7 Essential Steps For Editing Professional Videos

Plan, cut, edit, and finalize. Learn all about editing professional videos in just 7 steps.

There’s more to editing professional videos than getting high-quality footage and throwing around some transitions. Professional videos are all about telling a coherent story with all the tools at your disposal. It doesn’t matter if your content is 3 minutes or 30 minutes long. Your videos must convey a uniform narrative from start to end.

There has never been a better time to excel in this field. Learning this valuable skill is a worthy investment of your time, with limitless options to monetize and capitalize on videos. 

If you are a beginner and want to enter the exciting arena of editing videos with a professional touch, we can help you with that. 

Here Are 7 Essential Steps For Editing Professional Videos

1. Preview

Now that you are officially in the post-production stage, it’s time to bring the content in front of your eyes and evaluate the entire footage. Preview your media and select the chunks of your choice. Evaluating the footage before planning your editing schedule can give you a broader understanding. Often the best-planned shots don’t translate well on the reel — making preview all the more critical. 

Here’s how to nail the first step:

• Viewing lengthy footage can be lethargic, so make strategic jumps throughout the way.
• Start planning the script of the video by seeking inspiration from the clips.
• Note down the timestamp for dead footage and ease your way into the edit.

2. Plan

The professionalism of your video depends on the story it builds. It is essential to map out the path of your content before getting into cutting. There are three parts to every video: the beginning, the middle, and the end. Your planning stage must account for all, including the intro and outro. Whether it is a storyboard or manual chalk, what matters is understanding the vision. Planning is more than setting constraints about the type of video you will be making. It is also about imagining your content in its final form and working your way backward. 

Here’s how to nail the second step:

• Choose a software/video editor that suits your budget and your computer.
• Figure out the core theme, lighting, and narrative essence of your video.
• Prepare the textual input via a written script, and then get hands-on with the footage.

3. Cut

The third essential step is to take your content to the chopping block. Video editors often have to work with hours and hours of footage to squeeze out a 10-minute video. There’s a ton of content in your reel that isn’t relevant to your planned video. It’s time to eliminate the panned shots, dull frames, and dead scenes. The more concentrated footage you work with, the better the result.

Here’s how to nail the third step:

• Since this is the first leg of your selection process, focus more on eliminating the least desirable clips.
• Don’t be stringent in your selection and dismiss only the non-redeemable bits.
• Much footage is salvageable with minor edits and colour correction. Discarding them is avoidable, so be wary of your disposal.

4. Edit

Once you have a rough draft of your footage, it’s time to get into the core part of trimming, tailing, and hedging your clips. You need to arrange the edited clips into the video editor’s storyboard. Video enhancers may also be used to help with the quality of the video. The transitions between clips will also be chosen in this stage. This stage aims to achieve the desired flow between clips so that the video skeleton stands on its own for the first time. 

Here’s how to nail the fourth step:

• Trim and shave the clips to avoid any dead spaces or unfocused bits.
• Be ruthless with your editing and stick to the preplanned pathway.
• Run various filters on your clips to arrive at a consistent colour theme.

5. Insert

The fifth step includes a b-roll, transitions, image slides, background music, text slides, and the required editing to your semi-edited video. This is the refinement stage through the utilization of video editing tools at your disposal. You can get a lot done with video online editing tools, which have tons of copyright-free music and built-in templates. 

Here’s how to nail the fifth step:

• Use royalty-free or accessible music as your background score.
• Bleep out profanity; it can blacklist your video.
• Follow the YouTube/social media content guidelines.

6. Review

There’s light at the end of the tunnel, and even though you can see after hours of working on your video, you’re not there quite yet. Once you have edited your clips and sequenced them with all necessary additions, it’s time to review your final video. We’d suggest you take a breather before you make the last changes. Remember, there are plenty of t’s to cross and i’s to dot before you get your final draft, and analysing the content with a fresh pair of eyes will allow you to harshly evaluate the complete range. 

Here’s how to nail the sixth step:

• Export a proof and send it to some trusted people.
• Listen to the audio with different speakers, headphones, and earphones.
• Play around with some transitions and audio clips to compare your final version with a draft copy.

7. Deliver

The final step of editing a professional video is its export. Exporting or rendering is taking your final draft out of your editing and onto the channel of your choice. If you are using an online video editor, the export is a matter of minutes.

Exporting your video is a crucial step with high stakes. From the choice of resolution to the determination of frame rate and size, many technicalities must go right for your video to come out flawless. 

Here’s how to nail the seventh step:

• Preset the resolution and test-export before getting to the final draft.
• Utilise the preset templates of rendering available in online video editors.

Conclusion

The coming decade of content edges towards videos. Now is a great time to add professional video-editing skills to your resume. Here’s hoping that the step-by-step tutorial helps edit your first professional video. Start small, win big. Good luck!