LESSON 2: THE BASICS OF EDITING

WHAT YOU NEED

1. Editing Software

2. Patience

3. Time

There's a lot of debate on the best software that will produce the best work when editing. From my experience working with different software it doesn't really matter what you use. Most programs today have HD capability and work really well.

The bottom line to the best editing is the user and knowing what you looking for as the end result. typically with editing software the point of it is to piece together a series of clips to produce one scene. (If you are looking for crazy effects then you need a special effects program. Which we will talk about later.)

There are many video editing programs. Some high end software that's used in Hollywood films would be:  Final Cut Pro (for Mac) or Avid Media Composer & Adobe Premiere (for PC & Mac).  These programs you may want to wait till your more familiar with the concept behind editing. Like I said I don't feel you will ever need any of these programs to create Hollywood looking films.  Either your a great film maker or your not.  A great program to start with would be Sony Vegas Pro. It has all the capability as the others. or if you are using a Mac computer. iMovie would be the best choice.  For me I started with Sony Vegas Pro. 

If you are familiar with  computer programs in general you will catch on quite easily. If not there are a lot of tutorial on Youtube that would guide you through. Don't expect to jump into this as a professional. I've been doing this for quite a while and you will always learning something new. since your starting out you will just need to know how to put a scene together.  The other stuff will come later.

All of these program aren't free but you can get a trial version online that works fully for 30 days.  Just google it!

So getting into the editing part, See below image for how Sony Vegas Pro looks when you open it.  (for this tutorial I am using Sony Vegas Verison 12.0)

So click explorer on the top left and choose your files that you recorded. You can select them all and drag them into the timeline.

Once you have dragged the videos in the timeline you will see this.

So while you are working on the first clip you can move the others aside. by just dragging them to the right of the screen.  (as shown)

So if you put your mouse next to the end of the first clip your cursor will change and you will get a box pull up next to it like this.

If you click and move your cursor to the left you will cut off the end of the clip, this works the same at the beginning of the clip if you click and move to the right.  You will see the preview in the top right corner showing how much you will cut off of that current clip. This method will allow you to tight up your clips and cut off what you don't need. once you have trimmed your first clip you can move the next clip over and work on that one the same.  Ok So you have worked on all of these clips, now you can drag each clip next the the clip before it without leaving any space. Be careful not to dragged to far so they don't overlap. this will cause a transition. which we don't want for this project.

So once you have dragged all the clips together, You can preview the whole thing by hitting space bar.  So you watched it and it looks awlful. its because it has no decent music or sound effects. Next tutorial is adding sound....