Five Video Editing Tips
It’s been a good long while since I’ve posted any updates to Spazeboy’s Guide to Videoblogging (though after about 6 months, I think it’s aged well), but I wanted to share these five tips that I picked up from Chris Pirillo’s blog. I’ll list the main points of the tips below, but you should click through for the elaboration:
- Tighten your edit
- Make text readable
- Turn down the music
- Cut out the “fillers”
- Don’t use wipes
There is plenty more about those tips here.
I made some similar points in my guide, emphasizing that shorter is better. Think about the videos you like to watch. For me, if there’s a long drawn out set-up, then the video had better deliver. If you get some good political video of Senator XYZ saying something outrageous, your video should cut to the chase. The Macaca video is a good example of this. It’s barely a minute long, and it provides enough context to make its point.
I’m sure that George Allen said at least four more minutes worth of stupid crap at that event, and even if just the dumb bits were strung together it would have been too long.
It also has some nice readable text right at the beginning of the video.
When it comes to turning down the music, I think the videos I made for the Jim Himes 4th Quarter Pub Quiz exemplify that quite well. You’ll notice that the background music is cut during the “video clips” portion of the trivia. This makes those portions of the video easier to hear and understand.
However, background music has a place. In the same pub quiz trivia videos, the question and intro portions of the video would have been quite bland and perhaps even make them seem longer than they really were.
The fillers tip is self-explanatory, but I think the tip about not using wipe transitions is a matter of personal preference. I happen to agree that transition effects (wipes, page curls, etc.) can be very easily abused, and I personally find them annoying. Use them sparingly, or at least ironically.
If you have any video tips, or video pet peeves and pitfalls that aspiring video editors should avoid, leave them in the comments.
Great tip about the non-use of wipes, or indeed ANY “fancy” transitions. They tend to get overused and annoying very quickly.
I prefer a quick fade-out/fade-in when I need a transition. My video program defaults to a four-second fade out/in, which is WAY too long for most quick internet videos. I usually reduced them to not much more than a second, which is enough to signify the end of one scene and the beginning of another.
A “fancy” transition can be used to good effect, but only sparingly. Try to keep your video simple, concise, and fast-paced, and let the content do the talking, not the presentation. The best editing is the editing that you don’t notice because you’re too engrossed in what you’re watching. You shouldn’t need your video to call attention to itself using video tricks.
I really wish I had more time to do the kind of work you’re doing with this videoblogging primer. You’re doing a terrific job with it, and I’ll try to be a little more forthcoming with suggestions when I can.