How to edit a video!

I made the decision to use Adobe Premiere Elements for editing the wowlookwhatigot.com promo video for one main reason - we have a copy! No brainer there then! It's a pretty good editing package as far as I can see, but then I haven't really used anything else, apart from Windows Movie Maker, which works but is, as you might expect from free/bundled software, a bit basic.

The wowlookwhatigot.com video - opening credits in production ... !

Not having ever done a course on video editing I've basically just made up a 'workflow' that suits me as I've gone along. It's something like...

• Write the script. Figured out my own process for this, something like:
• Decide what to say
• Decide how to say it - ie invent some scenes and specify what each one needs to convey
• Write the dialogue
• Decide who says what
• Decide on some locations and scene transitions - the rest to be worked out as we go along.
• Shoot the scenes. Some outdoor and some indoor
• Assemble any still photos required - includes making some captions in Photoshop, resizing, etc.
• Record any voiceovers (the dialogue comes straight off the camera recording, but the voiceovers can be recorded direct into the laptop at home).
• Source any music required - I'm using a generative music program called Mixtikl by Intermorphic to create most of the music, running on an Android tablet. I know roughly how long the clips need to be from a quick read-through of the script so I can do a rough version before starting.

Now to the editing...

• Set up a new project in Premiere
• Go through all the video takes and select the best one for each scene. I just drop all the takes for one scene into Windows Media Player to run through them all quickly and make a selection
• Import all the source material (selected video clips, stills, audio clips) into the media library
• Trim the video clips to the right length. I discovered you can do this by double-clicking on the thumbnail in the media library which gives you a pop-up editor)
• Drag the video scenes onto the timeline in order and preview to check the timing of the dialogue
• Insert any stills required and add animation (e.g. pan & zoom etc.) as needed
• Insert any titles required - in this case I'm cutting in and out of some solid color frames as transitions between some scenes, and using title screens with no text is an easy way to do this
• Insert start and end credits
• Drop in any sound effects and voiceovers, adjust scene lengths to fit the audio as needed
• Add the rough music track

At this point we can render a 'first cut' of the finished video and watch it many times to fix any timing glitches, sort out anything which doesn't flow well, etc. This is the stage I'm at right now! I'm happy to say it's all looking ok at the moment!

So, left to do...

• Polish up the video clips - ie adjust colour saturation, levels, add any extra video effects etc.
• Ditto the audio. Mainly noise reduction and equalizing levels. At this stage I've realised I would have got a more professional result by doing this immediately after selecting the clips - I should have extracted the audio into Audacity and tidied it up, then re-imported it in Premiere, but as it is I'll just have to use the noise reduction etc. which is built into Premiere. Maybe there's a better way, but I don't know - I'll have to check if you can invoke an external editor from inside Premiere, but maybe that's a 'Pro' feature?
• Make the final music soundtrack matching the final video length and drop that in - edit any fades in/out etc. as needed during dialogue etc.
• Render the final cut!
• Upload to YouTube!

So there we are ... Martin's quick guide to editing a promo video for wowlookwhatigot.com. Well, to be honest it's more for my reference really, I don't suppose it makes for exactly riveting blog reading, but for anyone who did battle all the way through, maybe you have some constructive suggestions? "Get a book on how to use Premiere" would probably be a good one, I suspect!