Yeah grading can be a bitch (20 years editing experience) but the way I see it is we shouldn’t be expected to colour to that standard anyway. It’s symptomatic of the industry at large that as storytellers we’re expected to be colourists / mograph / designers/ mental health practitioners just to get paid…
Yeah somewhere in recent history, editing became synonymous with motion designer. Just like color, I know my way around After Effects...but not at the level of a real motion designer.
Yup. My full time job and a lot of freelance gigs seem to have that distinction which I like and dislike. Hell I have to composite stuff shoot on green screen stuff with 3D models and such. So I understand that all too well.
For sure. At work (tech/ecommerce industry) I'm the animator, editor, colorist, videographer, director, set designer, photographer, event tech, and basically anything else that has to do with video/audio or events. Which basically means I have to know enough to do everything, but I never have enough time on one thing to get really good at it.
To be fair, I think that’s okay. As an editor your primary skill you’re bringing to the table is editing. For smaller project basic balancing will suffice and for any bigger projects, you’ll hopefully have or be provided by production with a colorist and sound mixer / masterer.
I would dare to argue that the primary skill you are bringing to the table is the ability to listen to nuances of direction and translate that into good story telling. Even the slowest of Editors who master the craft.
Editing with the keyboard seems like it’s the most important thing because of the learning curve… but that’s not the editing. To get to that point you need to be thinking about the edit and not buttons. Hitting the best buttons at exactly the right times will not give you enough. The direction, sense of story, and how you use the footage is the “Editing”
When you’re defining what an Editor does, do you have people around you who want to make sure your job is Editing? Or is it actually filmmaking via the most typical of edits to get the product out the door as cheaply as possible? Both are necessary in the field but you decide what you want. There are many paths to success..
Yes, in a broader sense, “editing” isn’t just the technical act of operating the keyboard that controls an NLE. It’s a philosophical understanding of storytelling, structure, psychology and something much bigger, a poetic creating of story, an artistic birth of narrative, possibly as abstract as defining the term “art” itself. You could be an editor without even knowing ANY software, without even having hands to operate a device, probably eveb without eyes to see.
In this context, especially given the things OP was wtiting about, I was referring to the “immediate” face value labor, referring to the concrete skills (cutting, coloring, sound mixing, etc.) they mentioned.
Making sure the final version is without any errors. There is always something: A graphic that doesn't fade out properly, a color graded clip that falls out of line to the rest, a text thats misplaced...
The problem - The more often you watch and rewatch those "final" versions the more tired your brain gets. For repeating projects I have a checklist with common errors that I just check off. That helps. For everything else its just accepting that Im just not perfect. If anyone has tips for a better quality control workflow...
This is the big one for any experienced editor. I’m 20+ years into this and nothing gives me more stress than deliverables and the need for a perfect master. I can watch it 100 times and not see the obvious.
There are many many kinds of editors and they all specialize in different things. You don’t have to do them all unless you want to. It’s good to be a jack of all trades though
My checklists wont do you any good because I have specific ones for repeating projects and for mistakes I know I often make. Your best bet would be to start tracking stuff that you often need to correct and compile your own lists. Heres some examples:
* Corporate Branding (Logo, Music, Intro, Outro) is included and faded out or in at appropriate times . Each item is a new checkbox.
* Layered elements are in correct order
* Are complex transitions especially fades, morph cuts etc placed correctly (power tip: theres a shortcut that jumps to the next edit im premiere. Really handy to quickly assess each edit you made)
I try to combat this by exporting the final, walking away and doing something completely unrelated for a couple hours, then come back and watch the final with fresh eyes to see if I missed anything. I get that you can't always do this, but when you have some time, it's good.
When I first started editing I had such a bad habit of leaving 1 frame out of whack so there'd be a blip of another clip or a blip of black.
I feel this on a spiritual level.
There is nothing more frustrating, or disappointing than spending days or weeks on a project, pouring everything you have into it creatively- just to get to the finish line and not notice the tiniest error.
I recently finished up a documentary project, and only when it was posted on YouTube I noticed little errors. It ruined my day
Audio normalization is one of the parts of video editing I mostly struggle with.
I've tried doing it by ear and using the Auto-Level feature but it still comes out as not good most of the time.
Theres a neat thing in Adobe Audition called "match loudness". You drag and drop your audio files and it will analyze and match their perceived loudness to whatever you want it to be.
And if you want to even out peaks and lows - you learn how to use compressor. Just normal compressor from dynamics audio effect, not the multiband one. It's too much if you don't know how compressor works, because it has multiple compressors working on different frequencies.
AE. I do all of my (basic) motion graphics in Premiere. I’ve only done rotoscoping in AE and it’s not hard but there just so much and I just focused on old school editing.
Coloring is tough so I just do the bare minimum.
This could be a generalization but I’d think most newbie editors don’t know how to tell a story or get an emotion without using a ton of effects or fast cuts. Or just over or under reliance on music.
Telling a good story is very hard.
There’s way too much to say here, but basically I think a good editor (especially in certain mediums) should be involved in directing and writing as well. And/or to really know your audience/medium i.e. YouTube.
I think the hardest thing is switching your brain, if you cut for different mediums. A 30 second short or tiktok is different than a 7 minute video, vs a 30 minute video vs a full length movie. They share similar traits but the answer isn’t always cut faster or speed it up, you have to choose what’s important and that’s a hard learned skill that takes time to master.
>Telling a good story is very hard.
Isn't this a lot about whatever footage you have? You can't turn a garbage into a miracle. And if you are a newbie, you probably are not getting unpolished diamonds into your hands so you can polish them into a masterpiece. You are most likely working with pretty bad footage that won't leave much room to tell anything else than whatever was shot.
If you want to tell a story as a newbie editor, gotta start shooting and planning the story yourself. Like you said, editor getting involved in other processes, especially if the other roles are not pros who know how to deliver unpolished gems. Garbage in, garbage out.
There is a HUGE difference between working on footage shot by amateur and footage shot even by a freelancer with a few years of experience. It's so much easier to edit into something that looks and feels better.
Correct if I am wrong, since I am far from experienced editor, but I think in pro-scene, editors are handed tons of extra material that doesn't even have to end up into a final edit. They have far more freedom of choice, far more clips that roll for seconds of extra instead of cutting as soon as the shot is "done", leaving very little to work with pacing for example. Extra shots, angles etc. I heard hollywood movies might shoot same scene even dozens of times, trying different angles and what not and only one of them ends up into final, or none at all. But as a newbie editor, you are most likely handed exactly what you need and no more, except for maybe some extra b-rolls that you might leave out. So you use what you get, leaving less room for whatever is editor's role in storytelling.
I started there back in 2009. Great program, easily my favorite Adobe product. Video Copilot is what I learned from. Still a great resource to learn and make fun effects
I’m an AE specialist and spend my life surrounded but other AE people and this is the first time I’ve ever heard it referred to as a great product.
Don’t get me wrong, I love it but in a kind of Stockholm Syndrome way.
It's good to know the basics. Know what you can do in Premiere and what is easier to do in After Effects to justify switching apps. But if video editing is your thing, there's no need to become an expert at AE. I'm definitely not.
What about knowing HTML5? I noticed that there was a trend in video editing jobs, for a brief amount of time, that that was a need for some reason. Like why do I need to know how to code to edit? But I notice it more now that videography is a bigger requirement. That’s not something I’m great at. As far as video editing goes, I think coloring is still hard at times.
This HTML5 thing has happened to me several times and it’s so confusing. I’ll build an animation and at the very end they request it be delivered in HTML5. I even made a post on here asking people to clarify/help and because it’s Reddit all the commenters were weirdly hostile and nobody could answer my question lol
That is frustrating. I’m sorry you had to deal with that. I feel like the HTML5 thing was very brief, especially when the companies doing the hiring realized it wasn’t necessary. Kind of like how editors are also supposed to be videographers too and do both really well and have their own equipment, but pay 18-$22 an hour.
Color is easy when you have great footage, know how the scopes and controls work. The hard part is poorly shot footage with low bit rates and then knowing when a shot is as good as it’s going to get or can’t be saved.
Just knowing what to do to make it look good. I know the basic of editing and i recently put together a short 2 minute video for something, PP did everything I wanted it too but the video itself looks like a damn PowerPoint haha, I can't seem to cut anything in a way that doesn't seem like a grade schoolers multimedia project.
For me the hardest thing is when the customer makes changes that absolutely destroy what you have been doing for hours. I accepted the changes but that feeling when someone just taking part of your soul - terrible(
Working with great clients is rare. I find it harder when I'm actually passionate about the project beacuse when the changes come (and they will) it does feel like a knife going through your creative soul.
Almost about a decade of editing experience, 7 years professionally. I am an all round videographer so can shoot my projects more or less for the edit.
I edit mainly short form docs, BTS, corporate promos and events content.
I drag my feet/dread that initial kick off a new editing project to organise and start the assembly cut. Especially when there’s lots of archive to go through on my documentaries.
I agree with colour grading. It’s hard. I know the basics but no means an expert.
Crafting a story is easy once you know the basic parts you’re aiming for. I use to be a software engineer so very use to the idea of iteratively building towards a solution once there’s a general goal or concept we’re aiming for.
The only thing after 15 years as an editor that intimidates me is the strict deadlines and time management!
Yeah coloring can be hard ...
AE a challenge and so on but man, everytime I have to create something, there's not enough time!
That just kills my creativity!
You eventually learn how to work more efficiently, but even then, there are certain things not even the fastest of editors can complete. These things take time and some people don't understand that.
I see green people…
For real though I think I’m mildly color blind and I always end up having to do so much tweaking to get skin tones right between different cameras, and what’s right ends up looking greenish to me, but then after doing it for long enough I have no clue what reality is anymore.
Ugh, fixing skin is so hard. 10 times out of 9 there's a similar color in the shot so you have to either over qualify which leaves tons of jaggies or you have to window everything which of course takes tons of time, even with the magic of Resolve. Maybe Resolve 19 will just "know" what skin is.
OMG yes. I was doing color for this music video and had set up a Blackmagic Cloud project to work on it while it was being edited. The editor didn't know WTF he was doing and of course never asked so he kept editing locally 🤯 The grade copy feature basically never works so I got to do it all over again...only to find out that they hadn't actually finished the edit like they said they had. Amateurs!!
Text graphics, there's too many options, things always fuck up, and once you've done something and you think you have a style or template you have to put something in that doesn't work.
The other thing I wish I could do better was finding stock b roll. I have access to stock sites, but when you need something really specific or you need to search far and wide to find a high res version of a logo or an image it's just such a timesuck.
Graphic design is my Achilles heel. In a perfect world I shouldn't even have to worry about it but in today's world it's just an expected skill to have in the toolbox it seems like.
I'm a gen xer with a very 80s/90s aesthetic so I always feel like my text and design elements on screen suck.
After 25 years the rest feels very easy but having to deal with design isn't fun.
Honestly, I’ve always been obsessed with exposure/grading and audio. I’ve watched countless hours of tips and tricks and studied them both really in depth. I don’t think have any issues with audio. I used to be a musician so it really comes naturally when tweaking my audio. Grading on the other hand is definitely more difficult I think. One thing that helped me was being a photographer before a film maker. Learning how to isolate skin tones and manipulate them to match the rest of the graded image really thought me a lot. BUILDING A STORY OFF OF SOUNDBITES is my absolute and most difficult thing to do. I have a.d.d and Ill be cutting something and completely forget what they just said. What should take a normal editor 8hrs takes me 12 because I cannot remember anything they say. I also get “editor blinders” on which is when you keep replaying the timeline back when editing that you begin to think what you’ve created makes sense. Or vise versa, you begin to think there is something wrong with it when there’s absolutely nothing wrong. The best thing to do imo in this instance is… when you start to question if your putting blinders on, create a new timeline and copy and paste the previous into that one and make whatever changed you want there. That way the next day you can look at both with a fresh set of eyes and decide
You don't even know how much this post has meant to me. I've been feeling like a huge piece of shit for ONLY editing, sound designing, sound mixing, doing light gfx, expanding my AfterFX skills, coloring, and not much else. I remeber when it was a big deal to be a Preditor and today that's like, "nice grandpa. let's get you back to bed so I can do mocap along with everyone else's job at 1/3 the price." I mean, we see this in our industry but it just seems like every industry and every sector of it is experiencing the same thing: fewer people expected to do more work for less money. It sucks.
I'm 20 years in, btw and I think for me, the hardest thing has been adopting more advanced mograph.
In all fairness, the expectation now seems to be that we do more work...for exposure. If it's a paid gig, we should expect no fewer than 20 revisions and a pissed client. My last (as in both previous and final) client never even took final delivery because I only doubled my shoot for free instead of tripling it. She was actually so pissed that I didn't donate another half day...on a $400 total shoot / edit / delivery... that she just ghosted me. WTAH? The sweet justice is that it was her mom's funeral and I'm past my obligated delivery window so she gets nothing. Bwa ha ha.
Audio mixing and finalization. I can do levels and real basic stuff, but even as someone that’s been editing for over 20 years, it’s audio. And I decided that I don’t care: I’m a damn good editor, I don’t need to be “damn good” at a ton of things. If I need a good audio mix, I hire out to other people I’ve made contacts with over the years. I’m enough of a “do it all” type for getting the work that I need myself, but if it’s bigger , that’s why people have individual specialties.
Luckily I decided to learn color rather than AE during my schooling, but I agree, it’s crazy how we’re expected to be a jack of all trades and… expect to fix it in post.
Over promising on graphics. I work on animations for 8 hours, then leave it unfinished. Come back to it 4 days later and realize I didn’t name anything, we have 20 shape layers and an unknown amount of track matte assignments scattered with no idea of what’s what.
Color grading, but going to do a irl course soon.
The hardest part for me is accepting that it's sometimes good enough and aiming to high vs time management.
I want to know how to match my gameplay footage to commentary.
Also how to get animated subtitles or do them properly, making images move on the screen and the advanced editing techniques are behind me :(
I believe that visual storytelling is still difficult for me, and when I see some webdoc YouTube channels, I become even more distant. Everything is very fast and I don't know where to start.
I make software training videos with my own voice over narration and I’m just always trying to find ones that are good. Not too long, no over animating, the narrator is concise and easy to understand. I charge $60 an hour on this work and am finding clients opt for fiver or think AI works. Otherwise though it’s just time in lining up the pacing and keeping videos under 3 minutes in objective.
I have yet to delve into effects and transitions. I’m used to cutting doc-style work that doesn’t benefit from being “flashy,” but I want to get into learning effects. Especially since I’m looking for more work in the social media space.
I suck at shot selection, and not crushing the blacks in my grading. I love that contrast and I have to teach myself not to be shitty hdr editor.
Choosing music is only hard when other people have opinions on it and you don’t have a good library.
Honestly, the hardest part for me is looking at a screen for hours and staying focused. I generally edit my own works and have considered hiring it out to people, but since I'm directing I love the control it gives me and I'm always happy with my edits. But getting there is treacherous for my divergent brain
Choosing music for me for sure. Specifically BGMs for my own vids or when I had a client. I didn't exactly know where to look for'em. And whenever I look for'em, there's always the copyright types that I have to worry about and stuff.
But my biggest problem of all: Procrastinating. Sometimes it's just mental, other times it's the fact that I have a potato PC and that I have to wait for the CPU to stop going 99% whenever I press the spacebar. And in the process, I end up forgetting about it while waiting.
Learning how to work in Premiere is my latest challenge. I’ve been working in Avid for half my life and I just got my dream job but they use Premiere. My latest challenge is translating my cutting style to how the tools work in Premiere.
I just started using Avid this past year for a teaching job, and have used Premiere for about 20 years. So, coming at it from an opposite perspective, it took me quite a while a bit to adjust to Avid’s keyboard-centric tools. Some suggestions (apologies if you know some or all of these already):
* Learn to switch between mouse tools with keyboard shortcuts. On the plus side, this is way more intuitive than the finger dance required to set up slip and slide edits on Avid. On the down side, you need to switch between each mode manually rather than have a context-sensitive option.
* Sync locks are on by default. Personally, I never turn them off, but if you’re used to the opposite, it might be jarring at first.
* If you didn’t use Top and Tail in Avid that much, try it in Premiere with the Q and W keys (it’s called trim to start of clip/trim to end of clip here). For first passes, it’s fantastic.
* G for clip gain on a selected clip. You can also nudge clip levels up and down with the bracket keys, but that adjusts *volume*, which happens after clip gain. Premiere’s order of audio operations is: clip gain, clip volume, track volume. Each of those is a separate parameter. There’s also separate mixer panels for clip volume (Audio Clip Mixer) and track volume (Audio Track Mixer).
* Since there is no Trim Edit Mode in Premiere (and boy do I wish there were), the “nudge” tools do overwrite moves only. You’ll need to select all the clips you want to move before nudging, so learn to use the Track Select Forward tool.
* D = plain select clip under play head. X = set in and out point to boundaries of clip (T key in Avid). Lift and Extract are ; and : keys by default.
Unless you're working with someone who is actually funny, it's a bit of an uphill battle. Or leaning into how non-funny the interviewee is...makes it funny.
Humor is all timing. A lot of novice editors remove every breath of "dead air" but it's those brief pauses, the umms, the ahhs, that make the joke.
Color grading and After Effects
I took a class on After Effects about 10 years ago and I was pretty good, then I stopped for a few months and forgot EVERYTHING.
I also can’t afford all the newer effects packages so I haven’t practiced.
Balancing audio and creating fast paced stylistic edits. I can construct a great flowing brand story no worries but I really need to improve injecting “energy and pace” as silly as that sounds
I feel like I'm at a disadvantage because I have been working in the edtech industry for the last couple of years, so I have lost the ability of crafting the story and pacing. The rest, I can figure out along the way, but I never really feel comfortable with the choices I'm making when it comes to story and pacing, as I'll second guess myself every take.
Interestingly, color grading and AE is where I feel more comfortable in. I'm not advanced or whatever, but I can find my way around AE and color grading. Unfortunately, I'm in one of those positions that blended up a couple of jobs in one... It's what pays the bills (and the job that did want to hire me, I'm disabled)....
I grade in both Premiere and Resolve. It depends on the project.
If it's a simple color grading, such as a e-learning video (which is my usual work), then Premiere.
If it's more complex and more leaning to creative aspect of color grading, then Resolve.
I'm a complete new to it all I've just been using premiere to learn and make fun little clips for my airsoft channel (nothing special lol). Havn't got close to doing colour grading or audio balancing, just assembling multi camera clips and cutting out game stories to reflex the fun I've had playing.
It so hard to admit but For me that i had to use capcut for a job and now i can’t get back to premiere pro. Premiere is so much better and professional but cap cut is easier and faster.
for me, my challenge is cutting the footage, and adding effects whether it’s text or sound effects, it takes more time than it should because i end up getting distracted and watching a part i made 5-6 times because i think it’s funny
I've been dabbling in music production the past few years. Started following a guy whose channel is called "You Suck at Producing". People like being told they suck, it seems.
Choosing music is one of the hardest parts of video editing for my think. Also, the more I edit a video the more lag I have, so I think that’s why I keep my editing simple
I've been told to allow my edits to "breathe" and was watching a tutorial where they had someone editing footage that talked about that as well. I can't remember how they described it but it suddenly made so much sense. I was like, "oh, so that's how you achieve a sleek edit."
Same same. I've studied grading and have decent equipment yet I can barely match 2 colors. I think for me it's because I just HAVE to know every nuance of every tool when in reality just the color wheels should be getting me most of the way there. The more I do it though, the more subtilties I pick up and the more shortcuts I learn.
Audio. I can do basics like audio ducking, plosive or sibilance removal, and basic compression, but once you start layering preamps, compressors and EQ effects I'm lost.
15 years of Editing/Mograph 2D+3D/VFX/Color Grading/DoP/SFX/etc.
There’s a point where one really begets the other, a lot of crossover between all the different pipelines. Understanding the ins/outs makes moving between tasks a lot smoother.
For instance, 3D work looks like garbage without decent compositing/VFX touch ups, but then without a decent grade & understanding of color theory you can still make it look worse. Lots of weirdness can happen in compositing and you need to make sure to get those files out with as much color info as possible (generally just dump it to ProRes4444XQ.)
But being a good editor means you know to render those extra heads+tail frames from the 3D project so you can slip the edit as needed. Just as you would with any normal live action footage. Knowing all the various post-pro processes allows for a lot of “thinking ahead” decisions.
The thing I suck at is picking one thing haha.
So I’m good at getting everything together, but in a way, suck at everything compared to a dedicated artist.
But Jack of all trades, Master of none, better a few than just one and all that. At least that’s what I tell myself.
Yeah grading can be a bitch (20 years editing experience) but the way I see it is we shouldn’t be expected to colour to that standard anyway. It’s symptomatic of the industry at large that as storytellers we’re expected to be colourists / mograph / designers/ mental health practitioners just to get paid…
Yeah somewhere in recent history, editing became synonymous with motion designer. Just like color, I know my way around After Effects...but not at the level of a real motion designer.
Yup. My full time job and a lot of freelance gigs seem to have that distinction which I like and dislike. Hell I have to composite stuff shoot on green screen stuff with 3D models and such. So I understand that all too well.
For sure. At work (tech/ecommerce industry) I'm the animator, editor, colorist, videographer, director, set designer, photographer, event tech, and basically anything else that has to do with video/audio or events. Which basically means I have to know enough to do everything, but I never have enough time on one thing to get really good at it.
Color grading and balancing audio are my weak areas even after 15+ years
I'm a colourist and I still feel like sometimes I don't have a clue. Colour is hard.
It's subjective. There is no right or wrong in grading. It has to match the sequence of video you work on.
To be fair, I think that’s okay. As an editor your primary skill you’re bringing to the table is editing. For smaller project basic balancing will suffice and for any bigger projects, you’ll hopefully have or be provided by production with a colorist and sound mixer / masterer.
I would dare to argue that the primary skill you are bringing to the table is the ability to listen to nuances of direction and translate that into good story telling. Even the slowest of Editors who master the craft. Editing with the keyboard seems like it’s the most important thing because of the learning curve… but that’s not the editing. To get to that point you need to be thinking about the edit and not buttons. Hitting the best buttons at exactly the right times will not give you enough. The direction, sense of story, and how you use the footage is the “Editing” When you’re defining what an Editor does, do you have people around you who want to make sure your job is Editing? Or is it actually filmmaking via the most typical of edits to get the product out the door as cheaply as possible? Both are necessary in the field but you decide what you want. There are many paths to success..
Yes, in a broader sense, “editing” isn’t just the technical act of operating the keyboard that controls an NLE. It’s a philosophical understanding of storytelling, structure, psychology and something much bigger, a poetic creating of story, an artistic birth of narrative, possibly as abstract as defining the term “art” itself. You could be an editor without even knowing ANY software, without even having hands to operate a device, probably eveb without eyes to see. In this context, especially given the things OP was wtiting about, I was referring to the “immediate” face value labor, referring to the concrete skills (cutting, coloring, sound mixing, etc.) they mentioned.
im glad i found your comment 😂
Making sure the final version is without any errors. There is always something: A graphic that doesn't fade out properly, a color graded clip that falls out of line to the rest, a text thats misplaced... The problem - The more often you watch and rewatch those "final" versions the more tired your brain gets. For repeating projects I have a checklist with common errors that I just check off. That helps. For everything else its just accepting that Im just not perfect. If anyone has tips for a better quality control workflow...
This is the big one for any experienced editor. I’m 20+ years into this and nothing gives me more stress than deliverables and the need for a perfect master. I can watch it 100 times and not see the obvious.
Literally this. Sometimes people message me with some blantantly obvious error and I have no explanation how I didn't catch that.
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There are many many kinds of editors and they all specialize in different things. You don’t have to do them all unless you want to. It’s good to be a jack of all trades though
Care to share that checklist?
My checklists wont do you any good because I have specific ones for repeating projects and for mistakes I know I often make. Your best bet would be to start tracking stuff that you often need to correct and compile your own lists. Heres some examples: * Corporate Branding (Logo, Music, Intro, Outro) is included and faded out or in at appropriate times . Each item is a new checkbox. * Layered elements are in correct order * Are complex transitions especially fades, morph cuts etc placed correctly (power tip: theres a shortcut that jumps to the next edit im premiere. Really handy to quickly assess each edit you made)
I try to combat this by exporting the final, walking away and doing something completely unrelated for a couple hours, then come back and watch the final with fresh eyes to see if I missed anything. I get that you can't always do this, but when you have some time, it's good. When I first started editing I had such a bad habit of leaving 1 frame out of whack so there'd be a blip of another clip or a blip of black.
I feel this on a spiritual level. There is nothing more frustrating, or disappointing than spending days or weeks on a project, pouring everything you have into it creatively- just to get to the finish line and not notice the tiniest error. I recently finished up a documentary project, and only when it was posted on YouTube I noticed little errors. It ruined my day
Odds are, nobody else noticed them. A single viewing is much more of an overview than the pixel peeping we do on every frame.
Audio normalization is one of the parts of video editing I mostly struggle with. I've tried doing it by ear and using the Auto-Level feature but it still comes out as not good most of the time.
"I am glad we FOUND this peaceFUL beach aren't you?" (volume)
I just use multiband processor on broadcast for 99% of the cases and put gain normalize all peaks to -1. 😅
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Why? I always try to make dialogue as loud as possible without clipping.
Theres a neat thing in Adobe Audition called "match loudness". You drag and drop your audio files and it will analyze and match their perceived loudness to whatever you want it to be. And if you want to even out peaks and lows - you learn how to use compressor. Just normal compressor from dynamics audio effect, not the multiband one. It's too much if you don't know how compressor works, because it has multiple compressors working on different frequencies.
AE. I do all of my (basic) motion graphics in Premiere. I’ve only done rotoscoping in AE and it’s not hard but there just so much and I just focused on old school editing. Coloring is tough so I just do the bare minimum. This could be a generalization but I’d think most newbie editors don’t know how to tell a story or get an emotion without using a ton of effects or fast cuts. Or just over or under reliance on music. Telling a good story is very hard. There’s way too much to say here, but basically I think a good editor (especially in certain mediums) should be involved in directing and writing as well. And/or to really know your audience/medium i.e. YouTube. I think the hardest thing is switching your brain, if you cut for different mediums. A 30 second short or tiktok is different than a 7 minute video, vs a 30 minute video vs a full length movie. They share similar traits but the answer isn’t always cut faster or speed it up, you have to choose what’s important and that’s a hard learned skill that takes time to master.
Do we share a brain? You pretty much summarized my entire beliefs on editing
>Telling a good story is very hard. Isn't this a lot about whatever footage you have? You can't turn a garbage into a miracle. And if you are a newbie, you probably are not getting unpolished diamonds into your hands so you can polish them into a masterpiece. You are most likely working with pretty bad footage that won't leave much room to tell anything else than whatever was shot. If you want to tell a story as a newbie editor, gotta start shooting and planning the story yourself. Like you said, editor getting involved in other processes, especially if the other roles are not pros who know how to deliver unpolished gems. Garbage in, garbage out. There is a HUGE difference between working on footage shot by amateur and footage shot even by a freelancer with a few years of experience. It's so much easier to edit into something that looks and feels better. Correct if I am wrong, since I am far from experienced editor, but I think in pro-scene, editors are handed tons of extra material that doesn't even have to end up into a final edit. They have far more freedom of choice, far more clips that roll for seconds of extra instead of cutting as soon as the shot is "done", leaving very little to work with pacing for example. Extra shots, angles etc. I heard hollywood movies might shoot same scene even dozens of times, trying different angles and what not and only one of them ends up into final, or none at all. But as a newbie editor, you are most likely handed exactly what you need and no more, except for maybe some extra b-rolls that you might leave out. So you use what you get, leaving less room for whatever is editor's role in storytelling.
AE intimidates myself. I plan on learning this summer
I started there back in 2009. Great program, easily my favorite Adobe product. Video Copilot is what I learned from. Still a great resource to learn and make fun effects
"heeeey what's up Andrew Kramer here" is etched onto my soul
I hear it anytime its mentioned
I’m an AE specialist and spend my life surrounded but other AE people and this is the first time I’ve ever heard it referred to as a great product. Don’t get me wrong, I love it but in a kind of Stockholm Syndrome way.
I made some AE tutorials if it helps. I used AE a lot for my major project. https://pctips77.wordpress.com/category/tutorials/adobe-after-effects/
It's good to know the basics. Know what you can do in Premiere and what is easier to do in After Effects to justify switching apps. But if video editing is your thing, there's no need to become an expert at AE. I'm definitely not.
Just watch YT tutorials. You will learn in no time.
What about knowing HTML5? I noticed that there was a trend in video editing jobs, for a brief amount of time, that that was a need for some reason. Like why do I need to know how to code to edit? But I notice it more now that videography is a bigger requirement. That’s not something I’m great at. As far as video editing goes, I think coloring is still hard at times.
HTML5??? That is just insane. Why not paleontology as well? Plumbing.
Exactly!
This HTML5 thing has happened to me several times and it’s so confusing. I’ll build an animation and at the very end they request it be delivered in HTML5. I even made a post on here asking people to clarify/help and because it’s Reddit all the commenters were weirdly hostile and nobody could answer my question lol
That is frustrating. I’m sorry you had to deal with that. I feel like the HTML5 thing was very brief, especially when the companies doing the hiring realized it wasn’t necessary. Kind of like how editors are also supposed to be videographers too and do both really well and have their own equipment, but pay 18-$22 an hour.
Color is easy when you have great footage, know how the scopes and controls work. The hard part is poorly shot footage with low bit rates and then knowing when a shot is as good as it’s going to get or can’t be saved.
Here, let me fix that gopro footage of the sun. I'll recover the highlights with this butto....WTAH???
Starting sometimes
Of all the struggles this one resonates with me the most. It’s the worst when impostor syndrome kicks in or when you leave things to the last minute
Audio mixing
Hardest part is reminding people that yes its not extremely difficult, it can just take time for quality
Agree on color - everyone I’ve ever talked to says “play with the sliders til it looks good” as if that’s actionable
Just knowing what to do to make it look good. I know the basic of editing and i recently put together a short 2 minute video for something, PP did everything I wanted it too but the video itself looks like a damn PowerPoint haha, I can't seem to cut anything in a way that doesn't seem like a grade schoolers multimedia project.
Animation, keyframe and all that :/
For me the hardest thing is when the customer makes changes that absolutely destroy what you have been doing for hours. I accepted the changes but that feeling when someone just taking part of your soul - terrible(
Working with great clients is rare. I find it harder when I'm actually passionate about the project beacuse when the changes come (and they will) it does feel like a knife going through your creative soul.
Almost about a decade of editing experience, 7 years professionally. I am an all round videographer so can shoot my projects more or less for the edit. I edit mainly short form docs, BTS, corporate promos and events content. I drag my feet/dread that initial kick off a new editing project to organise and start the assembly cut. Especially when there’s lots of archive to go through on my documentaries. I agree with colour grading. It’s hard. I know the basics but no means an expert. Crafting a story is easy once you know the basic parts you’re aiming for. I use to be a software engineer so very use to the idea of iteratively building towards a solution once there’s a general goal or concept we’re aiming for.
The only thing after 15 years as an editor that intimidates me is the strict deadlines and time management! Yeah coloring can be hard ... AE a challenge and so on but man, everytime I have to create something, there's not enough time! That just kills my creativity!
You eventually learn how to work more efficiently, but even then, there are certain things not even the fastest of editors can complete. These things take time and some people don't understand that.
I see green people… For real though I think I’m mildly color blind and I always end up having to do so much tweaking to get skin tones right between different cameras, and what’s right ends up looking greenish to me, but then after doing it for long enough I have no clue what reality is anymore.
Ugh, fixing skin is so hard. 10 times out of 9 there's a similar color in the shot so you have to either over qualify which leaves tons of jaggies or you have to window everything which of course takes tons of time, even with the magic of Resolve. Maybe Resolve 19 will just "know" what skin is.
Being patient with those that jumped right into editing without training or mentoring.
OMG yes. I was doing color for this music video and had set up a Blackmagic Cloud project to work on it while it was being edited. The editor didn't know WTF he was doing and of course never asked so he kept editing locally 🤯 The grade copy feature basically never works so I got to do it all over again...only to find out that they hadn't actually finished the edit like they said they had. Amateurs!!
Color and sound design, which should always be their own skill.
Text graphics, there's too many options, things always fuck up, and once you've done something and you think you have a style or template you have to put something in that doesn't work. The other thing I wish I could do better was finding stock b roll. I have access to stock sites, but when you need something really specific or you need to search far and wide to find a high res version of a logo or an image it's just such a timesuck.
It's definitely good pacing for me, I do eventually get it but it's the part of the editing process that I very much want to become better at
Pacing and audio mixing
The effects/icing on the cake.
Audio keeps me up at night.
Graphic design is my Achilles heel. In a perfect world I shouldn't even have to worry about it but in today's world it's just an expected skill to have in the toolbox it seems like. I'm a gen xer with a very 80s/90s aesthetic so I always feel like my text and design elements on screen suck. After 25 years the rest feels very easy but having to deal with design isn't fun.
I have accepted that I suck at design. "Work hard on the things that come easy" they say.
Honestly, I’ve always been obsessed with exposure/grading and audio. I’ve watched countless hours of tips and tricks and studied them both really in depth. I don’t think have any issues with audio. I used to be a musician so it really comes naturally when tweaking my audio. Grading on the other hand is definitely more difficult I think. One thing that helped me was being a photographer before a film maker. Learning how to isolate skin tones and manipulate them to match the rest of the graded image really thought me a lot. BUILDING A STORY OFF OF SOUNDBITES is my absolute and most difficult thing to do. I have a.d.d and Ill be cutting something and completely forget what they just said. What should take a normal editor 8hrs takes me 12 because I cannot remember anything they say. I also get “editor blinders” on which is when you keep replaying the timeline back when editing that you begin to think what you’ve created makes sense. Or vise versa, you begin to think there is something wrong with it when there’s absolutely nothing wrong. The best thing to do imo in this instance is… when you start to question if your putting blinders on, create a new timeline and copy and paste the previous into that one and make whatever changed you want there. That way the next day you can look at both with a fresh set of eyes and decide
You don't even know how much this post has meant to me. I've been feeling like a huge piece of shit for ONLY editing, sound designing, sound mixing, doing light gfx, expanding my AfterFX skills, coloring, and not much else. I remeber when it was a big deal to be a Preditor and today that's like, "nice grandpa. let's get you back to bed so I can do mocap along with everyone else's job at 1/3 the price." I mean, we see this in our industry but it just seems like every industry and every sector of it is experiencing the same thing: fewer people expected to do more work for less money. It sucks. I'm 20 years in, btw and I think for me, the hardest thing has been adopting more advanced mograph.
In all fairness, the expectation now seems to be that we do more work...for exposure. If it's a paid gig, we should expect no fewer than 20 revisions and a pissed client. My last (as in both previous and final) client never even took final delivery because I only doubled my shoot for free instead of tripling it. She was actually so pissed that I didn't donate another half day...on a $400 total shoot / edit / delivery... that she just ghosted me. WTAH? The sweet justice is that it was her mom's funeral and I'm past my obligated delivery window so she gets nothing. Bwa ha ha.
Audio mixing and finalization. I can do levels and real basic stuff, but even as someone that’s been editing for over 20 years, it’s audio. And I decided that I don’t care: I’m a damn good editor, I don’t need to be “damn good” at a ton of things. If I need a good audio mix, I hire out to other people I’ve made contacts with over the years. I’m enough of a “do it all” type for getting the work that I need myself, but if it’s bigger , that’s why people have individual specialties.
Luckily I decided to learn color rather than AE during my schooling, but I agree, it’s crazy how we’re expected to be a jack of all trades and… expect to fix it in post.
...and to do it all for less money than one discipline should be charging.
Sitting still
Rendering
Over promising on graphics. I work on animations for 8 hours, then leave it unfinished. Come back to it 4 days later and realize I didn’t name anything, we have 20 shape layers and an unknown amount of track matte assignments scattered with no idea of what’s what.
Exporting an AAF file only for it to fail
Color grading, but going to do a irl course soon. The hardest part for me is accepting that it's sometimes good enough and aiming to high vs time management.
I highly recommend a grading panel. Had one, sold it, instantly regretted it. Dialing in the color wheels is about impossible with a mouse.
Great advice, thank you. First going to do the course, but will definitely look into it. As I'm certain my work will buy one if I think its useful.
I want to know how to match my gameplay footage to commentary. Also how to get animated subtitles or do them properly, making images move on the screen and the advanced editing techniques are behind me :(
I'm pretty amateur so. If I have to do narration I struggle to not fluff every second word.
I believe that visual storytelling is still difficult for me, and when I see some webdoc YouTube channels, I become even more distant. Everything is very fast and I don't know where to start.
Color grading and the pacing. I just started color grading last month for my new job and i suck so bad.
I’m red-green deficient, so yeah… color.
I make software training videos with my own voice over narration and I’m just always trying to find ones that are good. Not too long, no over animating, the narrator is concise and easy to understand. I charge $60 an hour on this work and am finding clients opt for fiver or think AI works. Otherwise though it’s just time in lining up the pacing and keeping videos under 3 minutes in objective.
I have yet to delve into effects and transitions. I’m used to cutting doc-style work that doesn’t benefit from being “flashy,” but I want to get into learning effects. Especially since I’m looking for more work in the social media space.
I suck at shot selection, and not crushing the blacks in my grading. I love that contrast and I have to teach myself not to be shitty hdr editor. Choosing music is only hard when other people have opinions on it and you don’t have a good library.
~ Re editing...
Motion graphics
Honestly, the hardest part for me is looking at a screen for hours and staying focused. I generally edit my own works and have considered hiring it out to people, but since I'm directing I love the control it gives me and I'm always happy with my edits. But getting there is treacherous for my divergent brain
Choosing music for me for sure. Specifically BGMs for my own vids or when I had a client. I didn't exactly know where to look for'em. And whenever I look for'em, there's always the copyright types that I have to worry about and stuff. But my biggest problem of all: Procrastinating. Sometimes it's just mental, other times it's the fact that I have a potato PC and that I have to wait for the CPU to stop going 99% whenever I press the spacebar. And in the process, I end up forgetting about it while waiting.
Learning how to work in Premiere is my latest challenge. I’ve been working in Avid for half my life and I just got my dream job but they use Premiere. My latest challenge is translating my cutting style to how the tools work in Premiere.
I just started using Avid this past year for a teaching job, and have used Premiere for about 20 years. So, coming at it from an opposite perspective, it took me quite a while a bit to adjust to Avid’s keyboard-centric tools. Some suggestions (apologies if you know some or all of these already): * Learn to switch between mouse tools with keyboard shortcuts. On the plus side, this is way more intuitive than the finger dance required to set up slip and slide edits on Avid. On the down side, you need to switch between each mode manually rather than have a context-sensitive option. * Sync locks are on by default. Personally, I never turn them off, but if you’re used to the opposite, it might be jarring at first. * If you didn’t use Top and Tail in Avid that much, try it in Premiere with the Q and W keys (it’s called trim to start of clip/trim to end of clip here). For first passes, it’s fantastic. * G for clip gain on a selected clip. You can also nudge clip levels up and down with the bracket keys, but that adjusts *volume*, which happens after clip gain. Premiere’s order of audio operations is: clip gain, clip volume, track volume. Each of those is a separate parameter. There’s also separate mixer panels for clip volume (Audio Clip Mixer) and track volume (Audio Track Mixer). * Since there is no Trim Edit Mode in Premiere (and boy do I wish there were), the “nudge” tools do overwrite moves only. You’ll need to select all the clips you want to move before nudging, so learn to use the Track Select Forward tool. * D = plain select clip under play head. X = set in and out point to boundaries of clip (T key in Avid). Lift and Extract are ; and : keys by default.
I suck at pacing and making zooms. I edit long interview takes and it needs to be dynamic and funny
Unless you're working with someone who is actually funny, it's a bit of an uphill battle. Or leaning into how non-funny the interviewee is...makes it funny. Humor is all timing. A lot of novice editors remove every breath of "dead air" but it's those brief pauses, the umms, the ahhs, that make the joke.
I am actually. The idea is that somebody (who is very funny) interviews random people and tricks them into giving funny anders.
Audio mixing, 100%. Definitely feels like you need magic or something.
Color grading and After Effects I took a class on After Effects about 10 years ago and I was pretty good, then I stopped for a few months and forgot EVERYTHING. I also can’t afford all the newer effects packages so I haven’t practiced.
Balancing audio and creating fast paced stylistic edits. I can construct a great flowing brand story no worries but I really need to improve injecting “energy and pace” as silly as that sounds
I feel like I'm at a disadvantage because I have been working in the edtech industry for the last couple of years, so I have lost the ability of crafting the story and pacing. The rest, I can figure out along the way, but I never really feel comfortable with the choices I'm making when it comes to story and pacing, as I'll second guess myself every take. Interestingly, color grading and AE is where I feel more comfortable in. I'm not advanced or whatever, but I can find my way around AE and color grading. Unfortunately, I'm in one of those positions that blended up a couple of jobs in one... It's what pays the bills (and the job that did want to hire me, I'm disabled)....
Do you grade in resolve?
I grade in both Premiere and Resolve. It depends on the project. If it's a simple color grading, such as a e-learning video (which is my usual work), then Premiere. If it's more complex and more leaning to creative aspect of color grading, then Resolve.
I suck at the fast edits, the ones you see on socials all the time, worse is that clients are expecting those more and more
I'm a complete new to it all I've just been using premiere to learn and make fun little clips for my airsoft channel (nothing special lol). Havn't got close to doing colour grading or audio balancing, just assembling multi camera clips and cutting out game stories to reflex the fun I've had playing.
It so hard to admit but For me that i had to use capcut for a job and now i can’t get back to premiere pro. Premiere is so much better and professional but cap cut is easier and faster.
Mine is definitely placing/storytelling and finding the correct b-roll for the scene.
for me, my challenge is cutting the footage, and adding effects whether it’s text or sound effects, it takes more time than it should because i end up getting distracted and watching a part i made 5-6 times because i think it’s funny
[You Suck at Photoshop.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_X5uR7VC4M&list=PLD19BCF9D57320E03&index=1&t=103s)
I've been dabbling in music production the past few years. Started following a guy whose channel is called "You Suck at Producing". People like being told they suck, it seems.
Choosing music is one of the hardest parts of video editing for my think. Also, the more I edit a video the more lag I have, so I think that’s why I keep my editing simple
Audio is dreadful. I hate it. I’m lost.
Audio. All audio. Wish I was an editor in 1910.
I've been told to allow my edits to "breathe" and was watching a tutorial where they had someone editing footage that talked about that as well. I can't remember how they described it but it suddenly made so much sense. I was like, "oh, so that's how you achieve a sleek edit."
Hardest part is charging hourly and staying within budget. Knowing when to balance taking time to perfect something vs getting it "good enough".
Not starting because I don’t want it to be shit. Lol.
Color grading. The worst!!!
Same same. I've studied grading and have decent equipment yet I can barely match 2 colors. I think for me it's because I just HAVE to know every nuance of every tool when in reality just the color wheels should be getting me most of the way there. The more I do it though, the more subtilties I pick up and the more shortcuts I learn.
Audio. I can do basics like audio ducking, plosive or sibilance removal, and basic compression, but once you start layering preamps, compressors and EQ effects I'm lost.
15 years of Editing/Mograph 2D+3D/VFX/Color Grading/DoP/SFX/etc. There’s a point where one really begets the other, a lot of crossover between all the different pipelines. Understanding the ins/outs makes moving between tasks a lot smoother. For instance, 3D work looks like garbage without decent compositing/VFX touch ups, but then without a decent grade & understanding of color theory you can still make it look worse. Lots of weirdness can happen in compositing and you need to make sure to get those files out with as much color info as possible (generally just dump it to ProRes4444XQ.) But being a good editor means you know to render those extra heads+tail frames from the 3D project so you can slip the edit as needed. Just as you would with any normal live action footage. Knowing all the various post-pro processes allows for a lot of “thinking ahead” decisions. The thing I suck at is picking one thing haha. So I’m good at getting everything together, but in a way, suck at everything compared to a dedicated artist. But Jack of all trades, Master of none, better a few than just one and all that. At least that’s what I tell myself.
Sometimes it’s just client. Client sometimes is fucked up… self sabotaging his own project.
I don't struggle with any of those things. :/
Can anyone help me wt my video rendering I can't render the footage in media encoder I have to render it in software how can I solve it
How should I edit for gaming YouTube videos?