I would suggest that this video is vital to anyone that has heir basic shooting and editing tools under control.
You will find lots of advice on the internet about how to cut and all the different types of cuts you can use.
However most of them fall short when it comes down to the finer details of why you make a cut, when to make the cut and how you should be making those cuts.
The bottom line is that every cut decision you make will either hold your audience or cause them to momentarily drift off.
If you do the latter too many times, they leave for good and that’s not a good thing!
The following two videos from the folks at Filmora are on a subject that is one of my pet peeves when it comes to video tutorials.
The term “Cinematic” gets bandied about as if one trick, effect or whatever is going to achieve that look when it fact any pro editor or director never thinks to themselves, “Ooh! I want to make this look cinematic!”
The reality of what is being referred to here is a number of decisions and choices that ultimately lead to what we may call, Cinematic.
There are two parts to the series and it is all well worth watching.
Although this is a quite straightforward explanation of some of the ways you can cut your footage in PowerDirector, there is an underlying lesson to be learned.
What you should become aware of as you edit more and more is there will be a certain type of cutting that you tend to apply way more than any other.
This often comes down to personal style, your particular workflow or even the type of project you tend to work on the most.
Regardless of how it becomes your “go to” method of cutting you should, once noted, look at the action and work out if there is a keyboard shortcut you can use to carry out that function.
You will be shocked at the amount of time you can save by doing that.
A feature that is pretty much common to all decent video editing software programs these days is the ability to apply LUTs.
However if you are relatively new to video editing then when the marketing people tell you that you can use LUTs it is basically a meaningless statement!
In the video below you can get a simple explanation of what a LUT actually is and how you can use them in your own projects.
This is another great example of thinking outside the box when it comes to apply effects and using tools in your software.
This one is in PowerDirector using the texture effects to apply a “look” to existing footage.
That’s fine in itself but check out how at the end he shows how to use the opacity keyframing to transition the effect given the fact that transitions do not actually work with these effects.
It used to be that creating a Time Lapse video was a pretty complex and somewhat clunky process.
The limitations of the software back in the day meant that you really had to have your ducks in a row before starting and even then crashes were almost inevitable!
These days most editing software can handle the process with relative ease.
Here’s a run through of creating a time lapse with both video and still images in the Movavi Video Editor.
One stat that I can never really wrap my head around is that most people watching videos on YouTube and similar platforms are doing so without audio!
I really have no idea what those people are thinking but then again, maybe I am just showing my age.
Anyway regardless of why that is happening it brings sharply into focus the absolute need for adding subtitles to your videos to retain engagement.
Most editing software these days has introduced A.I. based transcription tools which allow you to then automatically add subtitles.
Here’s a demo of how it is done in the Movavi Video Editor.
I think most people that start a YouTube channel have dreams (delusions?) of growing that channel into a massive cash cow affording them the “creator lifestyle!”
The reality of actually doing that is usually hidden by a gazillion “How to” video offering one trick solutions to one particular aspect of the process… and usually a $30 course!
Of course none of them actually cover the full scope of what it takes to ramp up to that sixe.
Here’s a video from the guys at Primal Video who have 1.8 million subscribers showing exactly what it takes to manage and run a channel of that size.
Like most activities we all engage in there is an expectation with video editing that as you progress, learn and become familiar with the basic actions, things should get simpler.
However it is often the case that in fact as you progress, things get longer and way more tedious!
That is largely due to the fact that as you do learn, you begin to add more and more tools to your arsenal and more complexity to your projects.
As a result editing doesn’t get faster, it gets slower and more time consuming!
The missing ingredient here in almost every case is the lack of a system or set pattern by which you approach and deal with your projects.
Here’s some sage advice from Casey on the subject and he makes a great case for working out a system and sticking to it.
In most editing software the way you either zoom in or zoom out on a clip is by using keyframes.
You set a keyframe at a particular zoom level or none at some point then move to the next point, adjust the zoom and set another keyframe.
However in Resolve there is actually a tool that will actually automatically do that for you.
Here’s how.
This is a bit of a deep dive session done by Daniel focussed specifically on the subject of noise reduction in Da Vinci Resolve.
In the Fairlight page of Resolve you have access to some pretty sophisticated tools for this purpose.
However as is the case with everything in Resolve, you have to know what you are doing to take advantage of those tools.
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