From Clutter to Clarity: Transforming Videos with Editing
Projects either live or die in the edit - it’s the moment that will make or break your story. You can have the most beautiful images and the most powerful narrative, but if you bungle the edit then it’ll just be a mess of images. Today we’re going to dig into the steps I walk through in my edits so you can take notes and hopefully take your stories over the finish line!
September for Storytelling wraps up this week, which means this is the LAST week to enter to win the Filmmaking kit! That kit includes a Rode Wireless ME, Aputure Amaran 60x S and softbox, Ulanzi phone grip, as well as a 80” tripod. To enter, watch through the video so you can see how to enter. Just a reminder - it’s not too late to go back to the other videos from this month and enter - every one of the “September for Storytelling” videos gives you the opportunity to enter and increase your chances to win!
So what’s coming up after this month? Well, there’s a ton of new gear and applications that have come out this month that I’m planning to cover. We have the iPhone 15 Pro, which I did a preview of, but now I’ve got it in hand and want to talk through how it works in the real world. Then we have the Blackmagic Cam application, which is HUGE for smartphone filmmaking. Finally, I’ve also gotten my hand on an Ulanzi U-Mic, which has potential to be a great budget system. I haven’t tested it yet, so I can’t weigh in, but I’m looking forward to giving it a full review. All of these things are just tools to tell stories, but they all make me even more excited about the opportunities in front of us!
Enough about the future, though, you’re here to learn about editing! Before we jump in, let’s watch a video I shot earlier this summer and use it as a base for the conversation. Earlier this Summer, I partnered with an organization called “World Renewal” to do some trainings as well as capture some stories of what was happening in Brazil. We captured a few brief pieces to share with supporters of World Renewal so they can see some of the work that their funds are supporting.
One note on this video - I broke one of my own rules and really shouldn’t have. I filmed from a darker spot into a brighter spot, which meant the lighting on her wasn’t as good as it could have been. Earlier in the week I filmed one of my Youtube videos in the same spot, but that was on a day where it wasn’t as bright and it worked better. The shot with her was a bit more contrasty than I wanted and I had to do some work in post to make it look a bit better. Additionally, the mic died on me, so what you’re hearing is actually the on-camera microphone. I ran it through some post software to clean it up, but it still wasn’t up to my standards. Did it negate the usefulness of the video? Of course not, they were still able to use it to share the stories, but it’s always good to objectively look at projects to see where they can be improved. Without further adeu…
ORGANIZE YOUR PROJECT
Before you edit a single clip, it’s important to make sure you organize your project. I’ve never been the most neat and tidy person around, but even I will acknowledge the importance of a clean project. You need to know where all of the pieces are to the story you’re telling. Often when you’re working on your edit, you’re going to run into creative roadblocks. More often than not, I find myself throwing different shots at the timeline to figure out what’s going to help the story to progress. It’s frustrating at times, but it’s made even more frustrating if I’m having to search for the pieces I want to test out. So it’s important to keep things organized. There are two areas where you’ll organize your project - in your file system and in your editor. Both are pretty similar in practice.
In your file system, you want to have folders to keep all the individual pieces of your project organized. This way if you need to import a new element, or share something with another editor, it’s easier to quickly find those pieces. Additionally, when you’re finally done with your project, this allows you to easily archive it away without needing to track down files all over. I hate it when I go to archive a project, only to discover that I have files on my desktop, in my downloads folder, as well as in the project folder. It makes things stressful. Here’s how I typically organize my projects. I usually have a main root folder for the project, starting that folder name with the date in year, month, day format. Then I’ll make sure to describe whoever the client is or what story I’m telling - basically finding something that will help me to know which project it is down the road.
Inside that root folder, I’ll then have different folders for all the different types of elements. This can be as simple or as complicated as the project calls for it. I usually at least have these root folders: Footage, Audio, Graphics, and Exports. If things are complicated, I’ll make subfolders in each of those. For instance, if I have multiple cameras, I’ll make a folder for each camera in the Footage folder. Or, if I have sound effects, music, and some dialogue audio, then I’ll make folders for each of those in the Audio folder. Then in Exports, I’ll usually only have a single subfolder - Rough Cuts. This is where I put all of my edits until I finalize the project. Once I’ve finalized everything, I then export that directly into the “Exports” folder. This way if I return to the project 6 months from now, I’m not having to remember if it was version 4 or version 5 that I settled on - I just know that whatever is in the Exports folder was the final.
I do a similar system within my editing platform. Most editors allow you to have bins or folders within the project, so I’ll typically duplicate my folder setup in the program. Footage with sub folders for cameras, audio with folders for music, sound effects, and so on. The only one that doesn’t usually end up in the project is exports, as those aren’t reimported into the project. After the project is organized, I now make my footage more accessible with a selects timeline.
SELECTS TIMELINE
The selects timeline is a way of weeding out all the mediocre and downright bad shots in your edit. You know, the shots where you accidentally left it rolling as you walked around, or the times when the shot just didn’t turn out like you wanted. I’m not going to go too deep into this since I did an entire video on the topic, but it’s important that you take the time to go through your clips to identify the best clips. Simply put, the selects timeline is you going through and finding the good and best shots, and then trimming out the parts that didn’t work out. This helps you because when you go to drop your b-roll into your edit, you have a timeline you can pull from where you know every shot is good, so you’re just looking for the clip that fits the best. Also, if you ever need to pull from the footage again in the future, you can export a selects timeline file and have that to pull from in the future, preventing you from needing to do all this work all over again. If you want a deeper dive into how I make my selects timelines, watch the video on this channel linked in the description!
A-ROLL
The a-roll is the meat of your story - this is what drives your narrative forward. A-roll is something like an interview, or a person talking on camera. Specifically, you’re using the audio (and some video) of this shot to tell the story. It may be an interview with a person who’s been impacted by your organization, or maybe it’s the director sharing the story. It doesn’t matter WHO it is, it just is the person who’s driving your story.
When I approach the edit, I like to first go through and cut out all the “dead space.” The space between questions, the portions I’m definitely not going to use. Sometimes this is as easy as just grabbing the in and out points on a script that was delivered, sometimes it’s editing out all of the portions where lines were flubbed or the interviewer asked questions. The idea is to get the extra out of the way so I can focus on just the main statements.
From there, I go to construct my story. On easier edits where it’s a script that was delivered, I just clean up any small flubs in the delivery and place everything where I want it. If it’s an interview, I try to think through how I want the story to flow. Not every interview ends up in sequential order - sometimes I’ll come back to a topic later in the interview that may relate to the start of the story.
For the World Renewal pieces, I asked questions specific to each video and let Rachel share where things were at. She was great on camera, and I found that I didn’t need to ask a ton of follow up questions. Most of the things I asked for was just to get some conclusion statements for the videos to either give a call to action or a stronger landing statement. More often than not, I found that I just needed to trim down her responses to fit the time limit we were aiming for. It was all great content, but sometimes you need to cut out extra portions so the viewer can focus on your main story. It can be hard to choose to cut out portions, but make sure you ask if each piece is really that important to keep in. If you have too much extra in the script, then people will lose the focus.
MUSIC
Music can completely change the tone of your video. It can create a sense of fear and dread. I can make everything playful and happy! Or it can make someone feel sadness…
There was a popular trend a few years ago where people would reedit a movie trailer to a completely different genre. Home Alone as a horror film, The Shining as a romantic comedy, and Stephen King’s IT as a family film. One of the tricks these trailers used was changing the music out to something fitting of the new genre.
When picking your music, look for something first that fits the feel you want for your video. If my video has any spoken words in it, I try to stay away from music with lyrics. More likely than not, you’re going to need to do some retiming of the song to fit the content in your video. The best way I’ve found to do this is to find points where the beat hits, then find a spot earlier or later in the song with a similar beat hit. Then cut on both those beats and pull the portion you need to extend or shorten the song. This can also allow you to pull moments from earlier or later in your song to fit the tone of that portion of the video. I find this trick is most helpful if I’m editing someone’s personal story, where they’re talking about a point of redemption in their life. You may want something more somber earlier in the video, that turns to something more cheery later on. This trick allows you to move the moments in that song around as you see fit.
The other thing to watch out for is to make sure your music isn’t distracting. If it’s too loud, or has certain instrument hits, it may end up being distracting to the viewer. Take it from me - the music in some of my earlier Youtube videos had music that was too loud. It wasn’t blaring, but it was just slightly too loud and was in competition with my voice. You want the music to fall into the background, almost being so subtle that the viewer doesn’t realize what they’re hearing. If they’re focusing more on the music than the content, then it’s too distracting.
The World Renewal pieces held a pretty consistent tone throughout the videos, so I found that I really just needed to edit the music for length. I went for something upbeat and cheery, but subtle enough that it would just fall behind the main audio. I started with the music a bit louder, but dropped it down right before she started speaking, then brought it back up at the end of the video. You only want to do this if the music will be playing without speaking long enough to make it worthwhile.
B-ROLL
Once I’ve got my a-roll all set with music underneath it, I go to drop in my b-roll. The music and a-roll help to give the piece structure, while the b-roll gives extra information to tell the story. Since we’ve already made a selects timeline, it makes my life significantly easier. I am able to just jump in and grab the specific types of shots I need for each section, and know that I’m pulling from a clip that’s already good.
I pick my b-roll based on what makes most sense for the story. I try to drop in clips specific to whatever my a-roll is talking about. If they’re talking about the crafts the kids did, I show that on screen. If I’m talking about happy kids having fun, I show that. Whatever the content is, I find something that matches it. That being said, sometimes you won’t have a clip that perfectly illustrates whatever is being said. In those instances, I find footage that fits the mood and content as well as I can. The key is to drop in b-roll that illustrates the story without being distracting. Similar to what I talked about last week, it can be helpful to show mini-stories. Cut together wide, medium, and tight shots to show what’s going on at the events.
There are a few tricks I try to do when editing together the b-roll. If the music has a strong beat, I try to make my cuts match that beat. This doesn’t mean I cut on every beat hit, but I try to use those hits as motivation for a shot change. This helps to tie the energy of the visuals to the sound of the music, and makes everything more cohesive.
Similarly, I try to utilize L and J cuts. These cuts help to hide cuts in the a-roll. Basically all those cuts do is offset the cuts in the b-roll with the cuts in your a-roll. If you line the two up, it can be more obvious to the viewer that you spliced the a-roll and your story. If you offset it, it’s not as obvious and the viewer may not notice that you tied two soundbites together.
This is a good time to mention that I did an entire video giving 10 tips for a better edit. Check that out to hear a few of these tips as well as a few things I didn’t hit on in this video. The link is in the description.
The World Renewal piece was mostly a montage edit to a script, so I just found clips that illustrated whatever was being talked about. I didn’t edit together a ton of mini-stories for this one, instead opting to show the variety of what was going on throughout the video. I wish I had more intentionally filmed a few of those mini-stories, though, as I think it would have set me up to focus on some details I missed.
GRAPHICS
Graphics are pretty straight forward. For the majority of stories, the only graphics I add are some form of text. I’ll add titles at the start of the video, a lower third to identify a speaker, or I may add in a bit of text to bridge the gap in an interview. Additionally, if it makes sense stylistically, I may add in text to illustrate a statistic I want to draw attention to. The key is to make your graphics clean and feel like they fit into the overall look of your video. I’m not really a graphic artist, so this is one area I struggle. I can make something look decent, but a true graphic artist can really integrate the text into the shot.
When I’m adding in this text, I try to look at the frame to figure out the best place to put it without being obnoxious. Sometimes that’s finding a blank space in the corner of a frame for someone’s name, or dropping it center and anchored to the top or bottom. If the text is the primary focus of the shot, I may place it center of the screen and adjust the opacity of the shot behind it. Other times I’ll add a VERY blurred out drop shadow, just giving a bit of darkness behind the words. Make sure whatever color you’re using jumps out from the frame while still being legible. You don’t want to use a font or color that just gets lost in your image, so you may need to play around with those combinations.
I didn’t use a ton of text in the World Renewal pieces, instead focusing on dropping the URL for the organization on the video during call to actions. I wanted to focus to be on the visuals of the story, so these stayed simple. I could have added her name and title on the videos, but opted not to for the sake of simplicity.
DELIVERY
A video that’s edited but not delivered isn’t going to do much for inspiring others. Delivery is going to look different for every organization, but the key is that you want to be delivering your story to wherever your audience is at. If you have a strong e-mailing list, maybe you want to deliver your video over e-mail. The best way to do that is to upload your final edit to Youtube or Vimeo, and then embed a clickable image and link in your e-mail that drives people to watch the story. If your audience is primarily on Instagram, then you want to upload your story as a reel. Anytime it’s possible, you don’t want to link the audience away from the platform where you’re already engaging them. This isn’t always the case, but if your audience is primarily on Facebook, then maybe you just want to embed the video there instead of uploading to Youtube and then sharing a link. The platforms favor media native to the platform above external links, plus it gives the ability for the videos to automatically play without the viewer needing to engage it. This means you’ll get more eyes on your video, which hopefully will result in a larger response.
Additionally, you’re going to want to make sure you archive your project. For me, this typically means that I’m going to upload a final edit to Dropbox so it’s archived in the cloud, and then I’ll take that project folder and transfer it from an edit drive to my archive drive. This way I can pull the project down if I ever need to reference it again, but the final edits are backed up and easily sharable if I need to give the file to anyone.
And with that, September is for Storytelling comes to a close. Make sure you like this video, subscribe, and comment an answer to this week’s question. You do all that, and you’re entered to win the Filmmaking Kit! This week’s question is a two-parter - 1. Where are you creating stories for and 2. What camera are you using? If you haven’t already, check out the other videos in the series and enter on those videos as well. Remember, it’s not about the gear, it’s about the story!
