In my relatively short career as a videoagrapher, I have read and watched my fair share of “Editing: Tips and Tricks” tutorials as a way to become a better editor or learn new effects and transitions that I could implement into my videos. So, whenever someone asks me about getting into making videos, the second question (no not the first, maybe another time) they ask is always, “how do you edit?”. The truth is….
I don’t really know.
Okay maybe that is not entirely true, I know how Premiere works. I know how DaVinci Resolve works. I know how to cut clips and color footage and fix audio and mask and do that cool speed ramp transition that we all love. But that isn’t all editing is. Anyone can learn that stuff. Just sit through a YouTube video for a couple minutes and you will have a new edit to spam in your video for the rest of the semester. That’s not what you want. You want to learn how to create a cohesive story (Pre-production helps), how to make the audience feel like they were there when you were filming, like they are connected to the person you are showcasing in your video (even though they have no idea who they are). You want them to care, care about the story, the character, what happens next and more. And to do that you just have to feel it.
I have often find myself telling people that editing is instinct, not that it is something you are born with because it really isn’t that deep lol, but it’s something you develop overtime. It’s something you feel when you’re sitting there in front of premiere laying out clips. For example, maybe you’re making an edit for a sports team and you don’t know how to start the video. Listen to your audio (if you don’t know your audio, I would recommend you find that before you shoot). If there is dialogue, maybe you show the person speaking, maybe you find a shot that matches what is being said. If you are only using music, listen to the song and think about that the song makes you feel, and find a shot that matches that. Listen to the beat, or where the bass drops in the song and match clips with each beat change.
Think about how you want people to feel when hey watch the video. Suspenseful? Excited? Happy? Sad? Hopeful? It could be any emotion but maybe you want excitement so you use fast paced shots and quick cuts when you edit. Maybe it’s suspenseful so you use slow motion shots and get shorter in length as the video goes on.
There are so many ways to edit, so many ideas you can implement. Just within the film department at Middlebury, the way that we all edit is so different from each. The feelings we want to evoke or the ideas we want to share. Moral of the story is to do what feels right to you, tell the story you want to tell. It’s your choice. Film is an art after all and art is subjective, so we all should create whatever we want to create. There is no one way to edit. So if you ask me how to edit I have one answer.
You just have to feel it.
