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Lesson Info

Editing Made Simple

How do you actually edit a video? So you saw the first take of trying to do the video in one fell swoop. There's a lot of reasons why that's difficult. One, there's no way you can remember everything you need to say. No way. (laughs) It's way too much pressure. And when you're under that much pressure, you're bound to screw up. So we don't wanna do that. The other reason that filming in one long segment is not ideal, is that it makes the editing process really, really difficult. So whether you're editing your videos, or someone else is editing your videos, you wanna make sure you're filming in small chunks so that you can literally just say to them, "Clip one goes here. Clip two goes here." They're small tiny little chunks that they just need to layer and add up. So the editing tools that I used until I got to 50,000 subscribers, was iMovie, just on my Mac, and if you're on PC, you can use Windows Movie Maker. So I know I'm not saying Adobe or Final Cut, or talking about the fancy opti...

ons because truthfully you don't need them in the beginning. And if you're doing this to build your business, people aren't expecting you to be a video pro as well as an entrepreneur in whatever niche that you're in. They just want the valuable information. So I want you to focus on the value of your content versus the production value. The only thing that's important when you're starting on YouTube is can people hear you? Is the audio clear? And can they see you? This doesn't mean you need lights, or even a mic. You need to be in a quiet room with no other distractions so that the audio is clear, you need to be somewhat close to the camera, and you need to have light. And my favorite kind of light, and I know Sue agrees with me on this, is natural light. So natural light will make you look amazing, it will make your eyes pop, and it looks just fresh and clean and bright, and it's aesthetically pleasing to the audience. So, the tools for beginners, iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, very simple. Everyone in the room, do you have one of these options? Yes. Awesome, love it. Perfect. So, let's take a look at... (laughs) Laura's like, "Please no." (laughs) But I just wanna prove... Everyone, we are very comfortable on camera. Even for people that are comfortable on camera, it can feel a little bit awkward. And you know what makes it awkward for YouTube, and making YouTube videos? Is because it's all you. And I had to go through this transition of being on camera, being in a live studio every morning when I worked in television, having a whole crew behind me, having a director and a producer, and realizing that I had all of this help to make me look good. When it's just you and a camera, it's just you and a camera. So you're in charge of how you look. So it's a much more vulnerable experience, and that's why it feels more nerveracking. But like I said, if they can hear you and they can see you, and you have really good content, that's all people care about. If you're gonna make an impact, that's all people care about. So let's take a look at the edited version, OK? We're not professionals, but we did it. In this video, I'll show you the best settings for headshots. By the end of this video, you're gonna know how to shoot headshots just like a professional photographer. Because I am one, I've been a professional photographer for ten years. And I've taught hundreds of photographers like you how to do beautiful shots like this. (audience laughs) (magical chimes) So step one, diffuse the light. Lighting is so important for photography. It's your key thing that you need to be thinking about. (magical chimes) Step two, ISO settings. You don't need to be super nerdy to know how to work your camera like a pro. (magical chimes) Step three is shutter speed. Now, I don't know a thing about shutter speed but that's what I should be talking about in this segment, and teaching you all about. (audience laughs) (magical chimes) Step four is aperture. Not only is it a difficult word to say, but it's super useful in photography. (audience laughs) (magical chimes) And finally, step five, lighting. Lighting, lighting. Again, super important in everything you do. (magical chimes) And a bonus tip, longer focal lengths are better and more flattering, so step in and step back out for a zoom in. So now you know all about the simple camera settings. If you liked this video, make sure you join my private Facebook group. We can hang out, chat, exchange all of our knowledge, and become better at our craft. Hit the 'like' button if you enjoyed this video, and let me know what cameras and techniques you like to use. And don't forget to subscribe to my channel for more videos every week. (audience applause) Not too shabby. (laughs) That came out better than I thought it could. You know, like, yeah. So this is us filming under pressure, in between meetings yesterday. No script, no teleprompter, just having the notes in front of her. And one of the things that, actually, Laura, I wanna ask you about this. We had you filming on your laptop. Yes. Using the webcam. And what I did, is I said, "OK, you don't have to do this totally blind. What you can do is put the script up on the screen, hide the actual camera piece, but have it recording you, and if you ever get stuck, just glance down. Because people can't really see at home." So, how was the experience of filming for you? Great. I mean, the... You can perhaps see occasionally my eyes glance away and look at the screen. And also because I imagine when you know the topic you're speaking about... I'm not a photographer so I wasn't sure what I was talking about. Shocking. (laughs) Yeah, you would never know. So if you know the content, then it's gonna be far more natural to talk about, surely, than something that's difficult and you don't have experience in. But, yeah, definitely... 'cause looking at your laptop feels kinda natural anyway, 'cause we're all staring at our computers all day long. (laughs) Yes. And then having the notes there was just nice security. Exactly, and that's what I did when I first started too. The other thing is, we filmed in very small sections. Intro, filmed separately. Outro, filmed separately. Each individual step, filmed individually. So we're not sitting there being like, "OK, film this five minute video in one fell swoop." And we all saw how that went. We all know how that feels when we try and do it. It doesn't really work out that well. So, the way that you can make editing simple, you know how to make filming simple now. The way that you make editing simple, it's kind of aligned. So you wanna make sure that you're lining up the clips linearly. Again, this is why you wanna film in small sections. So you have clip one, clip two, clip three, clip four, and you can name them like that. So you have them on your desktop, named, in order, and you literally just drag and drop them into iMovie. Cut the excess. So anything that doesn't feel good, you wanna remove. Total sidenote to this, we were filming the Bonus Tip, and because neither of us are photographers, some of the lingo sounds a little weird. So I think Laura needed to say, (laughs) "Bonus Tip, something about focal length," and it came out as "fecal matter," basically. (laughs) And that will happen. So we're not gonna include that piece. So that would be excess, literally almost. Excess that you want to cut out of your (laughs) footage. I had a good chuckle about that yesterday. We both did. So, cut the excess. Cut anything that you don't really want in there, doesn't feel good to you, and that slows down the pacing. Because, again, keep in mind, if someone's finding you for the first time, they just wanna know what they need to know as quickly as possible. So you don't need to have a bunch of long-winded answers in there, long-winded things in there. It's not actually gonna give them what they need from the video. So cut any excess. If you feel like you're rambling, feel free to cut that down too. Cover up with B-ROLL. So we didn't have a ton of B-ROLL on this, but those transitionary slides where we had the number of the tip and what the tip was, that can be considered B-ROLL 'cause we put it over the top. And then we also had the beautiful headshot as well that we added in there for B-ROLL, just for some extra visuals and you can have fun with that. Add the bells and whistles. So that's sounds effects and music. Sound effects, we got directly from iMovie. There's a whole sound effects library in there. There's also a free music library on YouTube where you can download sounds and they'll tell you if they're copywritten or not. All of the graphics that we used, so the transitions, we made those on Canva with the dimensions of 1920 x 1080. Took us less than a minute to put them all together, and you just duplicate, change the text. And then social icons. So you probably noticed that Laura's social handle was at the bottom of the screen. You wanna have that in there, because, again, that's building the relationship off of YouTube. And it's telling people, "Yes, you found me here, you can also find me on Instagram and Twitter, and let's connect there." Right? So, final thing is the pattern interrupt. We only did one of these throughout the video, but something you can do to pattern interrupt, and to make sure that your audience is still paying attention is to add zoom in and zoom out. So, when Laura said, "I've taught over a thousand or a hundred... I've taught hundreds of photographers these same tips," we zoomed in and we zoomed out to emphasize that point. And what that does is when you're watching it... And I kind of actually noticed all of you went, "Oh," when that happened. It kind of makes you check back in because we are busy, and even if we're looking for a tutorial, we might be 3/4 of the way through... I'm very guilty of this. And go, "What was this about?" (laughs) And, "What have I learned?" And "Did I actually watch this? 'Cause I don't think I retained any knowledge." So, you wanna make sure that you're keeping the viewer engaged and tuned in, and one of the ways to do that is visually interrupting their process and their pattern. Is all of this making sense? Say yes. Yes. Cool. Awesome. Perfect. And then, export and upload. So there's a couple ways you can do this. If you're using iMovie, which I'm more familiar with, but I'm sure there's an option with Windows Movie Maker, you literally can upload your video directly from iMovie to your YouTube channel. Super simple to do. Or, you can export the file to your desktop and upload it from there. There you go. Does editing seem a little less daunting now?