I’ve been a contract movie editor for simply shy of twenty years and I’m nonetheless studying new methods. On this article I’ll share seven of my all-time favorites.
Because the title states, the following pointers are deceptively easy. However all the pieces’s straightforward when you know the way, proper? As Supreme Courtroom Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. liked to say, “For the simplicity on this aspect of complexity, I wouldn’t offer you a fig. However for the simplicity on the opposite aspect of complexity, for that I’d offer you something I’ve.”
There are extra advanced options to most of the following pointers and I’d know, I spent years utilizing them till I discovered extra elegant and easy options. In case you’re new to modifying, possibly you’ll discover all of those useful, however I reckon even veterans may choose up a helpful tip or two.
Whereas I would sometimes focus on the specifics of the way to apply the following pointers and methods in a single NLE over one other, they’re just about all relevant to the ‘large 4’ video modifying programmes, so no matter which one you favor to make use of, you’ll nonetheless hopefully scroll away with some new data.
I realized this astoundingly easy trick for perfecting your eye-trace throughout cuts, from trailer editor Derek Lieu. But it surely has so many helpful functions, you’ll use it on a regular basis.
Eye-trace is about ensuring that the place the viewers was wanting on the finish of 1 shot, is roughly the place they must be wanting at first of the subsequent shot, for a clean viewing expertise.
Clearly, you could have inventive editorial causes for making edits jar and forcing the viewers to scan the body for the place to look subsequent, however throughout fast-paced slicing, sustaining good eye hint stops your viewers from getting misplaced within the body.
For years, if I wished to match up the focus throughout an edit I’d do what Derek describes in his tutorial; raise up one clip on prime of the opposite, drop the uppermost to 50% opacity after which re-frame accordingly. Then put all the pieces again the place it was and reset the highest clip again to 100% opacity.
It labored. However in a cumbersome manner.
Derek’s tip is so easy, but so helpful, that you just’ll say “Effectively, why didn’t I consider that?“
- Park your playhead on the reduce between the 2 pictures you’re matching
- Add a dissolve transition (now you can see each clips on prime of one another)
- Modify the positioning or timing of the clips to match the eye-trace
- Delete the dissolve
The 4K punch-in
I now use this on a regular basis, however one frequent technique the place this actually shines is once you’re utilizing 4K footage in an HD timeline and wish to ‘punch in’ for a detailed up that was by no means individually filmed.
With a cross dissolve, you’ll be able to be certain that the attention hint of the position of the topic’s eyes matches up between the large and the shut up, to make sure a clean edit between them.
Listed below are the default keyboard shortcuts for including a dissolve within the ‘large 4’ NLEs.
- Adobe Premiere Professional = Cmd+D
- Avid Media Composer = / (backslash)
- Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve = Cmd+T
- Apple Last Reduce Professional = Cmd+T
Nesting (or compounding) means that you can group a bunch of clips collectively to make them look and act like one single clip. I typically do that when I’ve a set of nonetheless pictures and I wish to apply the identical push-in transfer to all of them, and have them modify on the similar charge—for instance, scaling from 100% to 105%.
In case you do that one clip at a time, the difficulty can come when you have got completely different decision media and scaling from 100% to 105% means various things for every clip. So by nesting them into one clip and making use of the dimensions adjustment to that nested/compound clip all of them push-in on the similar tempo.
This technique known as various things in several software program; nesting in Premiere Professional, compounding in Resolve and Last Reduce Professional and collapsing tracks in Media Composer.
How you can nest/compound/collapse
- FCP: Choose clips, then hit Alt+G
- Resolve: Proper-click on a clip choice and select New Compound Clip…
- Avid: Choose clips, then click on Collapse Tracks button (Device Palette>Different>Collapse)
- Premiere: Proper-click on a clip choice and select Nest. (There isn’t any default shortcut)
How you can un-Nest/Decompose/Step-In
- FCP: Choose your compound clip, then hit Cmd+Shift+G
- Resolve: Choose your compound clip, then right-click and select Decompose in Place
- Avid: Choose your collapsed tracks, then click on ‘Step In’ (or double click on to open)
- Premiere: See the walkthrough under…
The issue for Premiere Professional customers is that there’s no straightforward ‘Unnest’ button or keyboard shortcut to interrupt aside your clips again onto the timeline, as they had been.
The cumbersome work round I used to make use of was to open the nest as a second timeline after which copy and paste the contents again into my authentic timeline, which is commonly fiddly and time-consuming to do.
Till I realized this super-smart but silly easy trick from Javier Mercedes.
There is probably not a right-click and choose ‘Unnest’ choice for Premiere Professional customers however there’s a method to convey your nested sequence, or any sequence for that matter, again right into a timeline, not as a single clip however as all the particular person part items.
And it’s merely a matter of disabling this feature within the timeline.
When this icon is blue, then any sequences might be introduced right into a timeline as nests, however when disabled (grey) then they are going to be dragged in as a set of particular person clips.
It’s that straightforward. (And arguably a extra highly effective method.)
Observe focusing on may not sound like probably the most partaking subject as a result of, properly as a result of it’s not. However it’ll make you quicker within the edit suite and what may very well be higher than that?
Observe focusing on is the motion of specifying which tracks are enabled and that are disabled, which applies to all the large 4 besides FCPX, which has its fancy magnetic timeline.
This sometimes comes into play once you copy and paste clips (it determines the place the pasted clips land) or in the event you’re including edits and solely wish to reduce by way of particular layers. Or possibly you’re utilizing the arrow keys to maneuver up and down your timeline—to verify all of your titles on a particular observe, for instance—however don’t wish to transfer by way of every edit alongside the best way.
What quite a lot of editors do is use the mouse to toggle their observe alternatives, when what we must be doing is setting up custom keyboard shortcuts, that are far sooner!
Right here’s my Observe Goal Toggle arrange in Adobe Premiere Professional
- Toggle Goal Video 1 = 1 (as in number one on the keyboard)
- Toggle Goal Video 2 = 2
- Toggle Goal Video 3 = 3
- Toggle Goal Audio 1 = Alt+1
- Toggle Goal Audio 2 = Alt+2
- Toggle Goal Audio 3 = Alt+3
- Toggle Goal Audio 4 = Alt+4
Add these, or one thing related, to your personal customized keyboard shortcuts and see how a lot time you may save!
This tip could really feel just a little counterintuitive at first, however a bit like working your manner anti-clockwise round a theme park (when everybody else is headed clockwise) it’ll prevent time and assist you have got extra enjoyable in the long term.
Once more, it’s embarrassingly easy—which hasn’t stopped me from forgetting to do that extra typically than I’d wish to admit—and that’s to all the time work by way of timecode notes from the tip and work backwards.
Why? As a result of then any adjustments that you just make received’t have an effect on the timecode placement of the sooner notes.
Right here’s an instance:
- 00:00:10:17 – Take out this scene completely
- 00:00:12:19 – Typo on subtitle
- 00:00:16:47 – Take away shot 4 right here
- 00:00:19:22 – Prolong this shot
In case you leap into making these adjustments and begin with the primary one, it’ll knock your entire different timecode notes out by the length of that scene.
You’ll then spend extra time discovering and checking you’re within the appropriate place, than with this different method:
In case you begin on the finish of the record and work backwards, being conscious of retaining your timecodes in sync for so long as doable, you’ll transfer a lot sooner.
Now, if notes 2 and three had been swapped then clearly you’d wish to repair the typo earlier than eradicating the shot, in any other case, once more, your notes and sequence timecode could be out of sync.
When you have got quite a lot of notes to deal with, retaining your assessment copy and your new sequence in sync for so long as doable will prevent a ton of time cross-checking and shuttling backwards and forwards within the timeline. Belief me on this.
I merely can’t work with out these shortcuts. And also you shouldn’t both.
J Okay L could be the bread and butter of any modifying workflow however including H and backslash provides meat and relish to your editorial sandwich. Did I overwork the metaphor? I believe I overworked the metaphor.
These 5 shortcuts, located together with your center finger on the Okay key, your index determine doing double obligation on H and J, ring finger on L and your pinkie resting on the backslash will help you edit with one hand.
- H – Add Edit
- J – Play in Reverse
- Okay – Pause/Play
- L – Play Ahead
- / – Ripple Delete
Hopefully you already know that double tapping J or L will enhance the shuttle pace, whereas (in Premiere at the very least) holding down Okay and tapping J or L will step by way of body by body.
Ripple delete will take away the clip and shut up the hole that will have been created, in a single stroke.
With regards to defending your editorial profession over the lengthy haul, there’s no higher funding than in just a little data of, and adherence to, ergonomics.
Like a tiny calculation error in a spaceship’s interplanetary trajectory, each hour that you just work with some form of ergonomic mistake embedded in, corresponding to unhealthy posture, incorrect format of your desktop peripherals, poor display screen peak and so on. you’re slowly drifting in direction of inevitable bodily ache or discomfort in some kind. And these points are greatest prevented somewhat than handled.
In case you’re modifying with a mouse for 60 hours every week, you’re growing the chance of RSI or carpal tunnel points as a result of the muscular tissues in your wrist simply weren’t meant to maintain extended left to proper ‘waving’ motions.
To make sure an extended, extra comfy profession, my recommendation is to switch to a tablet and pen. These depend on actions which interact the larger muscular tissues in your arm and shoulder and can enable you to keep away from painful downtime.
There’s rather a lot to recollect in relation to sitting or standing correctly at your desk however one straightforward to recollect rule of thumb is to line up the B key of your keyboard together with your stomach button.
That manner, particularly in the event you’re utilizing a broader keyboard with a quantity pad, as most editors are, your physique and hand place might be extra accurately aligned with the keys from the beginning.
Plus it’s easy to recollect.
The idea behind Margareta Magnusson’s The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning is that it is best to eliminate all of your pointless junk earlier than you die, in order that your family members don’t must attempt to determine what’s nonetheless price ebaying after you’re gone.
OK, that may be placing it just a little too harshly, but it surely’s a great framework for determining what you’ll be able to stay with out proper now, so that you just (and your family members) can get pleasure from a much less cluttered existence, to infinity and past.
As together with your bodily existence, so follows your digital life. However extra purposefully in editorial as a result of storage efficiency—particularly with SSDs—tends to say no quickly because the drive will get full. Holding at the very least 20% of free house is an effective goal to purpose for.
In contrast to in a home, the place junk-filled cabinets are apparent, typically your system storage might be full of previous cache recordsdata and long-forgotten exports hiding beneath the metaphorical floorboards.
That’s the place a free Mac app, OmniDiskSweeper, from Omni Labs, can save the day and assist get your ‘demise cleansing’ beneath manner. (PC customers may wish to try the Storage Sense feature in Windows 10 and 11.)
Get Your Laborious Drive Again
OmniDiskSweeper quickly scans your laborious drive and presents you with a listing of each folder and file, ordered by measurement.
This makes it extremely straightforward to trace down, say 50 GB of After Results cache recordsdata or tame a bloated Downloads folder.
I’ve additionally repeatedly used OmniDiskSweeper when attempting to suit the contents of 1 large laborious drive onto a number of different smaller laborious drives, since OmniDiskSweeper makes it a lot sooner to determine which recordsdata can find yourself on every drive.
It’s extremely easy to do, however the outcomes are very liberating. Identical to Swedish demise cleansing.
Last thought
So there you have got it, seven stupidly easy but wonderful modifying suggestions which I hope will show helpful to you sooner or later and after they do, I hope you’ll cross it on.
If in case you have an important tip that matches the invoice, or simply one thing that you just realized lately, then drop a notice within the feedback part, or find me on Twitter and let me know!
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