Your home to learn to edit video faster.
Maybe it’s the over-abundance of projects I’m facing right now, but I feel like I need a good rant session. Here are a handful of things that just drive me crazy when I’m editing. These are my pet peeves for video editors:
I’m okay if they aren’t white balanced or if they’re under/over-exposed. I can work my magic on them. But can’t do anything if there isn’t enough footage.
This tutorial will teach you how to export a .jpg from Premiere Pro. .jpg stands for JPEG and is a common file extension for still graphics.
Exporting a .jpg from Premiere Pro is useful if you need to send a client or director a frame of video. It could be to ask a question like, “Is this the shot you’re talking about?” You can also export a .jpg from Premiere Pro so you can make a custom thumbnail for a YouTube video.
This article discusses work/life balance for video professionals, especially those with kids. Since having a child my thoughts on work/life balance went from the normal, “yeah, ya know, it’s important to separate yourself from work sometimes” to the now extreme, “this is my time with my family — leave me alone!”
Being a video editor or just in the video industry itself leads to long hours, odd hours, and usually the constant need to be by your phone to respond to a client. I’m here to say that it’s okay to not answer a call or email. It’s okay to put the phone down; the laptop away. Take a step back. And go focus on your family or yourself.
The past few years my focus for Edit Video Faster has been all over the place. To be honest, I haven’t had a clear direction with where I want to take it for as long as I can remember now. It’s just…items on my to-do list that I never get to. It’s something I spend time on every once in awhile instead of playing with my kid or recharging my batteries.
Without a clear objective, what is a project besides flailing in the dark and hoping for some random good outcomes? A camera operator without proper focus leads to worthless shots. Creating content for a business, such as EVF, leads to worthless content.
Sure, I’m pretty happy with what I’ve been able to put out recently. But, honestly, I didn’t know who it was for or why I was doing it.
I’d like to do something about that. Get a little more clarity. More focus.
The majority of deadlines are not real and most people misrepresent the true meaning of them. To video editors with deadlines: read this.
A deadline is the last possible moment a project can be completed. This instance in time can only be for a handful of reasons (at least in the world of video creation):
That’s it. Two reasons. It’s being shown at an event or over the airwaves. Or you would be breaking a legal document. Any other justification is BS.
Last week I had a new freelance video editing project come in. My #1 freelance writing client wanted a video created and turned to me to do the editing. Will they also be a great freelance video editing client?
I got going with it, working almost a full day over the course of a handful of nights and a Saturday morning. Then I got an email saying to stop working on the project and that they wanted to table it for a couple months while they work up a larger marketing campaign.
Well, damn. I spent almost a day on this thing and I’m going to have to wait to get paid until we complete the project…
But that didn’t happen. They told me to bill for the hours I’ve worked so far. The next day I had a few hundred bucks sitting in my PayPal account. Reasons like this are exactly why I love working with this company.
Sure, my project got put on hold and I made a fraction of what I would have otherwise but something happened outside of my point of contact’s control and they made good on the work that I got done and paid me immediately. These are traits of a great freelance client.
Below I’ve brainstormed a few more traits of a great freelance client, specifically for video editors. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this as well.
Since my son was born this summer I’ve found it difficult to find time for anything that doesn’t revolve around him, my wife, my dog, my 9-5, or the mountain of bottles I need to wash that seems to never disappear next to my sink.
For the past 6 ½ years I’ve been living separate lives from my home/office lives through my various blogs and online platforms. It’s disheartening to see my projects grow cobwebs.
After some self-reflection while a 17lb tiny human slept on my chest I realized I’m letting perfection and the size of what I want to create get in the way. In my mind I want everything I create to be near flawless and be of substantial length.
This article is for video editors, video producers, and video professionals that need to track stock music. It contains a free download of a stock music license tracking spreadsheet. Enjoy!
Hey Team!
Recently I noticed a problem that I have as a video editor and video producer. There are a couple hundred stock music tracks I’ve downloaded and/or purchased over the years to use in all sorts of projects. But outside of a consistent file naming convention I had no way of tracking what is being used where. On top of that, there is other data that would be good to have in one place that’s associated with the music.
So I did something about it. Like what any good digitally-OCD person would do I made a spreadsheet. And I’d like to share it with you. Use the link below to get your stock music license tracking spreadsheet.
This is a link to a Google Sheet. Go here to view and download a copy for yourself.
Remember learning about inertia in middle school science class? According to Newton’s laws of motion, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force. This is inertia — how much resistance it takes to change motion. And inertia plays a key role for us in the edit bay when it comes to productivity.
Most of us editors don’t feel the inertia we have because it hardly ever changes. We’re constantly in motion. Everyday we head into the office, fire up the Mac (or PC), grab a cup of coffee, and get to work editing. We’re in it day in and day out. Every time we sit down to edit we keep our motion going.
Being a video editor is no easy task. It’s like trying to do a 1,000 piece puzzle with 10,000 pieces but without seeing the box so you don’t know what you’re supposed to be making. And 3,000 of the pieces actually work for 900 of the pieces you need but you have no pieces for the other 100 pieces so you have to cram them together to complete your puzzle. Then you get asked to change the border of one of the sides but you only have middle pieces left. But you figure it out anyway because that’s what you do. Then you start work on the next puzzle. Do you have the skills it takes to be a video editor?
This article will discuss the six skills every video editor needs to have in order to have a successful career, create powerful videos, and stay sane while doing it.
Please note: some links in this article are affiliate links. All that means is I receive a small commission if you were to buy something after clicking on the link at no extra expense to you. It’s a very standard internet practice for blogs and websites and helps to support Edit Video Faster. I never link to a product I haven’t used or would not recommend. Always happy to answer any questions you have about affiliate links in general or the products linked to below!
Every video editor needs to know how editing actually works. An editor should know when to cut and when to let the shot linger. They need to know the rules and how to follow them. But at the same time they need to know when and how to break them.
“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”
The Dalai Lama