Phone cameras are getting better by the year, and now you can film things for marketing materials on the go. But you probably know that just using a raw clip is not enough in today’s video marketing standard.
Filming is only half of the battle, and the other half is editing your clips to make a video that has both aesthetic and story. As with filming great footage, editing requires you to have the creativity and technical understanding of the editing tool you use.
In this blog, you’ll learn about how you can edit those clips into a professional-level video, plus the tools you can use to do it.
Table of Contents
Choose your Editing Software
The first thing you need to do is get to know which software you are going to use. Because one way or the other, if you’re going to edit your videos, you need to know your way around the video editing tool you use.
There is a plethora of video editing software, free or paid, that you can use to edit your videos. We’re going to talk about a few of them a little bit to help you get the gist of this software. Going over them is a topic big enough for an entire article.
To make it simpler for you, I’m going to assume that you’re either using Windows or Mac. There are only two tools that you should consider.
● Adobe Premiere Pro CC
Premiere Pro is arguably the best video editing software for Windows PC. It has most features you’ll need, from adding a simple text overlay to multi-cam and 3D editing. There is no video track limit with Premiere Pro, which means you can dump as many clips as you want to your library.
● Final Cut Pro X
If you’re an Apple user, this tool is likely to be a better choice for you than Premiere Pro CC. Final Cut Pro can seamlessly integrate with other Apple devices, so you can easily access your iTunes and photos while editing your clips.
● Aside from being more optimized for Apple devices, several features make Final Cut Pro excellent editing software. For example, its intelligent color balancing is perfect for non-professional editors to create an aesthetically pleasing video.
● Just in case you want to try out other video editing tools aside from those two, this handy table from Filmora Blogshould be helpful to you.
Prepping the Assets for Your Video
To make your video editing process more effective, you should have all the assets you need to prepare beforehand.
However, there’s a rule of thumb that you should keep in mind while producing and editing your marketing video: Film More Than What You Need.
Many filmmakers shoot hundreds of footage even though they’re only planning to make a 10-minute video. They do it because they know it’s not going to like most of the footage they shoot. In addition to that, the availability of extra footage could help them become more creative with the way they edit their videos.
These are several things (other than the clips, of course) that you’ll probably need to make a video that looks professional for your business. Let’s talk about a few of them real quick.
Background Music and Sound Effects
Background tracks aren’t always necessary, but in some cases, they could make your videos much more memorable to the viewers. According to Vidyard’s article, background music in your marketing videoscould play either one of two roles: supporting the message or driving the message of your video.
If you’re still not sure which background music to use, try visiting these libraries:
– Shutterstock
– AudioJungle
– Audioblocks
– Hook sounds
– Purple Planet
Their vast range of available stock music should be helpful for any video you’re trying to put together.
Storyboard
To help your video editing process, prepare a storyboard to guide you along the way. Creating a storyboard before editing your video is helpful in several ways.
We are testing if your story works at all.
Your video’s storyboard can help you see whether the story you had in your mind would work at all. The concept in your head could be an image that is too difficult to pull off on your own. Sketching up a storyboard helps you validate whether it could do the concept you had at all.
We are allocating your time editing more effectively.
Now that you know that the concept you had in mind could work and is doable, your storyboard will help you decide which scene to work on first. Typically, it should do the most complex sets first.
We are finding flaws earlier.
During the storyboarding phase, you will be able to spot errors and incompatibilities with the media, narration, sound effects, and other components that you will use in the video. This point could save you a lot of time that otherwise you’d spend fixing errors mid-editing.
Voiceover
Suppose you choose to use voiceover for your marketing video. You were preparing the recorded track before editing could save you some time. Adjust the audio track for any pauses and transitions in your video to make the editing process smoother.
Takeaways
When you are ready with all the preparations needed for video editing, then do it immediately. You can also entrust it to professionals such as hiring the video production company.
The advantage of editing videos properly is that you can get a good ROI for video marketing, so this is a long-term digital investment.
Author Bio
Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).
Twitter: @breadnbeyond
Email: andre@breadnbeyond.com
LinkedIn: Andre Oentoro