Time To Truly Stand Out – 7 Everyday Video Editing Hacks

With millions of hours of video being consumed every day, standing out in a crowded digital space can be challenging. Video editing can make or break the visual narrative that is essential to drawing and keeping an audience. From old to new, the video editing landscape has evolved dramatically over the years, shaping the digital content landscape with its cutting-edge features and functionalities.

1. Color Grading & LUTs

Color grading, which rightly deserves its place among video editing hacks, is a technique used to create certain aesthetics, moods, or tones within a video. LUT or Lookup Table plays a vital role in this process. It offers a convenient way to apply color correction and key looks to your footage. Most video editing software comes equipped with a default set of LUTs, but third-party options promise wider arrays of styles, including film stocks and genre-specific color palettes.

How to Use LUTs in Video Editing:

Import and add the LUT to your video editing software.
Apply the LUT directly to your footage or to each individual clip.
Adjust the opacity of the LUT to control its intensity. A lower opacity setting is suitable for subtle color grading, while a setting closer to 1.0 will have a more dramatic impact.
Experiment with different LUTs and blends by colourising before choosing the perfect look for your video.

2. Multi-Cam Footage Editing

Shooting multiple angles of a scene can add variety and depth to your video. Editing multi-camera footage, however, can be time-consuming. Fortunately, most current video editing software offers tools that simplify this process by allowing you to import and synchronize footage from different cameras or angles, display them in a multi-camera monitor, and switch between them with a single click. Use these handy features effectively to elevate your storytelling and present a more dynamic viewing experience.

How to Edit Multi-Cam Footage:

Import the multi-camera footage in your video editing software alongside with your other clips.
Connect audio tracks from all your cameras, allowing your editing software to recognize the sync points when there are common sounds throughout the multiple angles.
Display all angles in the multi-camera monitor, or use quick overview of a single angle.
Switch between angles during the editing process to create visually appealing footage.

3. Keyframe Animation

Keyframe animation is widely used to add dynamic movement and emphasis to your visuals. This technique allows you to set specific values at particular points in time, creating a path or a timeline of adjustments for the video.

How to Add Keyframe Animation:

Set your starting point by adjusting properties such as position, scale, and opacity in your video editing software.
Jump to a later point in your timeline, and then set a new value for the same property. This will create a new keyframe.
Continue adding keyframes throughout the timeline, defining the movement or transition you want to achieve.
Preview your keyframe animation to fine-tune any adjustments required, adding polish to your video.

4. Green Screening (Chroma Keying)

Green screening is a technique used to replace the green background in your footage with another image or video called a chroma key. This technique creates the illusion of an action happening somewhere else, significantly enhancing the visual aspect of your video.

How to Apply Green Screening:

Set up your green backdrop, ensuring it's a sharp, evenly lit contrast with the subject and free of wrinkles and folds
Shutter off or cover the top lights if necessary, as well as fill the front light, ensuring that the background remains green throughout your shot.
Import the footage containing the green screen into your video editing software.
Use the chroma keying tool to create a masking effect, isolating the green background from the subject or subject
Replace the green background with any visual of your choice, which could be another footage, animation or graphic.

5. Audio Ducking

Audio ducking is an essential technique to balance the sound of secondary music or dialogue with the main audio in your video. By automatically reducing the volume of these secondary audio elements when they overlap with the primary audio, you can ensure that the viewer can hear everything clearly and avoid any aural struggle.

How to Enable Audio Ducking:

Identify the primary audio, which is crucial to your story, and keep it at standard volume levels.
Adjust the secondary audio levels so that they typically stay beneath or above the primary audio.
Apply ducking settings in line with the mood and requirements of your video project.
Use metering in real-time as a guideline to find the ideal ducking balance. Aim for the peaks of background tracks to reach <50% of the foreground track volume.

6. Editing Title Sequences

A well-crafted title sequence is an image-bearing way of announcing your brand, your video or your film. To create impact, designers use creative text effects, typography, imagery, and music that complement each other to establish the narrative tone of the video. The coming together of all these elements creates an exciting opening that piques the audience's interest, pulls them into the viewing journey, and maintains their attention throughout.

Key Steps to Edit Title Sequences:

Create an eye-catching, memorable visual design, utilizing custom fonts, textures, graphics, and imagery to reflect your brand identity and video style.
Ensure the title sequence aligns with the pace of the upcoming narrative, keeping in mind the timing and the flow.
Coordinate with your audio designer or composer to select a matching music element, either keeping it minimal or making it central, depending on the mood of your film.
Finalize with the unique visual representation of your brand, something that will make your audience want to know more about the story and follow you throughout it.

7. Adding Fades and Transitions

Adding fades and transitions to your video not only makes the flow smoother between scenes, but also adds a professional touch. These subtle changes help in pacing the video, include improving viewer engagement, retention, and mood, depending on the specific transition used. Fade-ins are excellent for setting the tone at the beginning, while fade-outs are a better marker to announce an ending or a cut.

How to Use Fades and Transitions:

Pick the perfect transition that complements the style and mood of your video.
Insert transitions during scene changes to break up the talking heads, dialogue heavy scenes or any static or visually similar shots to increase the visual appeal of your video, avoid distracting busy scenes and add fluidity to your video with creative transitions.
Adjust the speed, position, or color of the transition to better fit into the aesthetics of your video project.
Be content with quality and quantity, balancing transitions very strategically. Remember, too many transitions can lead to visual fatigue for the viewers.

Conclusion

Everyday video editing hacks are a learning curve for aspiring video creators, but they prove to be game-changers for producing polished visuals and storytelling capabilities. Whether it's harnessing the power of color grading, utilising multi-camera footage, diving into keyframe animation oratorial impact of detailed audio tuneings, each of these techniques will undoubtedly elevate your videos' overall quality and your audience engagement. Remember to keep refining your skills, and before you know it, you'll strike gold by carving your niche in the midst of spectrum-filled video pool.

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