Recent Video Editing Articles

How to Add a Sweet Freeze-Frame Effect to Your Videos

Some of my favorite video editing tricks and tools are quick and subtle edits that have a lot of impact on the final piece. This tutorial from videographer Casey McPerry is definitely one of those tools that I will be adding to my bag.

A Simple Method for Using Instagram Stories in Landscape Mode

Ever wondered how to create Instagram Stories in any editor? Bobby Burns (a videographer and occasional photographer) from Wedding Cinema University, has created an online tutorial to assist industry amateurs and professionals with this very problem.

A False Reality Brought to Life: 'Perspective'

I watched this video this morning thinking it was going to be something weird, and surely enough, it was just weird enough to catch my attention. Day after day, we all live in this crazy world where everything eventually just becomes so common — our commutes to work, our daily routines, the things we see and so much more. Watching this video made me smile and think, "What if we saw things differently for a day?" "Perspective" is a video that, in less than two minutes, really entertains the mind. While we already know none of this is possible, this video still allows us to envision the strange, false reality it creates.

Fstoppers Reviews the Atomos Sumo: Why Do You Need This?

There aren’t many monitors that can record footage onto an SSD. There aren’t many monitors that can work on set as well as in post production. There is one monitor that claims to do it all though. The Atomos Sumo is not just jam-packed with features, but I think it represents the future of video production. Does it live up to the hype?

Motion Array Introduces Final Cut Pro X Templates

The demands for video production have increased exponentially as online content has boomed in recent years. The team at Motion Array understands that this puts added pressure on overworked video editors. That’s why we’re always trying to come up with tools and templates to help post-production professionals stay ahead of the curve.

Game of Thrones Season 4 - Visual Effects Behind-the-Scenes

The hit TV show on HBO Game of Thrones has some stunning practical and visual effects. Season 4 was no exception, and the team has behind the VFX just released a behind-the-scenes video showing what they did. If you haven't watched the season yet, be aware, it contains SPOILERS.

Casey Neistat's Guide to Filmmaking is Refreshing to Aspiring Filmmakers and Youtubers

Many people that want to get into filmmaking believe you need to attend film school to have a successful career. Many also believe that by purchasing a Red Epic Camera you will instantly become a filmmaker. Neither are true. After watching Casey Neistat's Guide to Filmmaking video, you learn that gear doesn't matter. Neistat does own expensive gear, such as the Canon 70D and the Canon 5D Mark III, however, he became a successful filmmaker and youtuber with dirt cheap equipment.

Hearing Tarantino: The Brilliant Impact of Sound in Quentin Tarantino Films

Movies are something we can all thoroughly enjoy. Whether it be a hilarious comedy or an action adventure, they take us places we don't normally see or experience. Films all have the same goal, to capture and engage us within their world and to evoke feelings of excitement or even fear. The guys over at Movie Pilot have found something so simple that it screams brilliance in films by Quentin Tarantino: the sound!

'WoodSwimmer' - A Stop Motion Film Made From Cutting Away Thin Slices of Wood

The art of animation in any form can be a long an tedious process however doing so with traditional stop motion techniques, manipulating your subject one frame at a time takes serious commitment and determination. Brett Foxwell takes this practice to a higher level creating amazing alien like organic worlds by slicing away one layer at a time from various pieces of wood in his newest short film "WoodSwimmer".

Seven Stunning Films Added to Apple's iPhone 6 World Gallery Collection Worth Checking Out

The Shot on iPhone 6 World Gallery launched at the beginning of March and features some of Apple's favorite customer photos in a global outdoor and print campaign that spans 70 cities in 24 countries. It is a truly transformative year for videography and filmmaking, and we are now more than ever seeing more filmmakers achieve their vision by using the iPhone 6 as their weapon of choice to produce films. For example, "Modern Family" producer Steve Levitan shot an entire episode on iPhone and iPad earlier this year, opening the doors to more possibilities shooting with our mobile devices in a creative way.

Cloak Is Where Video Footage Is Going, and It's Amazing

Photo editing, retouching, and removing something from the shot isn't easy to do especially if it's a complex part of the hair, but it's common practice for a professional photographer to be able to do it if the shot and client requires it. It involves masking the new hair refining tool brush over and selecting the best feathering to make this selection as true as possible. Have you ever thought about removing something from a video? This is what Adobe is working on and this video shows a sneak peek of what Cloak will be able to do.

How to Add a Glitch Effect to Your Videos

It’s always good to know several different editing techniques to add visual effects to your project, as you will never know when you'll need them. Adding visual effects to your videos can make your amateurish video look more professional, just as long as you don’t go overboard with them. One effect you may have seen before is the glitch effect, in which you purposely cause your frames to mess up to give the look of a technical issue in the film.

Six Simple In-Camera Video Transitions

Unless you have mastered the art of shooting your entire video in one clip, your video project will be broken up into different scenes or cuts. Adding transitions between the different scenes can improve your overall project. Are you out of ideas for alternative ways to transitions your video from scene to scene?

Documentary Takes a Look behind the Film Restoration Of "Jaws"

As part of Universal’s 100th anniversary, a team of restoration experts took on the task of digitally remastering the classic film “Jaws.” The fully restored feature required intense labor from colorists, digital artists, audio engineers, preservation experts, and everyone in between. In this fascinating documentary, we get a look at all the various complex efforts taken in order to bring the ‘70s blockbuster in to the digital age.

How to Use Premiere Pro's Keyboard Shortcut Map

Adobe Premiere Pro’s keyboard shortcuts panel is a drastic improvement when compared with the previous version. Once just a simple list of commands and shortcuts with a keyword search function, now Premiere Pro is providing users with a detailed visual reference of commands via a keyboard “map.”

RED Outs a Slew of Upgrades That Include The Newest 8K Weapon System

Built on years of experience with creating the film industry's favorite high-resolution digital cinema cameras, RED now brings the Weapon upgrade in 6K variants due out this summer and in an 8K variant due to ship by the end of the year. There's quite a bit of new information to go with this announcement, but for now, we'll go over the main and most important points.

Seven Tips for Filming Instagram-Friendly Product and Fashion Videos

Brands big and small, new and established, are heavily investing in Instagram influencers to market their products. This has opened up a relatively new market for the working videographer, and here are my top seven tips to the production of Instagram-friendly video ads.

A Demonstration of Every Single Effect in Adobe After Effects

Adobe After Effects is something of a companion to Premiere Pro, offering a range of visual effects, motion graphics, and more for video work. And like other Adobe production apps, it is a fairly intricate and often complex application. This great video demonstrates every effect in the program so you can see what they can do and where they might be appropriate for your own work.

Learn How to Read and Correct Color in Adobe Premiere Pro

One of the basic skills of video post-production is color correction. While Adobe Premiere Pro is full of tools to help you both read and correct the color in your work, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to tackle them all at first. This great video will walk through the basics to get you off and running.

Jackie Chan Explains Why Hong Kong Filmmakers Do Action Comedy Better

Growing up, I have been entranced by Jackie Chan films for their insane stunts, beautifully choreographed action sequences and hilarious physical comedy. His action scenes are both visually stunning and involving, playing underdog characters fighting against impossible odds. Chan’s dedication to his craft is unquestionable but perhaps he has not been given enough credit as an action director. In this video, filmmaker Tony Zhou breaks down the framing and editing techniques that Hong Kong directors use to create engaging fighting scenes, highlighting how many of these techniques are absent in Hollywood films of today. If you are interested in becoming a filmmaker, you need to watch this.

You'll Soon Be Able to Shoot Log Video on Your Smartphone

Your smartphone is about to take another step toward becoming a professional videography tool. Filmic Pro will soon be releasing an update that will include a log mode, increasing the app's versatility and capabilities all the more.

Google and GoPro Jump into Virtual Reality

Google has announced Jump at their 2015 I/O conference, a new 360-degree virtual reality platform that will be launching this summer. Google's hope is to make virtual reality more accessible. Jump will use raw video footage to assemble a 3D virtual reality space. It's aiming to be the premiere workflow for assembling virtual reality worlds.

A Tribute to Blue Screen Photography and Compositing

Beyond any doubt, the effects and compositing techniques used in the first three films of Star Wars trilogy were the game changer in VFX world. Although there has been a rapid improvement in the VFX technology for the last 40 years, we can say that Star Wars was one of the pioneers. So, how was that possible to achieve realistic results in a movie produced in 1980? Mark Vargo explains the mathematics, optics, engineering, and software behind the blue screen photography and compositing in detail.

Orange and Teal Look on Your Videos With DaVinci Resolve 14

The current trend for color grading videos is the orange and teal look. It’s not rocket science to understand why it works so well and why everyone uses it. Complementary colors are an easy choice when it comes to color grading and using orange for brighter tones allows keeping the skin tones look quite natural. In this nine-minute-long tutorial, Theo from MiesnerMedia shows us how we can achieve that trendy look using DaVinci Resolve 14.

Adam Epstein Breaks Down the Six Rules for Cinematic Editing

For video editors and filmmakers alike, understanding the power of the cut is important for telling the most compelling, informative, and/or emotional story. In this video excerpt from MZed, professional editor Adam Epstein (known for SNL and Killing Gunther among other things) provides some thoughtful insight on six rules for cinematic editing, as referenced from award-winning film editor Walter Murch.

How to Stabilize Footage Without Using Premiere's Warp Stabilizer

After getting into the video world, you quickly realize that being able to stabilize your footage when needed can make a significant impact on the result and quality of your video. While you can buy an expensive gimbal or rely on a not always so practical Steadicam, there is also the possibility of improving the stabilization in post-production. The tools included in most video editing apps aren’t exactly perfect as it will give you a weird effect and make you feel sick. What if I told you there is another way that works better than the warp stabilizer VFX filter and gives your footage a cool effect?

Directing Video, a Photographer's Perspective

When I was young, I first fell in love with photography as a kid in summer camp. I then went home and started pouring over the Time Life Photography books from the local library. All through grade school and high school I stayed up countless nights studying, reading, and learning everything I could about great photographers and their amazing photographs.

5 Free and Useful Plugins for Adobe Premiere Pro

Who doesn't love free stuff!? Video editing is a complex, time-consuming, and resource-intensive task, so anything you can do to make the process easier and more streamlined is a major plus. This fantastic video will show you five plugins that do just that, and the best part is that they are all free!

Finally, a Solution to Make LUT Selection an Easy Process

When using LUTs, one of the biggest problems is that many apps won't let you preview what they do before applying it. This makes the LUT choice and application slow and very unpractical. That was until Lutify came out with a solution!

Adobe Adds More Features to Premiere Pro & After Effects

This week at NAB, Adobe Premiere and After Effects are getting some new features, including Live Text Templates (After Effects text effects can be directly edited in Premiere), and keying effects in After Effects to provide better keying results with compressed footage among a host of other improvements.

The Next Frontier for Video

Shooting video is a collaborative process. To get it ready for your client takes many steps depending on what type of video you are working on. Thanks to Frame.io the post production is as enjoyable as it was when you first picked up the camera to shoot.

3 Ways to Save Time When Color Grading Videos

When it comes to video editing, color grading is one of the most crucial steps to creating a polished finished product, though it is the kind of thing where you can spend hours going back and forth between minute changes. If you want to make sure your workflow is as efficient as possible while still producing good results, check out this great video tutorial that will show you three techniques to speed up the process.

What's New in DaVinci Resolve 14?

A few days ago Blackmagic Design announced DaVinci Resolve 14. The all-in-one video editing software was published in public beta version at the same time, and a few people have played with it to see what the differences are. Amongst them, Casey Faris recorded his experience and explained what’s going to change from the version 12.

How to Make Yourself Look Better on Zoom Calls

If you've ever looked at your face on a Zoom call and wondered why you look so bad, you're not alone. Here, we look at how to add color corrections and pop to your face so you look so much better on Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype, and more.

How to Fake a Dolly Zoom in Premiere Pro

If you're a Hitchcock fan, you're no doubt aware of the dolly zoom, also known as the "Vertigo effect." It's dazzlingly disorienting, but it also requires a zoom lens and the physical ability to move the lens in space, things that aren't always simultaneously possible, such as if you're shooting with a drone. Here's how to fake the effect in Premiere Pro.

The Rise of Mobile Videography

When audiences at the Sundance Film Festival were told that "Tangerine" was filmed entirely on an iPhone 5S, people were not sure if they believed it. It soon became clear that this was a fact, and that mobile videography had reached a new plateau in the film world.

How an Outsider Delivered the Intimate Cinematography of Academy Award-Winning Film 'Moonlight' and the Photographs That Influenced Him

On Sunday night, "Moonlight," Director Barry Jenkins' beautiful film about the coming-of-age of a young man dealing with issues of race and poverty, while simultaneously discovering his own relationship to sexuality, won the ultimate prize, the Best Picture trophy at the Academy Awards. LensCulture just posted a lengthy interview with the film's talented cinematographer, James Laxton. Here is a bit of what he had to say.

How to Quickly and Easily Color Grade Your Footage With 3D LUT Creator

Colors straight out of camera vary greatly between brands and sensors. Canon has been known for a long time for its great skin tone reproduction, while other manufacturers have created more troubles for colorists and retouchers to get perfect tones without a solid post-production workflow. In this tutorial, Chrystopher Rhodes from YCImaging shows how he uses 3D LUT Creator to get perfect colors out of his Panasonic GH5 and goes further by quickly demonstrating how you can color match your footage to any picture or video you like.

How to Edit Video on a Slow Laptop

Beginning your video editing journey can be painful on a slow machine. I’ll explain a few tweaks that might help smooth out the experience.

Bayhem: When Too Much Isn't Enough

Michael Bay, the American movie director and producer, is worth millions of dollars. In fact, Forbes has Bay making $66 million in 2014 – and that’s just through the first six months of this year.

How’s he do it? Well, Tony Zhou has created a mashup of Bay’s movies for us to study. Let the Bayhem begin.