Let’s be honest. No editor wants to get notes. However, receiving, interpreting and executing notes effectively is one skill that separates professional editors from the amateurs. Let’s take a look at some tips for dealing with them. The Amateur Editor’s Reaction To Notes After spending

Every editor knows that music and sound design are the lifeblood of any good trailer — but have you ever seen exactly how it’s made? Today we’re going behind-the-scenes with music composer and sound design artist, Steven Phillips. Steven is the founder and owner of Sonic Intuition, a cus

This may seem counter-intuitive but, the first step to creating a great trailer is divorcing yourself from the full length movie. This can be difficult to do, especially if you were involved in making the film. It’s easy to become overly precious with your own work, falling in love with the way cert

Ponder this for a minute… “When I hire people, I look for those who are exceptionally passionate about films. It is crucial they have good taste, you can’t really teach that but you can teach everything else.” – David Coultas / Creative Producer. Having good taste. That’

The music stop is, arguably, the most useful trick a trailer editor can ever learn. It’s exactly what it sounds like: the stopping of the music to underline, highlight or draw attention to a particular line of dialogue, the punchline of a joke, or even an awe- inspiring visual. It’s the most tried-a

Ever struggle with ‘editor’s block‘ or just can’t get rolling on a project? Been there too. Let’s dig into some solutions. I can’t tell you how many times I feel like I’ve been working on a cut all day long and when 6 P.M. rolls around I don’t have much to show for it.

Today we’ve got an incredibly useful editing tutorial from guest writer Brian Levin. In this article, you’ll learn step-by-step how to create an audio/video sync map and set up your multicam sequences in Adobe Premiere Pro. Let’s get started. Enter Brian. If you do any kind of edit

Still images are widely used in documentaries, news stories, show openers, wedding videos, corporate movies and other video productions, and Premiere Pro has very good support for still image formats. You can import still images that are up to 32K in either dimension, but the image must have less th

Working with keyframes in Adobe Premiere Pro is quite easy once you learn a few of the basics. And thankfully, learning the basics takes no time at all. Knowing how to add and manipulate keyframes will add a new collection of tools to your video editing toolbox. It’s an important skillset to have, a

The famous Greek philosopher Plato observed that the beginning is the most important part of any work. He was talking about educating children, but his point applies to video editing, too. So how do you get off on the right foot with editing a movie, trailer, or commercial? Simple…by editing a

Today we’ll be discussing one of the toughest challenges as an editor – staying objective when watching your own cuts. During a project, you’ll probably view your cut up to 100’s of times. How can you possibly view it with an unbiased, fresh eye? Short answer is…you can’t entirely. But,

We’ve all been there. Sometimes, there’s nothing more terrifying for an editor than a blank timeline. Ahh, the pros and cons of a new cut… The unlimited possibilities (or a million difficult decisions) The opportunity to demonstrate your skills (or reveal your weaknesses) The chance to create

This week we’ll be sharing 8 pieces of advice from a professional editor covering various topics from your career to your craft to your work-life balance. Our contributing author, Zsofia Szemeredy, recently had the opportunity to attend an exclusive event arranged by Soundstage in London, UK

Editing is hard enough as it is. Editing under pressure is 4x harder. This week we’re going to dive into the topic of stress, deadlines and staying cool under fire. Let’s look at two common situations that create intense editing pressure and some tips on how to deal with them. Pressure Situati

On any particular project, you can’t always control when great ideas will strike you, or even if they ever will. What you can do, is know all the footage better than anyone else and, thereby, give yourself the best chance for those brilliant inspirations to strike. Story-telling Short Cuts Trailers

Here’s a quick but useful troubleshooting technique you can use with your next cut. If you’re having trouble with a cut and can’t pinpoint the source of the problem, consider isolating your senses. First, start by closing your eyes and play only the audio. Just listen. How’s

Sometimes it’s difficult to create smooth back-and-forth cutting between the dialogue of multiple characters who are supposed to be in the same scene. This is often because the audio quality varies between characters based on how their particular microphones were picking up the ambient sounds

A trailer is basically two and a half minutes of information. How much information can a person be exposed to in that amount of time and still be expected to retain any of it? It’s a delicate balance. If you make it too sparse, the audience might write your movie off as boring or slow. Pack in too m

It’s a very simple idea that will govern almost every single aspect of your trailer: nothing should fully resolve. How many trailers have you seen where the main character jumps off of a building or a cliff and, while they’re hanging in midair, we cut to the main title? This is an in-your-face use o

Sound design and mixing is an important part of the editorial process that is becoming an essential skill to have in the editing room. In years past, the picture editor was responsible for editing picture, dialogue, music and maybe a few sound effects here and there. Then they would pass the cut to