All You Need to Take Your Editing Game to the Next Level

Editing can seem like a very daunting process. Your planning and film execution is done, and now it is time to sit and put those pieces together so that your ideas can make sense to the viewer.

Phew, talk about pressure.

Editing is a journey and an interesting one at that. With some knowledge, you can make your clippettes and video take a cohesive TV masterpiece. So whatever the project is, here are some tips to guide you and take your editing game to the next level;

1. Shoot to edit. Yes, shoot to edit, you read that right. When you are shooting, keep the editing in mind. This would automatically reduce the number of unnecessary takes and waste less time. Always have the finished product in mind when shooting. This leads us to the next tip.

2. Only choose bits that are necessary to the plot. Yes, yes, we know you love that bit with the girl flipping her Peruvian weave and looking absolutely stunning in the golden light but does the story absolutely need it?

Too many Nollywood movies have a lot of very unnecessary shots that the plot could easily have done without. You do not want to be that filmmaker.

It is not so easy, but try not to be too sentimental about your videos, no matter how bedazzling it might look. The most significant factor is the final product! So if the clips do not work, remove them. 

In the same way, choose the most appropriate action. Choose snippets that depict the most important action. Anything that doesn't help tell the story can and should be left out. Use only the section of the clip that contains the operation you want. 

If you want to get a shot of a man typing, leave it as just that - a man typing. These seemingly insignificant changes make a huge difference to the final production.

3. Cut your videos. Try to keep the transitions between scenes as tight as possible without being too jumpy. This can be done by removing needless delays in the execution of lines by actors, or by literally tightening the spaces between dialogue sentences with well-placed cutaway scenes. This will help create tension and keep your audience from becoming bored.

4. Display something different with each edit. 1-2-3, not 1-1-1. Create variation so your audience would not get bored.

Show a particular subject or a different perspective on the same matter, you can easily do this by changing the shot size or camera angle.

If you have a choice of different camera angles, do not feel you need to cut back to the same angle you had in the previous shot. There are times when this is unavoidable such as in dialogue scenes with only two angles; but if by chance, different takes were shot with different framing, make an effort to use a variety of them.

Try to exercise the 30-degree rule; the camera should move at least 30 degrees between shots of the same subject occurring in succession. 

However, when you are alternating between varying edits, don't cut between two very close shots of the same subject. Except you want to create a jump-cut effect.

Also, you should step back and forth from shot sizes. The last thing you want to do is confuse your viewers with extreme changes in shot sizes. For instance, you cannot and should not cut straight from an intense long shot to an extreme closeup. Balance it out with some sort of midshot that easily transitions the video and draws your audience in.

5. Set the perfect tempo. Know what shots should stay on screen for longer or shorter durations. You want comprehension, not boredom.

Closeups, flat frames, and shots with no movement or action can all be brief. Long shots, intense long shots, and other shots with a lot of detail would need more time on video.

Sudden shifts in tempo, whether it's a shot that lingers too long or one that passes too quickly to understand, would seem clumsy.

6. Transition! How smooth are your transitions? Are you even using the right ones?

For those in the back who do not know, transitions are the effects that you use to join a video cut with another video cut. 

While simple cuts work, subtle transitions like ‘Cross Fade’, “JCut” and ‘Cross Dissolve’ (in which the shots disappear into each other) can be used to signal a part of the story that was left out.

Transitions like ‘Fade In/Fade Out’ can be used for moving from scene to scene or to indicate a passing of time.

You might want to steer clear of the crazier transitions, even though you might be tempted to try them out. The fancy stuff might be good for music videos, advertisements,  artsy videos, or small high school projects.

7. The sound is as important. Be as attentive to the audio as you are to the video.

When editing, try to make sure the audio of the whole video is on the same level or very close. Alternating sound levels are a real buzz-kill and would make anyone switch the channel on your creative piece faster than gala-sellers can run. 

As you are ensuring the audio is on the same level, make sure the soundtracks that you choose are not distracting. I like to increase my audio gain for the main sounds and reduce it for the background sounds or soundtracks. 

I am sure I am not the only one who has watched a movie or two that had me straining to hear the characters in one scene and rushing to decrease the volume in the next because the music was way too loud. 

You can reduce the ‘quietness’  by using ‘wild track,' ‘room tone,' or ‘ambiance' – background sound from the shoot venue.