Video editing help and advice

[NeedleD]

Hi All

So I want to start learning video editing I have Adobe CC so its premiere Pro My brothers guru with it but he just tells me to watch YouTube I get that is a way to learn but if he took the time to teach his girlfriend why cant he give his sister a little bit of help to get started.

Anyway rant over, Maybe there are some people on here who know editing well and could help with just good to knows and ways to get started?
I would like to turn this into a career when I am good enough to present my work to the world, I love the creative world and I do admin and tech support at the moment but don't plan to stay in it for the rest of my life.

I use photoshop for my photography editing and not nearly a pro but I know my way around it.
My computer setup is:
R5 3600
MSI X570 A Pro board
32GB G.Skill 3600MHz CL16 ram
SSD for OS SSD for games and programs and storage disks for other crap
RTX 2060 Super OC ASUS 8GB
Corsair 850x Modular PSU
Dell 27" FHD monitor yes its 60HZ
Mouse is a Logitech G903
Keyboard is a Razer Death stalker
Recently got a Cooler Master RR212S Black edition cooler the stock stealth was getting hot.
I do have a graphics tablet its a Wacom Intuos CTH-680/S3 and she works like a dream

I think I should have good spec to do video editing?
Any advice would be great also I am happy to do freelance practice when the work us up to standard

Best regards
Thea (Kitty)

 

[TicTac]

Your specs should be fine. A few tips I could give you would be:

• Firstly: allocate more RAM to Premiere Pro as I don't think it'll make use of most of your RAM as default.
• Go beyond the basics of just cutting away extra footage, correcting the order of the clips etc. Tell a story.
• Get familiar with the keyboard shortcuts. Most of the Adobe CC software share the same shortcuts. Set up macros on your keyboard and mouse to make life easier.
• Organize. Organize. Organize. Stay organized from the get go. Don't let your footage get all over the place.
• Learn the important terms for video editing like J Cuts, L cuts, Jump cuts. This will prepare you to work with and understand other video editors or clients in the future.
• Learn how to colour grade your footage.
• Sign up for a service like Epidemic sound for royalty free music to use in your videos. Nothing worse than using an Alan Walker - Faded instrumental in your video.
• Get familiar with export settings, frame rates, bit rates, audio/video codecs.

 

[NeedleD]

Your specs should be fine. A few tips I could give you would be:

• Firstly: allocate more RAM to Premiere Pro as I don't think it'll make use of most of your RAM as default.
• Go beyond the basics of just cutting away extra footage, correcting the order of the clips etc. Tell a story.
• Get familiar with the keyboard shortcuts. Most of the Adobe CC software share the same shortcuts. Set up macros on your keyboard and mouse to make life easier.
• Organize. Organize. Organize. Stay organized from the get go. Don't let your footage get all over the place.
• Learn the important terms for video editing like J Cuts, L cuts, Jump cuts. This will prepare you to work with and understand other video editors or clients in the future.
• Learn how to colour grade your footage.
• Sign up for a service like Epidemic sound for royalty free music to use in your videos. Nothing worse than using an Alan Walker - Faded instrumental in your video.
• Get familiar with export settings, frame rates, bit rates, audio/video codecs.

Thank you so much

I will make special note of this.
If I may ask how do you assign more ram to a program?

And the story is what I am worried about I need to get my grips on a concrete base line from there tell a story so it has a grounding point I will be doing allot of research before I even touch the software so I am familiar with shortcuts, terminology, and everything else the colour grading excites me a bit though because that is such a vital part as it can change the tone of what you are trying to say

And thank you for the music reference I was curious where you could find audio that would not end you up with a nasty fine.

It's going to start with some game recorded footage to get the just of it but I hope to create something that could speak to people

 

[TicTac]

You can assign more RAM under Preferences > Memory. It will show you installed RAM and RAM reserved for other apps other than your Adobe apps.
Best way to start is just playing around, trying things. I also started snipping up recorded game footage and learnt a lot through just doing that.
Wishing you all the best with Premiere Pro. It likes to crash when you least expect it Set up the AutoSave feature to save as frequent as possible.

 

[NeedleD]

You can assign more RAM under Preferences > Memory. It will show you installed RAM and RAM reserved for other apps other than your Adobe apps.
Best way to start is just playing around, trying things. I also started snipping up recorded game footage and learnt a lot through just doing that.
Wishing you all the best with Premiere Pro. It likes to crash when you least expect it Set up the AutoSave feature to save as frequent as possible.

Thank you for the advice hehehehe

I am really excited to get started on this It is also the first time in my life I have had a system good enough to do this

Have a stunning day.

 

[Mogamad]

I'm a Videograper and Video Editor full time for 3 years now... and I came from Law (Studied 4 years LLB). Switching was the best decision I've ever made. Me and my bro run a small business otgether now. At the beginning people said i'm crazy but Video Editing is a field where if you're good, it pays off eventually because you offer a style of edit that not many other people can offer. Are you planning on filming in the future or only video editing?

Your PC is more than fine for Premiere, even After Effects (dont even bother with this yet - its not as easy to pick up as premiere). a faster way to scrub through footage is loading the footage onto a SSD but its not an absolute train smash if you dont - as long as its a HDD of 7200rpm you should be fine.

- Right off the bat, your first thing to do is find a layout (its called workspace in premiere) that is most comfortable for you to work from. This is your preference. I learnt from the default workspace so thats my preference. Most people on YouTube have different ones though.
- change your audio level monitor to a setting where you are able to see -3db - this is the more or less the db where you want to keep audio levels to keep it from clipping.
- sound design is more important than Video editing. Bad sound ruins good editing. Premiere has basic tools like parametric eq, multi band compressor etc but its basic. Adobe Audition is a good thing to learn for the future.
- A color accurate monitor is a life changer. Something like a Viewsonic VP2458 100% sRGB Pro is a good entry point - something to consider in the future, I think its R4k - R5k. This way you can be sure the colours you add to the video will translate to other devices like phones and big screens etc.
- change some shortcut keys, especially the cut shortcut. Default i think its ctrl+k - change it to k or any other key you want. This way you can cut a clip on your timeline using one key instead of pressing ctrl + the key. Also change your toggle full screen from ctrl + ` to a key that you are comfortable with as this shortcut is known for having bugs. There are many other shortcut keys so once you get familiar with premiere, change as you need. it makes your edit go way quicker.
- When you render, always render using a 2 pass VBR ( my settings for 1080p min bitrate 25 max 50 | for 4k min bitrate 82 max 99 - these are for when you upload to Youtube - it can be lowered for instagram or if a client isnt uploading the footage to the internet)
- Organise footage in folders (Example - 1st cam, 2nd cam, 3rd cam, mic 1, mic 2, music, etc)
- A musicbed subscription is valuable. Most people use epidemic sound or soundstripe but musicbed has better quality music. Epidemic sounds does offer sound effects though but dont know what you will be editing so dont know if you'd need it. To start off though, just use songs you like and edit with them. As long as you not profiting off the video, its generally fine.
- stay away from time remapping. Everyone does it now. it was cool in 2018.
- its difficult to give advice to you as I dont know what types of videos you are interested in Editing as each category will need different types of video assets.


If you wanna see some of my work feel free to ask and I'll send them to you. All the best with your journey!

 

[Dirtdiver]

It's funny you said after effects is harder to pick up than Premier 😄. I learnt after effects first and Premier second. I'm in no way an expert yet but I can use them but more than average.

I only ever studied photoshop. But it helped me understand layering and it helped me grasp the rest. Honestly I learned everything online. If you have the passion its generally alot easier to learn.

So if I need to know something I didn't do before, YouTube has everything and eventually that skill carries over to other projects.

My first love is after effects,, especially for motion design. Just love it. I've been learning some many new things in the last months.

 

[Oj0]

For tutorials, this is a great resource VIDEO COPILOT | After Effects Tutorials, Plug-ins and Stock Footage for Post Production Professionals

 

[NeedleD]

I'm a Videograper and Video Editor full time for 3 years now... and I came from Law (Studied 4 years LLB). Switching was the best decision I've ever made. Me and my bro run a small business otgether now. At the beginning people said i'm crazy but Video Editing is a field where if you're good, it pays off eventually because you offer a style of edit that not many other people can offer. Are you planning on filming in the future or only video editing?

Your PC is more than fine for Premiere, even After Effects (dont even bother with this yet - its not as easy to pick up as premiere). a faster way to scrub through footage is loading the footage onto a SSD but its not an absolute train smash if you dont - as long as its a HDD of 7200rpm you should be fine.

- Right off the bat, your first thing to do is find a layout (its called workspace in premiere) that is most comfortable for you to work from. This is your preference. I learnt from the default workspace so thats my preference. Most people on YouTube have different ones though.
- change your audio level monitor to a setting where you are able to see -3db - this is the more or less the db where you want to keep audio levels to keep it from clipping.
- sound design is more important than Video editing. Bad sound ruins good editing. Premiere has basic tools like parametric eq, multi band compressor etc but its basic. Adobe Audition is a good thing to learn for the future.
- A color accurate monitor is a life changer. Something like a Viewsonic VP2458 100% sRGB Pro is a good entry point - something to consider in the future, I think its R4k - R5k. This way you can be sure the colours you add to the video will translate to other devices like phones and big screens etc.
- change some shortcut keys, especially the cut shortcut. Default i think its ctrl+k - change it to k or any other key you want. This way you can cut a clip on your timeline using one key instead of pressing ctrl + the key. Also change your toggle full screen from ctrl + ` to a key that you are comfortable with as this shortcut is known for having bugs. There are many other shortcut keys so once you get familiar with premiere, change as you need. it makes your edit go way quicker.
- When you render, always render using a 2 pass VBR ( my settings for 1080p min bitrate 25 max 50 | for 4k min bitrate 82 max 99 - these are for when you upload to Youtube - it can be lowered for instagram or if a client isnt uploading the footage to the internet)
- Organise footage in folders (Example - 1st cam, 2nd cam, 3rd cam, mic 1, mic 2, music, etc)
- A musicbed subscription is valuable. Most people use epidemic sound or soundstripe but musicbed has better quality music. Epidemic sounds does offer sound effects though but dont know what you will be editing so dont know if you'd need it. To start off though, just use songs you like and edit with them. As long as you not profiting off the video, its generally fine.
- stay away from time remapping. Everyone does it now. it was cool in 2018.
- its difficult to give advice to you as I dont know what types of videos you are interested in Editing as each category will need different types of video assets.


If you wanna see some of my work feel free to ask and I'll send them to you. All the best with your journey!

Hi there

I am sorry for such a late reply my OS SSD died!!!! So I replaced with a 512GB NVME SSD as the original SSD took a long trip to circuit heaven lol

Thank you very much for all the amazing information above.
Well I am still learning my place in the video editing world but I know will find it I really and truly appreciate your information and it was really so insightful and I will make sure to work on this

I am very grateful for your kind assistance

 

[NeedleD]

Thank y

It's funny you said after effects is harder to pick up than Premier 😄. I learnt after effects first and Premier second. I'm in no way an expert yet but I can use them but more than average.

I only ever studied photoshop. But it helped me understand layering and it helped me grasp the rest. Honestly I learned everything online. If you have the passion its generally alot easier to learn.

So if I need to know something I didn't do before, YouTube has everything and eventually that skill carries over to other projects.

My first love is after effects,, especially for motion design. Just love it. I've been learning some many new things in the last months.

Thank you for your response its such an exciting journey I cannot wait to learn them both

 

[NeedleD]

For tutorials, this is a great resource VIDEO COPILOT | After Effects Tutorials, Plug-ins and Stock Footage for Post Production Professionals

Thank you so much I will defiantly bookmark this immediately

 

[NeedleD]

I am really sorry about the horrible long delays my OS SSD died and I had to replace it (Surprisingly it came faster than expected) I do appreciate all of the kind help provided