Framing, Backgrounds, the Rule of Thirds and More
I often see people struggling with setting up a shot especially for a YouTube talking head type video.
They have trouble working out how to frame the shot, where the bodies in the shot should go and what the background should look like.
A lot of that struggle comes from not really knowing what is important and what isn’t when it comes to what the viewer sees in the frame.
In this video Kevin covers a few of these points and importantly, explains from the viewers point of view what you should be doing.
Edit Shorts Like a YouTube Star
I particularly wanted to include this video for the Friday Roundup because just recently I was having trouble with this exact problem.
One of the creators I edit for has been in the past relatively successful in creating and getting views for short form content.
Then about two weeks ago it all suddenly stopped.
We looked for all sorts of possible reasons but really couldn’t come up with anything that stood out as the cause.
Finally we just went back to basics and re-worked everything from start to finish, from scripting to uploading and made sure we were sticking to the right formula.
Eventually we found there was no one single cause, it was just a few things that had dropped out and once we got it all back on track, everything was fine.
If your short content is struggling maybe this one can help.
What’s New in Premiere Elements 2025?
Well it seems that Adobe have finally started to wake up a bit and pay some attention to the more consumer level video editing world with Premiere Elements 2025.
I have had a review of Elements on this site for a few years now because at a pinch it was usually a safe bet for video editing.
Having said that I must point out I have never had it listed as anything particularly special but it always got the job done.
Well all of that seems to have changed with Adobe Premiere Elements 2025 with a complete overhaul of the interface, some excellent new features and a few of the more advanced features from Premiere Pro finding their way into the program.
Here’s a quick look at it.
25 Best FREE Video Editing Websites for 2025: Ultimate Assets Pack
Over the years I have found and lost a gazillion websites that offered free assets that I could use in my video projects.
Most of these sites tended to come and go over the course of what seems to be an average lifespan of about a year.
In fact I just checked my Chrome Bookmarks under “Images” for my list of free image sites and there were about 50 sites in there!
When I went through them… only about ten remained!
All the others were not just gone but the domanis were for sale as well!
So if you are totally cheap like me and hate paying for stuff then this is the video for you!
This is a relatively up to date list of sites offering assets you can use in your projects for free.
Wanna Edit Faster? Customize Your Toolbar – PowerDirector
One thing that you will notice the more you get into editing videos is that there will be certain actions that you will find yourself repeating over and over.
Given that the average person learns to edit mainly using the mouse to point, click, drag and drop, those repetitive actions become quite tedious very fast!
Of course that’s where keyboard shortcuts come in and they really are the keys to maintaining your sanity.
However there another step by which you can take things even further.
That step is to begin customizing your workspace in the program you are using to better suit the way you are editing.
So instead of being a monkey adapting to your environment, you become a human and adapt the environment to suit yourself!
In the video below you can see one type of customization you can do in PowerDirector which I think really sets it apart from many others.
You can actually customize the toolbar to change depending on the type of media you are working on.
How to Make Thumbnails for YouTube Videos Using AI Image Generator – PowerDirector
I guess this could be useful for someone… somewhere… sometime?
It’s one of the newer AI features in PowerDirector that lets you combine your own image with a text prompt to generate a new image.
To me a lot of the AI stuff is kinda cool to watch in action but in practice… meh, not so much.
Audio Visualizer using Reactor in DaVinci Resolve
This is a demonstration of one of the effects you can use in DaVinci Resolve from Reactor.
Reactor is a free plugin for Resolve that comes with a boatload of effects you can apply in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways.
In this one you can see how to use it to make a logo “react” to the music track being played in the project.
Video Inside Text in DaVinci Resolve 19 (Free Version Tutorial)
This is just a quick tutorial in DaVinci Resolve showing how to create that “see through” text effect.
Along the way it also show some of the controls inside those modules and its worth taking note of them as you follow along.
As you would expect in Resolve there are a great many ways you can control the effect to make it work exactly how you want.
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