We have now uploaded well over 700 videos to YouTube. Most of them are done recorded, uploaded without any kind of editing whatsoever largely because icasting and video editing. It is time-consuming process and I do not know if I would listen to this, see the benefit out of doing videos that needed to be edited. The one reason why I sometimes record videos more than once, as William just pointed out, this is take three of the reading of the top five video editing tips as sent in by Shane D.K. from youtube or he is also known as Mr. Boggasney in the chat room. He says future youtube viewers might thank me for this one.
Number one of his top five video editing tips is tighten your edit. You may have worked hard on the several seconds of clouds or bizarre color cycling patterns or whatever but the rest of us are going to be bored watching it and we may click on way in, watch someone else’s video if we get bored. Make things happen all the time. Give us a title card on the screen or come on and talk or cut to the next things but do it quickly. Here is the guideline. Once the content for that part of the video is finished, start counting. If you can count higher than one, prepare on the next part of the video, edit it down. Exceptions might be a pause for comic or dramatic effect but do not pause too long.
Number two, make text legible. White or yellow text on a light video background does not do it. Select a contrasting color. Take advantage of whatever features your software might have such as outline or drop shot of her text to make it stand out from the background even more. And, if it is going to be on youtube, remember, they all compress but Jesus out of your video, so make the text sufficiently large enough.
Number three, turn down the music. It kind of muddies your voice. You can keep it at full volume when there is nothing else to listen to but turn it down when there is stuff going on especially when you are talking. If you are custom to using a graphic equalizer, then you might want to turn down the levels in the editing process. If you do that, you should not have to turn down the overall volume as much and we can more clearly hear both music and voice especially if the music is kept in a lower level then the voice volume is in the video editing process. You can also boost those same frequencies in your voice track.
Number four, cut out the fillers. These are words like “a, uhm, and you know, sure” it will be a jump cutting your video but that is not as attracting as those filler words. Your video will go faster and you will sound smarter, too. You can also do a very quick crossflades instead of jump cuts if they bother you. Oh, and drop the volume if you cough or clear your throat. We do not want to listen to that, good point. Of course, he did right, cross fades, I said crossflades which is not to be confused. The crossfade feature is click the little pie icon on YouTube and you will see what I am talking about. Mozart ghost. All right.
Number five, do not use wipes. Do not ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever use wipes, cut or crossfade to the next shot. On rare occasions, you can do a dissolve where you solarization or do other some effect like that but use it very sparingly and only when it enhances the transition, and never use wipes And if you ever think about doing a page curl, you should be hunted down and shot.
There you are advice from a completely self top producer and editor. Editing is a lot of work but it is very rewarding. When you can come up with something, it is pretty good and you start getting great comments. And above all, have fun with it. Shane D.K. from youtube, Mr. Boggasney in the chat room, appreciates these tips. I certainly could have used them when I started. Most of my fades, if I would use a fade, are typically nice, smooth dissolve. I never use jump cuts. They are so incredibly overused in fact, when I see a video on youtube that has a jump cut I am thinking, ah, another jump cut, great. I would have to agree with him on the wipes. The wipes do not impress me, unless of course you are George Lucas and I am still not impressed with the pre close even with its use of transitions, digitally enhanced of course from my pleasure.
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