How To Edit Your Video to a Professional Standard

To create a video with professional standard, here are some video editing tips you should follow.

Start a New Video Editing Project

First thing’s first, no matter what software you use, you’ll have to do a new project to import the clips you will use. This step is pretty essential. As long as you’re computer literate, it would help if you did this.

Software like Adobe Premiere Pro CC allows you to add as many clips as you want, basically unlimited. However, some free software might be more limiting regarding how much space you can use within a project.

Pro tip: It’s always a good practice to watch your footage a few times to ensure that they are good enough to be included in your video.

Remember, if you’re making a video marketing for your company, it has to look professional and well-polished. Having a low-quality clip, both in terms of resolution and message, could impact your brand negatively.

Organize Your Footage to Tell a Story

The next step is organizing the clips you’ve shot and imported to create an enjoyable story. It’s okay to drop the shots you think aren’t good enough to be included in the video.

Depending on the software you’re using, the order usually arranges your shots you import them. Move around your pictures, or name them accordingly (e.g., Intro, Outro, Filler, etc.) to make it easier to tell apart which clip is which.

Modern video editing software like Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro usually have a ‘timeline’ that allows you to put marks on specific points of your video. Use this feature to pinpoint exact frames that you want to emphasize, where you want to cut your clips, or maybe where you want to add transition or effects.

Start Cutting and Assembling Your Videos

Once you are done marking important frames, it’s time to start putting your videos together. This step is simply about cutting and ‘sewing’ clips together to tell an engaging story that’ll keep viewers glued to your video.

This point is where the timeline we were talking about earlier comes to play. The timeline is exactly what it sounds like; it’s a long line that indicates where your video starts and ends. You can move your clips around to make a better arrangement.

Trimming Your Story

Once you’ve managed to make a story emerge from the clips you’ve shot, it’s time to make everything more concise and to the point. Because whether you realize it or not, your video is still too fluffy.

This part is where you make sure that every frame in the video serves a purpose. Like what Marie Kondo says, if the structure doesn’t spark joy, throw it out.

Add Transitions to Your Video

Once you feel that everything is cut down to only the necessary, it’s time to spice up your video with some cool transitions.

When I say cool, I don’t mean exaggerated transitions like those you see in tacky TV commercials. We both know that your brand is more than that.

Simple transitions like swipe, fade, and even jump-cuts should be enough as long as you put them in the right places. Each transition effect creates a different mood for your video, so try them out one by one and see which one works better to bridge between scenes.

If you’re feeling extra creative, you can play around with your shots to make jaw-dropping transitions like this:

But keep in mind that transitions aren’t what builds your brand ;)

Final Touch-Ups

Now that your timeline’s clean, your story’s trimmed, and your transitions are well-done, it’s time to do the final touch-ups to make your video more compelling.

To make your video look professional, you can’t skimp on the visual aesthetic department. The color palette shot compositions and framing are skills that you can’t master instantaneously.

In the meantime, the videos that you just put together will have to do the job. Filters and color grading are your best friends in touching up your final video.

Filters and Color Grading

There are plenty of web-based apps that can add a filter of your choice to your video in one click. Here are some of them:

• Filter. Video
• Kapwing
• Veed.io

But if you prefer using something custom and more unique, you can always choose color-grading. Color grading is essentially an effort to tune and tweak the colors in your frames to build a specific mood.

Don’t worry. There are hundreds of free color grading templates that you can choose to set the mood for your video. Here are a few compilations of them:

• 52 Color Grading Template by RocketStock
• 99+ LUTs Color Grading Template
• 70 Color Grading Presets
• Effects, Text, and Motion Graphics

Treat effects, on-screen text, and motion graphics as the garnish to finish up your video. Also, be prepared to spend WAY more time making effects (if you plan on doing so) – because even the most direct effect can take some time to perfect.

Mixing Sounds and Background Music

Sounds are an essential factor in shaping the mood of your video. That said, having background music that is too dominant could be pulling away from the overall message of your video rather than amplifying it.

Here at Breadnbeyond, we always use a subtle undertone as the background whenever we make explainer videos on something technical. We do this to make sure that the music doesn’t distract the viewer from the main subject.

Pro tip: use intro and outro tracks as the bookends for your video for lack of better words. Doing this gives off a clear message when your video begins and ends. Plus, it makes the footage feels complete.

Now you're ready to share your video project. Ensure you publish it on the right channel like YouTube, website, Vimeo, or even social media.