The nice thing about video at CAMGA is that most members don’t need to spend time editing. So unless you’re a videographer, you don’t need to worry much about editing. If you are a videographer, we can fix you up with the training you need. Email Lee Borden for more information.
The best editing job with your first video is no editing at all. Plan your project so you can turn the camera on, say what needs to be said, and turn the camera off. Some of the most useful videos on the Internet are produced that way, and they’re just fine for delivering a simple message about gardening or horticulture. A video you produce in this way won’t work for Stubborn Old Gardeners, because our channel’s videos follow a specific format that requires editing, but you could share a simple no-edit video on social media, email it to your friends, or just keep it for your own purposes.
If you need to edit your video, you shouldn’t need to pay money to do it. Your Windows PC comes equipped with Windows Live Movie Maker, which will do a decent job helping you trim your clips and transition from one clip to another. If you’re an Apple user, you’ll have iMovie on your computer, which is slightly more versatile than Windows Live Movie Maker. It’s beyond the scope of Free Video School to teach you how to use a video editor, but here are some resources for the two main free editing programs:
Windows Live Movie Maker
- Video: How to Use Windows Live Movie Maker
- Video: Windows Movie Maker Full Tutorial
- PDF Document: Windows Live Movie Maker Guide
iMovie
Stubborn Old Gardeners uses Lightworks, a free, powerful, and extremely versatile editing package. Lightworks is capable of professional quality editing and is in fact the favorite of several editors in the industry. The limitation on the Lightworks free version is that it will output in only one format – 720p HD. As it happens, that’s exactly the format we need for Stubborn Old Gardeners on YouTube, so it’s a splendid solution for us!
And here’s a good summary of some of the best resources on the web for making your own movies, called Movies at Home: A Guide to Film Editing, but it’s really about the whole process of making movies at home.
There are some things you can do easily as you edit. You can add titles at the beginning and/or end of your program, and anywhere else in the program as you like. Typically, you can do a variety of transitions between shots, like dissolves and wipes. You can do the same thing with audio transitions.
There are also some things you cannot do easily. You can’t easily correct your too bright or too dark picture, filter out noise, or make your talent sound better than they do on your tape. We often hear people saying something like “We’ll clean that up in post,” meaning somebody will be able to do something in the post-production process to correct a problem that occurred during shooting.
When you hear someone say “We’ll clean that up in post,” know that this is a person who hasn’t spent much time in post. There’s virtually no correction or adjustment in post-production of the basic picture and sound that can’t be done much more quickly and simply in the production process itself. So please, if you have a problem with wind noise, or dialogue that’s too faint, or a picture that’s not quite dark enough, address it while you’re shooting so you won’t have to worry about that in the editing process.
When you are finished with your editing, email Lee Borden to work out how to get your video up on Youtube.
