10 Commandments for Video Editors

Here are all the main rules that will help you make your work easier and make video editing much faster and more interesting.

At the beginning of our creative path in video editing, we made the same mistakes over and over again. And, maybe, we’re still doing it. That is why you should know about these 10 commandments for video editors and follow them to save your time and get real pleasure from your work.

1. Pre-production is an important part of the work

You need to devote enough time to the preparation stage to avoid questions and thoughts such as "Where should I put this piece of footage?". Therefore, choose the audio, cut it into percussive parts and make a pre-animatic. So, this is not fast, but it’ll significantly speed up your editing.

2. The project should have its own structure

Spend 5 minutes of your time creating folders and subfolders for the main files: footages, sequences and music. The best option is to create a template for such a project. If you copy it, only the name will change. This will help you avoid chaos among the pile of materials and save time.

3. Don't get sidetracked

If you understand that it will take you at least an hour to cut the footages, then reduce all external factors to a minimum. Turn off the sound on your phone, forget about social networks and about the most important correspondence. Every time you pay attention to a notification - you drop out of the process. And then you'll have to remember at what stage you've stopped. And you can get distracted more than once, and not twice, so you’ll lose a lot of time.

4. Don’t forget about autosave

Of course, the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+S is good. But sometimes we get very carried away with the editing process, and our computer or Adobe Premiere crashes at the most important moment. All the work is wasted, and the desire to start all over again is zero. So, put an autosave every 5-10 minutes to avoid these sad situations.

5. Editing shouldn't become a routine

The profession of an editor is creative, which shouldn't be forgotten. As soon as you feel that the editing process begins to become an endless stream, then you should make small changes. Add color correction, motion design, external animated elements and make a Hollywood sound design, even if you have a simple video blog. Diversify your work to avoid boredom.

6. Follow the pipeline

If you have taken up one thing, then bring it to the end. If you cut the footages, cut them to the end. If you've taken up color correction, then forget about sound design and other things until you're done. We spend a lot of effort to get to the bottom of things when we're switching from task to task.

7. Learn

In this area, you need to constantly learn new things and improve your skills. Almost every month a new update is released, new editing techniques and tools appear. So, keep up with the times to remain competitive in the market.

8. Follow the dynamics

The principle of "Roller coasters" works here. This is a great way to make the viewer feel emotions, even if a dynamic plot wasn't originally planned in your video. How to start? It's simple. You can first find an appropriate audio. It's important to work with these details on the pre-production.

9. Use the keyboard

You save a huge amount of time when you use hotkeys. You should learn them from the very beginning of mastering a new editing program. If you find some command inconvenient, then reassign it to other keys. But the most important thing is to use them. Firstly, it will be slow and difficult, but then your fingers will quickly remember everything and automatically reach for the necessary hotkeys.

10. Check the export settings

Let's say you have saved a lot of time by using all the editing commandments. Your project is ready. You just need to click "render" and wait for it to finish. Then the file is done, you turn it on and get terrible result: there is no sound, video in 1080 quality, instead of 4K, and the bitrate is about 10Mbit\s. Imagine that it was a big interview that has been rendered for 2 hours. And you couldn't use your computer at that moment. So, please take the time to check the export settings.

Here are all the main rules that will help you make your work easier and make video editing much faster and more interesting. Learn them by heart and use them!

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