Well, let that not dishearten you. There are great ways to make a video editing process easy, fast and fun, and in this article, we have listed out the best ones.
1. Stay Off Free Online Editors
For someone who is new to video editing, free online video editors seem a very lucrative option. While they are great for trimming and adding effects to small videos meant for Instagram Stories or Facebook videos, they do not have the necessary feature-set needed for processing high-resolution videos. Because at the end of the day, free online editors are well, free. That means you’ll most likely end up making compromises when it comes to adding filters, transitions and even fine-tuning the audio. Moreover, most of these editors often add a watermark. With a custom watermark image, you can imagine how the outcome will shape up. To add to it, you don’t know where the uploaded videos might end up. Though many editors do claim to delete the videos after a specified time, there’s no way to ensure that. Hence, if you really want to create great videos, the first step is to stay away from the online video editors.
2. Get a Simple and Resourceful Video Editor
If you are new to video editing or you are someone who creates videos as side projects, it goes without saying that investing in an expensive video editing suite doesn’t make sense. The best option is to get your hands on a simple and resourceful video editor to save you money and time. That’s when investing in tools such as VideoProc is more practical. This tool is designed to process 4K and similar high-resolution videos from action cameras and smartphones. Its hardware acceleration feature harnesses the true power of your graphics card to render videos faster and post-process them smoothly. It retains the quality while rendering a smaller output file. VideoProc also bundles many tools such as Trim, Merge, Deshake, and Resize, among others. Moreover, features like Subtitle, Watermark, and Effects, will help you foray into video editing an uncomplicated affair.
3. Learn Keyboard Shortcuts
One of the best ways to fasten up the editing process is to master the keyboard shortcuts to save time in the long run. After all, stopping for every cut, zoom, or selection, going back and forth between menus and sub-menus is nothing but a waste of time and effort. If it’s a short clip, then it’s somewhat understandable. For full-fledged videos, you’ll end up losing precious time doing repetitive things. One of the best ways to memorize keyboard shortcuts is to place a keyboard layout (with the shortcuts) at your desk. Every time you are tempted to click on the File menu, take a look at the cutout and use a shortcut instead.
4. Categorize Files Cleverly
The key to a faster, easier and fun editing process lies in your organization skills. Imagine the hard work involved if you have your audio and video files scattered all over the place between your laptop, desktop, and storage media. The trick here is to arrange all the files into respective bins or folders before you start the actual editing process. For instance, all of your video footage (B-rolls & A-rolls) will go under the video bin, and background music and audio clips will go under the audio bin. Similarly, you can arrange your graphics files, project files and images into specific folders. As you may have already guessed, this process not only will help you streamline your work but will also save you from the unnecessary hassles of searching for a particular file.
5. Search for Music Directly on YouTube Rather than Google
Whether it’s a narrative video or a short clip, music is a crucial part of any video. Wrong music can not only put off many but also tarnish its intent. So, it’s imperative that you choose the right track for your video clips. However, this is easier said than done. Truth be told, landing on the right music track is challenging even though there are scores of royalty free tracks. One of the most efficient way to search for free and copyright-free music is to search for it on YouTube directly instead of Googling for it. This way, you can browse through the tracks faster. Also, you won’t see the usual bunch of copyright tracks or paid tracks cropping up on the search query.
6. Go over the Rough Cut Multiple Times
Another point to keep in mind is to make the rough cut (first draft) according to the story which you imagined. The key to an easy editing process is to cut down on the fluff. And it’s best not to overdo stuff such as adding too many transition effects or sound effects in the initial stages where you know that there will be a lot of tailoring in the later revisions. Another fundamental aspect of video editing is to go through the rough cut multiple times to see if you can tweak it further. That works even if you are on a tight schedule.
7. Understand the Role of Video and Audio Codecs
Lastly, understanding the role of video and audio codecs is a fundamental part of video making and editing. The trick is to choose a codec which reduces the file size without resulting in loss of quality. Plus, the final render takes lesser bandwidth. That is extremely useful when you want to share videos with your followers directly or when uploading them on the video sharing platforms. HEVC and H.264 are some of the most popular lossless video codecs. The H.264 codec is considered to be about twice as fast than the conventional MPEG-4. Tools like VideoProc give you the option of picking the format and the codec. So you can select between formats and codecs such as MP4 and HEVC, MPEG-4 and MP4, and more. The same can be said about audio as well, where you get to choose from formats like MP3, AAC, AC3, and WAV.
Get Ready for Great Storytelling
Video editing is tailoring and polishing the storytelling in a much different way. As opposed to popular belief, it isn’t rocket science, but with the correct approach, it becomes a perfect craft. With the right tool and an equally able computer, you can make video editing fun and easy.
