Tips ·
Video Editing ·
Non-Technical Video Editing Tips That Will Dramatically Improve Your Work
Premium Beat by Noam Kroll
The magic of all great films happens in the editing room, and your ability to understand the theory of editing – not just the technical side of things – is what will dictate your project’s success.
While many people mistakenly consider the work of an editor to be primarily technically oriented, a great editor needs to be equally as in touch with human nature and audience behavior. Great editors not only make their choices with the story and characters in mind, but more importantly with a great empathy for their audiences.
A seasoned editor knows what an audience wants and how to surprise them. As such, they’re able to piece together and build compelling stories in a way that is true to the original screenplay, but still brings a new layer or texture to the film that wasn’t there before.
I have written a number posts over the past year that focus on the technical aspects of post-production and editing, but for the purpose of this article, I really want to focus on some non-technical editing tips and fundamentals, as they are equally as important.
Know When to Favor Wide Shots Over Closeups
If you’ve been editing for any substantial amount of time, you probably have fallen into some sort of rhythm or workflow that helps you get through every project. Many editors are accustomed to choosing their shots based on general editing principles that will always get the job done, but don’t always translate to the best final product.
For example, the most common approach to a scene would be to use a wide shot to introduce it, then cut to the coverage of each respective character (usually closeups), inject cutaways as needed, and possibly go back to the wide to end the scene. This formula in my opinion is very TV-like and doesn’t leave a lot of room for creativity. read more...
The magic of all great films happens in the editing room, and your ability to understand the theory of editing – not just the technical side of things – is what will dictate your project’s success.
While many people mistakenly consider the work of an editor to be primarily technically oriented, a great editor needs to be equally as in touch with human nature and audience behavior. Great editors not only make their choices with the story and characters in mind, but more importantly with a great empathy for their audiences.
A seasoned editor knows what an audience wants and how to surprise them. As such, they’re able to piece together and build compelling stories in a way that is true to the original screenplay, but still brings a new layer or texture to the film that wasn’t there before.
I have written a number posts over the past year that focus on the technical aspects of post-production and editing, but for the purpose of this article, I really want to focus on some non-technical editing tips and fundamentals, as they are equally as important.
Know When to Favor Wide Shots Over Closeups
If you’ve been editing for any substantial amount of time, you probably have fallen into some sort of rhythm or workflow that helps you get through every project. Many editors are accustomed to choosing their shots based on general editing principles that will always get the job done, but don’t always translate to the best final product.
For example, the most common approach to a scene would be to use a wide shot to introduce it, then cut to the coverage of each respective character (usually closeups), inject cutaways as needed, and possibly go back to the wide to end the scene. This formula in my opinion is very TV-like and doesn’t leave a lot of room for creativity. read more...
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