7 Tips on Editing a Video for Beginners

Beginners always admire other professionals on YouTube about how well made their videos are and wish they could also make videos like them. But making a good video on YouTube needs a lot of practice. So, as a beginner, don’t be too proud just yet since you are not experienced in vlogging. In fact, you should go through tips before editing the first video you made.

Tidy Up the Clip

You should always trim your video footage because no one wants to see everything you film. Many video editors have a timeline where you can set in and out points to trim and retain the part of the clip that you want.

Choose only the key moments that you want the audience the watch. The rest that consists of the uninteresting parts should be trimmed away. You can look for parts that you can trim away such as silence parts in front and end of the video, filler words in the speech, saying too much in the speech, and other mistakes.

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Fixing a Jump Cut

You can fix a jump cut by calling attention to it. For example, adding a transition next to the jump cut such as zoom transition. This allows the audience to know that the clip is not complete but edited so they are now watching further along.

Another way to make jump cuts look better is to use stock footage that is similar to the topic of the video. You can use the actual photo of the subject that you are filming. Crossfade transition can also reduce the effect of jumpiness in the cut.

Clips Must Flow at the Right Pace

When you make your first video, you like to import all your related clips and you try to join them. When joining these clips, it is important to make sure that they are flowing at the right pace.

Clips should not be moving too slowly otherwise the audience can become impatient and quit your video. On the other hand, if the clips are moving at a pace that is too fast, the audience will not be able to absorb the information.

Video Must Have a Storyline

When editing a video, always keep to the story that you want to tell so that you know what clip to keep. There must be a beginning, climax and ending in the video story. When telling a story, always keep the sentences concise. The video story should be short and not long. If the video is long, it is going to be hard to upload it even if you compress it.

If you look at the famous videos on YouTube, you’ll notice that these videos are short and last for 1 – 2 minutes. If you can tell a story in 2 minutes, there is no point spending 10 minutes on it. Without a storyline, it will seem as the video is showing random clips. A good video will demonstrate the story that it is telling. People will get bored if they have to listen to you telling the story and looking at the wallpaper in the video.

Incorporate a Background Audio

You can include background audio to add some mood to the video. The most important thing is that the audio must match matches with the emotion you want to convey in the video. You can loop the audio to match with the video length.

The best place to get the soundtrack is at the royalty free music and audio store. Lots of people are using the same soundtrack from the royalty free music store so the clip you pick is probably not unique. You have the choice to record your own background soundtrack and include it in your video.

Add Intro and End Screen to Video

Always remember to add an intro to your video. The intro reminds people about what channel they are on and what video they are watching. On the intro, you can display information about your social media handle and website. The intro is short and last for like 5-7 seconds. Therefore, don’t waste time putting stuff on the intro that doesn’t convert. You can incorporate a small logo and the title of the video on the intro.

If you put an intro, you should also put an end screen. The end screen is where people put words like Thanks for watching! You can create an end screen from scratch by displaying the words on your own still image.

Alternatively, you can use an end screen template in a free movie editor to create the end screen. The end screen is also where you put a call to actions, for example, you can point the audience to other related videos, or ask them to subscribe to your channel or put a button that links to your website.

Movavi Video Editor has a lot of intro templates which you can use to create your video intro. You can also choose any of the ready intro templates under Import. If you want to create an intro from scratch, you must select the intro videos category on the main screen and then click the New Intro thumbnail under Import.

The new intro will be added into the timeline. Now, you must click the pencil icon to edit the intro. After that, click on the Add Media Files button to add background image and audio. To save the intro you created, simply click on the Apply and return button on top of the timeline.

Check out the below video on “9 Cuts Every Video Editor Should Know” to get some simple video editing tips:

Add Subtitle Caption to Your Video

You will also want to consider adding subtitles to help the audience to follow up on the dialogues in the video. In the subtitles, you can also mention the audio effects that are present. Most users will skip a video that does not have subtitles while browsing on social media.

Almost 85% of the users on social media watch videos on silent mode. Adding captions will increase the chance of viewers being drawn to it. Captions are great for videos that are filmed in places with lots of ambient noises.

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