opportunity to process what happened previously.
The Wipe – This rather vintage transition method starts with a line or a shape like a diamond, circle, or diagonal. This line or shape moves across the screen ‘wiping’ away the previous scene. If you want to give your video a vintage profile, then this might work well.
The Cut – This is the most basic form of moving from one scene to another. In fact, this technique simply leads the audience from one scene to another stitching together all the scenes to create a moving picture. However, you can use ‘jump cuts’ and other innovative forms of cuts to increase the intensity of a particular scene or to deliberately create a surreal moment in your video.
The L-Cut – This is a very useful transition method used in editing wherein you can jump from one shot to another while still playing the audio from the previous shot. This technique is useful during a conversation when someone is talking and you are shifting the visuals to shots of other people who are listening without breaking the dialogues. For this, you keep one character talking while you bring in shots of other actors through splicing. Many of today’s editing software applications allow you to do this very easily.
The Dissolve – This is a transition method that superimposes two scenes wherein the first one ends and the next one begins. Many editing software applications like iMovie and Final Cut Pro even allow you to tweak the speed and intensity of the dissolve so that you can match it to the needs of the video. For example, slow dissolves are great to symbolize thoughts, memories, or dreams.
