Recent Video Editing Articles

PolarPro Releases Cinematic LUTs for DJI Mavic Pro and Phantom 4 Pro

As consumer-level and professional drones become more and more capable, filmmakers are increasingly turning to them for the unique perspective they offer and as a way to augment existing work. Building on this, PolarPro has just released 12 new cinematic LUTs specifically for DJI's most popular models.

What's New in Adobe Premiere Pro

Coming this fall you’ll be able to create and collaborate faster than ever with Adobe’s latest version of Premiere Pro CC. New updates to the program will allow you to open multiple projects at the same time, collaborate with multiple editors on the same project, and work with new graphics tools in the Essential Graphics panel. Let's have a closer look.

A Crash Course in Video Color Grading with DaVinci Resolve

If you’ve been working with video in the last few years and are looking to take your post-production to the next level, color grading absolutely needs to be something you consider incorporating into your workflow. DaVinci Resolve is not only a powerful software for doing this, but it's base version is actually free for anyone.

Adobe Shows Off Slick New 'Auto Reframe' Feature

One of the tricky things about modern video consumption is that it's watched on many different devices with vastly different aspect ratios. Adobe recently showed off a new feature that will make this issue much easier to deal with by automatically and dynamically cropping a video to match the desired aspect ratio while simultaneously keeping the most important action in frame.

14-Year SNL Director of Photography, Alex Buono, on His Beginnings, Working for Free, and Advice for Film Students

When someone asks if you’ll be able to meet with a DP that has worked with NBC’s Saturday Night Live over the last decade and a half, you don’t exactly say, “No, thanks.” You’re simply guaranteed to get something great. Even coming from USC’s film school, it takes a lot to get that position. But, by his own admission, Alex Buono would be hard pressed to disagree that all it takes is attitude, persistence, and a little free work at the start.
Demystifying Camera Picture Profiles

Most, if not all, have seen the picture profile settings in our cameras. These can include settings for Landscapes, Portraits, or even Cine-style formats for filmmakers looking to achieve that cinematic look. But what do these mean and how do they affect our final image?

The Faster and More Accurate Way to Zoom in Adobe Premiere Pro

Whether you're a videographer or not, you'll likely find yourself having to use a video editor at one point or another. If you think that is or will be true for you, here is an incredible tip for one of the key functions in Adobe Premiere Pro.

How to Sell Your Clients on Paying for Behind-the-Scenes Videos

On Fstoppers, we’ve long been fans of quality behind-the-scenes video counterparts to an interesting photo or video project. They are great marketing tools for us as creatives searching for more work, but they also help promote the primary business or product. This means we can justify pitching these videos as an add-on service to our clients.

Seeing The Light - Shane Hurlbut’s Philosophy On Success

What sets you and your work apart? Having a clear idea of this is critical if you want to develop your work but when was the last time you actually thought about it? Shane Hurlbut is a veteran Director of Photography and today shares his thoughts on his career and success. Whether you work with stills or motion, his approach sets him apart and we can all learn from him.

Adobe Releases Premiere Pro 13

For many years, Premiere Pro has been the select video editor of choice as it integrates obviously very well with the entire Creative Suite. We'll go over some of the new features here.

Six Tricks to Shoot Better Video With Your Mobile Phone

This video displays basic tips for a person looking to start vlogging or capturing video to showcase their skills. It's aimed at beginners, although there are some great tips for the avid shooter too. How to create a dolly-like effect using only your body, and how long a shot should last to make it something the viewer can actually focus on and absorb is included. It's practical and the video is only two minutes long.

Using Adobe Photoshop's Generative Fill on Video

Adobe Photoshop's generative fill allows AI to recreate or remove parts of an image, blowing many minds in the process. Now, what if you could use this new tool on your videos? Well, it's possible, and here's how.
The G-Speed Studio Desktop Backup/Working Drive Flirts with Perfection

A lot of my work is on the road, which is why I spent a long time looking for the best mobile storage options before eventually landing on the WD My Passport Pro and the LaCie Rugged SSD. But when I'm not on the road, I'm at my desk editing a wide range of video. It's here that I realized I needed not only a reliable backup, but also a powerful and fast working drive to burn through edits. What I found was the G-Speed Studio, and I love it.

Five Video Editing Tips for Organizing Your Workflow

Whether you are new to editing, or you have solid experience, you might have moments where something in your workflow is constantly dragging you behind. Professional video editor, Lucas J. Harger, shares several of his organizing techniques in order to speed up post-processing.

Go Behind The Scenes On "The Great Human Odyssey" - A Documentary On The Origin Of Our Species

A group of filmmakers from Edmonton, Alberta have been working on a three-part science and nature documentary called The Great Human Odyssey. I recently spoke with some of the crew to learn more about how a production team approaches a project that involves planning and shooting in some of the most remote environments in the world. Check out their behind the scenes video, but read on for more videos and insight into their process.

Inside The Edit - Is This The Ultimate Resource To Learn How To Edit Video?

Do you have an eye for editing video? The editor often wields the power and ability to breathe life into a piece of motion work, or to kill it off. But where do you go to learn how to edit? Inside The Edit recently launched the world’s first end-to-end online program, and while it’s not without it’s considerations, it represents a giant leap forward for anyone who wants to get hands-on experience in the world of motion storytelling.

Follow These Six Shooting Tips to Make Editing a Breeze

A great way to hone your videography skills is to get frustrated while editing video. As you may know, there are plenty of ways to get frustrated while editing. For example, let’s say you want to include a particular clip in your sequence. When you try to use the shot you realize that the videographer didn’t hold the shot for long enough, and now the clip is too short to use. Or maybe you want to use a shot that was completely ruined because a bug landed on the lens. These frustrations make you think about the shooting process. Below are a few of my favorite editor-friendly tips to consider while shooting.

A Hundred Filmmaking Tips and Hacks in 10 Minutes

This video covers a wide range of tips and tricks to make your set runs smoothly, things occur as you planned, and small items don’t go missing. I’ve seen some of these used by YouTubers mostly, but there are a hundred of them, so use what you think is best suited to your shooting style.

Tested: Premiere Pro 2019 is Significantly Smoother

I ran some tests over the weekend with different versions of Premiere Pro, and realized that the latest version is able to scrub through footage far faster. It’s definitely worth the upgrade.

Top 5 Final Cut Pro X Plugins in 2021

Final Cut Pro X is Apple's video editing software that has been steadily growing in popularity over the years. Here are five of the best plugins you can get for it and examples of what they do.

Watch a Full Editing Project From Start to Finish With Commentary

Whether you are a full-time video editor or just occasionally edit some of your own projects like me, you have probably found yourself on Youtube at some point trying to learn. Tutorials are an amazing tool at our disposal and we share and create some great tutorials here on Fstoppers all the time. However, sometimes I just want to see how someone does what they do from start to finish. That's where Taran Van Hemert comes in with his newest editing video. It's not a tutorial at all. It is 4 hours and 20 minutes of a standard video editing job for the Youtube channel Linus Tech Tips from start to finish.

The Revolution Will Be Televised - The Meteoric Rise Of Stijn Verlinde

Stijn Verlinde is boarding a flight home to Belgium from a shoot in Las Vegas. “The one piece of advice I would give to anyone starting out is 'be dedicated'.” Stijn, who started out a few years ago with some basic gear has lived by that advice. He is constantly working and is revolutionizing dance music festival videos across the globe. His success is not elusive or down to luck – it’s the result of three very clear factors we can all apply.

Great VFX: How You'll Never Notice It

We all know that visual effects have come a long way in recent years, but it’s always worth remembering that the best of the lot are the kind you don’t notice. This video – a wonderful tribute to VFX – is a smart way of showing off exactly what can be done.

What Happens When You Pay a Stranger $25 to Edit Your Pizza Commercial?

Heading to freelancer marketplaces and seeking out cheap and inexperienced creatives to edit or retouch photos is fun (though perhaps not as fun as finding people to write bass guitar riffs), but what happens when you ask an editor to cut your raw footage of a commercial? This video finds out.

Travel Through Doha In 220 Seconds With This Timelapse

It's not the first time I'm sharing Michael Shainblums work and it won't be the last time. Timelapses are one of the most time consuming forms of photography and only a dedicated person with patience can produce quality results as often as Michael.

Are PCs Cool Again?

The video showcases and discusses the latest desktop computers and what features you can get with regards to screens and processor capabilities in the category. I've used a laptop for most of my photography and videography career. The idea of not being able to take the machine with me when I need to go has been my reason for not getting a desktop machine, and the work I do requires me to get up and go when a job arises.

'Stranger Things' Gives Us a Free Lesson in Video Editing with these 28 Creative Cuts

Once you start doing a lot of video editing, watching your favorite movie or TV show is never quite the same. The way dialogue scenes are cut together, the framing of characters in a shot, and of course scene transitions. In this supercut from the popular TV Show "Stranger Things," see how the editor used a variety of cuts to create compelling transitions.

Easy Cinematic Color Grading With LUTs

Lately, LUTs have become very popular with many people talking about them, why is that? It’s essentially a color preset that you can use in any of your work that easily changes the overall look. You can create your own LUTs or find one of the several premade ones to download from several sources online. If you are looking for a fast and easy way to get a more cinematic color grading in your next video project but not sure how to apply LUTs in your work stay tuned.

How to Edit a Video From Start to Finish in Adobe Premiere

Adobe Premiere Pro is a tremendously complicated program with a wide range of features, effects, and capabilities, and it can be a bit overwhelming when you are new to it and learning how to edit video. If you are struggling a bit, this excellent video will show you an eight-step process for editing a video from start to finish in Premiere Pro.

Five Creative Habits Every Filmmaker Should Adopt

It’s common knowledge that to master a craft you have to practice it every day. As Twyla Tharp says in her classic book The Creative Habit, “I’ve learned that being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns… The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more.” But what does that mean for filmmakers whose craft is so macroscopic? A film takes years. It includes writing, casting, financing, producing, editing. So how, exactly, do you practice filmmaking?

Shanks FX Attempts to Recreate Aurora Borealis with Household Items

Joey Shanks, better known by his YouTube handle Shanks FX, has released another YouTube video based around the idea that Hollywood effects can be achieved by anyone and with only household items. This time he attempts to recreate the legendary Aurora Borealis (or Northern Lights), one of the seven wonders of the world, with just some sheets of fabric and a handful of fans. Combining those few fans, fabric, and just a little bit of precise lighting with just a touch of videography editing magic, he suddenly has one of the world wonders in his garage. Check it out!

Over 1,500 4K Video Clips Available Free for Commercial Use

Philadelphia based Director of Photography Mitch Martinez thought the world needed access to more 4K footage for free. So, he collected clips he shot from all over the United States and created a catalog with over 35 different categories of footage on his website just for that. An even cooler aspect of this collection: it's free for commercial use as well.

Faster Than Ever Video Editing Workflow With Pancake Timelines

When working with a ton of footage, culling them down and selecting just the part of them that you need can take quite a while. There a few methods to make it faster and easier, and one of them is called Pancake timelines. In this video, Justin Odisho explains to us how it works. If you are video editor with working tight deadlines or one looking for a way to speed things up, this tutorial is definitely made for you.

DJI Announces X5 and X5R Micro-Four-Thirds 4K Cameras for Inspire 1 Drone

Traditionally offering drone technology to the creative imaging market, DJI ditched its common GoPro-oriented drones in favor of a device with its own included camera. Now, DJI offers professionals a way to capture higher-quality video in a package that is specifically suited for drone photography and that capitalizes on a larger, micro-four-thirds sensor size.
Be Creative with Your Edits Like These Japanese School Girl Ninjas

What started out as a couple of school girls playfully creating a video ends up as an ad spot for Suntory's C.C. Lemon. This is not an educational video so much as another good demonstration of how low cost gear and some skilled editing can turn out pretty awesome, that is, if the camera shakes don't make you nauseous. A lazy Sunday afternoon is a good time to take this inspiration, your creativity, a cell phone camera and a couple of fast moving Japanese school girls to go make your very own ninja video.

Creating Time-Lapse Videos With Just Lightroom and Photoshop

Lightroom and Photoshop are generally considered to be tools for standard (still) photography, but simple video tasks can be handled entirely within your photographer’s Lightroom and Photoshop subscription package (no need for Adobe Premiere Pro), and without any third-party add-on tools. In particular, the pair of programs handles time-lapse videos quite nicely.

Adobe Rush Video Editing: Is It Any Good?

I spent a Sunday in Paris with a friend, Jason Boone, who's made a video about Adobe Rush and what makes it such a good video editing tool. It has been presented as being easy, syncs over Adobe Creative Cloud and has a lot built in to make you a more productive editor. This video shows whether that's true.

Director Of Young Thug's 'Wyclef Jean' Shows You How His Music Video Fell Apart [NSFW]

There is always something going wrong on set. Always. It could be something minor, like the gaffer forgot to tape a section of a stinger or something major, like the talent shows up hours late and then refuses to get out of the car. That's what happened to Co-Director Ryan Staake in his latest Vimeo "Staff Pick" video of rap artist Young Thug's "Wyclef Jean."

Where to Find Music and Sound Effects for Your Video Projects

Almost every video you see online holds an element of sound production made up of music and sound effects. For us to produce a quality body of work, we need to know where to look. I’ve recently started focusing more on producing, shooting, and editing and wanted to share this list I created where you can find awesome music for your projects.

Behind The Scenes: Filming a Plane Crash

I have mad respect for Swedish independent film outfit Crazy Pictures for their big-budget cinematography skills that are being utilized on a moderately small budget with rigs and labor that are within reach of almost any videographer. They've put together an incredibly informative behind-the-scenes video that covers in detail the massive amount of work that goes into such a short segment of film.

New York Underwater: Could This Really Be?

The past few weeks here in New Jersey and New York have been pretty rainy and not so nice. With that in mind, I came across a video that really caught my attention and had me confused for a good minute or so. For a while I thought I had been out of the loop, when suddenly I realized that this was just another sort of filming "trick" to fool the eye. Relating to my last article, this "video" takes it to another level showing a city we probably all know flooded by water. For me, it was not much of a pleasant sight and if this were to really happen, I can't imagine how much we would all be affected by it.

Taking Advantage of Color Theory: Cinematic Color Grading

Color theory is a broad subject, and the way you use it defines your style when filming or taking a photo. The technique of using color theory on your images and footage in post is called "color grading," and it is more than just using the cinematic teal and orange duo.