I think KCummins makes some good points. Plan before you shoot. When I was in the RTF program in college (radio-tv-film) if you tried to go into a studio without your pre-production task done, you got an automatic F.
But I digress.
It’s impossible in a short posting to give insight into good editing, but here are a few items to keep in mind.
Have a cover shot of your scene. This is typically a wide angle view, which matches the close ups you shoot. If you need to edit around the close ups, you can take a quick cut of the wide shot, then go back to a closer shot. Our mantra was “when troubles hover, go to cover”.
Shoot ECUs of your action (extreme close ups). Think a chef, chopping an onion. Get a close shot of the onion action. Cut to that shot to cover a dialog edit on the shot of the chef. More advanced - match the action of the ECU. Meaning, make sure the knife is at the same position in the ECU as it is in the wider shot, so at the edit point the knife doesn’t suddenly “jump” up or down.
This all means extra work when shooting, or a second, simultaneously shot camera but it’s worth it to the final product.
But obviously a lot of content creators don’t do this and are successful, so in the end, you do what works for you.
I had solid experience in the past in creating video content for different purposes (web-sites, YouTube, online presentations, social media). Well, I’d say the more advanced features the software offers than the others, the more time it takes to learn and use effectively. Professional editors and studios often use a bunch of soft. So the answer is the classical “it depends” on what raw video material you have and want result you’d like to get + what resources (time/money) you’re ready to spend + what skills and equipment you have. For example, the Adobe’s suite of products can cover merely all the needs at advanced level, but it will take time to master and would cost something. Its’ every part would cost less, but might be not enough for all your needs. Also every soft has its’ preferences in use. E.g. the Premiere Pro is great for cutting and assembling video footage, while After Effects allows to add motion graphics, special effects, and other animation elements to videos. The mentioned Final Cut Pro, surely, is another top contender especially for the Apple lovers out there . The one of the best in budget, but great in functionality is DaVinci Resolve. All of them are good, but IMHO are quite sophisticated. At least for noobs and simple use.
When the video editing doesn’t consider to get a “HQ” and to spend much time for it, like for posting in social media, there are solutions of less complexity. Surely, iMovie mentioned is one of them and really good for that. I used it before for fast and light editing videos, i.e. cutting, assembling etc. That’s really handy in case you have ready captured video files. I use also this storyboard template and the 7 stages approach described, when create videos for social media. It helps me especially to realize more ideas with animated reels and when I make a series of stories to engage a followers. As for the creating video for social media, as it was asked above, I use mostly Canva now. Cause, it has good enough templates there, suitable to edit and format promptly to fit to any social media. As a spare and universal for Android and Apple the Inshot is quite simple and enough for fast editing and posting.
You can get Vegas Pro for ~25$ with the Humblebundle again. I bought 15 this way a few years back. It’s always an “old” version (I think there is a version 21 already), but that doesn’t make it worse.
Here’s the link: VEGAS Pro Creative Frontier Bundle (pay what you want and help charity). Don’t forget to change the amount you give to charity.
Hello, Rebecca. An interesting comment. However, your account is 11 minutes old, and your first post is to revive a dead topic from 2 years ago.
That’s suspiciously like spambot behavior, so I’m electing to flag your post.
You will be able to see my reply and can elaborate on this and perhaps why you’re not a spambot. But until and unless that happens, the parent post will be in the community flag workflow.
. The one of the best in budget, but great in functionality is DaVinci Resolve. All of them are good, but IMHO are quite sophisticated. At least for noobs and simple use.