 Today, I'll be sharing 10 big mistakes I made when I started video editing. But before we begin, you might be wondering who this unfamiliar face is on the Artlist channel. Hi, my name is Herman, and I'm a video creator that specializes in short form content. Now, I've had the pleasure of working in a variety of mediums from commercials to live concerts, and you'll be seeing me more often as I share everything I've learned in the field. Whether they be tutorials, vlogs, or challenges, I hope that what I share through Artlist will help you avoid the mistakes I've made, inspire you to become the creator you've always wanted to be, and tell captivating stories through video. Now, I've been video editing for 13 years, which means I've made every mistake there is under the sun. And that is why I want to share 10 of the video editing mistakes that have almost gotten me fired so that you can be a professional by the end of this video. I'll be using Premiere Pro, but these tips and lessons I've learned apply to any editing software you use. Alright, be honest, do your project files look like this? And do you name your files like this? Look, we've all been there, including myself, and it was when my client asked me for a graphic to be swapped out in my video when I realized it was like trying to find a shirt in a messy room. I didn't know what to name my file, and I didn't even know how long I had to scroll to find it. So I believe it is crucial to develop the habit of staying organized early, especially if you video edit often and you have deadlines to hit. All it takes is renaming your files and folders into something obvious instead of ciphering something cryptic and creating folders for your files and organizing everything into bins in your project file. This might feel like it slows you down at first, but spending those extra couple seconds will save you from people asking why you look stressed out all the time. Let me share with you one of the most traumatizing moments of my video editing journey, other than telling my parents that I was going to be a video editor. It was my first paid gig and I was editing for maybe 13 hours with the deadline being tomorrow. Now that wasn't the day that I learned that your program can crash, but it was the day that I learned that your project file can get corrupted because of a crash. I had no backups of this project file or autosaves and I had just lost the entire day of work because I didn't hit ctrl shift s and save it as a duplicate file. So don't be like me and learn this on an urgent paid project. I encourage you to get into the habit of making backups for your project files and even making backups of your sequences that you're editing in. For me, I usually back up my sequences whenever I make major changes to my cut, rename it and then put it in another bin in case I need to go back to my previous cuts. Now this is a mistake I am still making to this day and it is not making the most out of the tools that you have. Just because I've been using a butter knife to chop wood, it doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. Now as an editor, you're always learning new ways to become more efficient, which includes learning new tools or shortcuts to shave off seconds from your workflow. One recent example is that I learned the add edit shortcut, which was equivalent to discovering the axe for chopping wood. No matter what editing program you use, there's a razor tool or blade tool that lets you cut your clip. And this has been my main tool I've used for over a decade. But I learned that instead of switching to the tool and then clicking to cut the clip, I can just hit one button to add an edit where the playhead is. By default in Premiere, it's ctrl shift K. But I changed the keyboard shortcut to F since I use it often. I'm sure you can do this with any editing program you use. Now you might think that one click or one keystroke doesn't make much of a difference, but if it's a tool that you use often, it all adds up to a lot of time saved. It's like putting a dollar into your piggy bank every day. It's all gonna add up at the end of the year. Now you don't have to use my example, but what I want to do is encourage you to explore new tools that make your life easier by being right for the job and right for you. Now, I wasn't the most academic kid growing up and this includes my time in film school. There would be assignments and lectures that just wouldn't stick with me because I didn't realize the importance of what I was learning at the time, especially being an eager artist that just wanted to film stuff. One of those assignments was to create a post-production workflow. And I remember thinking it was just a complete waste of time. I mean, I just need to bring in my footage, edit until I'm happy with it and then just export. I can't believe students are going into debt for this. But it was when I started working with others in post-production and realizing how much more goes behind an edit that I realized a workflow is your game plan. And without a game plan, everyone, including yourself, will become lost. Now, I've worked with others who don't have a plan or they just didn't communicate well. And this led to missing important deadlines. Now, this is a mistake that you don't want to make. So before you even open up your editing program, make at least a basic workflow of everything that should happen in post-production. This will help you decide if you need help taking on certain responsibilities, how much time is required to finish, and realize if there is more to this edit than you anticipated. Otherwise, you're going to end up looking like this guy. This is a mistake I didn't realize I was making until I saw someone else's editing timeline. And I wonder what it meant when their clips were grayed out. It turns out that they were disabling their clips. When I learned this, I thought, why would you want to do that? Just delete it and clear up your timeline. But the young and naive Herman didn't realize that this could be a very powerful tool in the hands of an editor. When I started editing interviews with an A and a B cam, there would be times where the client would ask me to stay on the other camera angle instead. And this would give me a headache when my timeline had more holes than an old shirt. That's when I realized keeping the other camera angle on the timeline would let me easily swap between the two in a matter of seconds. This isn't only useful for interviews, but for narratives that involve different camera angles, or montage edits if you want to experiment with different shots. In Premiere, you just have to right click the clip and uncheck enable. But I have it on a keyboard shortcut which you can easily customize in your editing software. Now, some people see editing as the second phase of directing because of how powerful it is in shaping the story and intention. Because of this, you can quickly turn your video into a disaster. And I believe the fastest way is by not motivating your cuts. Have you watched movie scenes that give you visual whiplash because of how many cuts there are? Music videos also take it too far, and don't tell me it's a stylistic choice. The reason these feel off is because the cuts don't feel like they have a reason to be there. That's why I strongly encourage you to get into the habit of asking yourself, why am I cutting here? Otherwise, your clients are going to be asking, why did I hire this guy? There could be a multitude of reasons for making an edit, and it'll also depend on what you're editing. But I think the biggest difference between an amateur and a pro is just understanding why you're making the decision to cut. Are you cutting to a reaction shot because it's more powerful than staying on the person talking? Are you cutting more often to have the visuals match up with the fast-paced music? When I first started editing, I felt like a toddler running around with a pair of scissors and just cutting everything because I felt like it. But I grew up, and I realized that not only I'll never be young again, but that every cut should have a reason, and that different editing decisions will accomplish different things. Man, I miss being free of back pain and bills. When I first started editing videos, my timeline looked a lot like this, and I couldn't figure out why my cut wouldn't feel smooth. This is especially when I was working on projects that involved dialogue, and I'm supposed to be invisible like a ninja as the editor. That is when I realized that you can have audio from your previous shot overlap with the visuals of your current one, so it seems like everything's happening at this same moment instead of two separate takes. Kind of like this, and it's known as the L cut because of the shape of the clip when the audio layer is extended. You can also pre-lap your audio like what I'm doing now before cutting to the person actually talking, which is done with a J cut. With the audio layer sticking out to the left, the clip looks like a J. With the J and L cut in your editing tool belt, you too can feel like a ninja. I still don't feel like one because once I tried to do a backflip, and I landed on my neck. Another mistake I've made in the past and often see in beginner editors is when there isn't enough visual variation in their cut. Imagine if you watched this entire YouTube video with just me talking to camera without any cutaways or graphics, unless you were charmed by my intense eye contact and unnecessary hand gestures, you wouldn't make it this far into the video. Now, I know I just spoke about motivating your cuts, so it'll really depend on what you're editing. For example, if it's an intense documentary where your interviewee is about to say something really important, there's no need to cut away from that because you want to stay in the moment. But if you're working on a fast-paced music video, you might want to jump to different angles or insert shots to support the tempo. Or if you're creating for social media, we're conditioned to watch videos with the attention span of a hamster, so visual variation prevents viewers from scrolling away. Have you ever watched a video and you couldn't tell what kind of video it was because the music was throwing you off? That is why it is so important to choose the right music for your video. Now, a lot of beginner editors don't realize how powerful of a tool music is in setting the tone and shaping your story. Now, I've spent a guilty amount of time looking for music before I even begin an edit, so I understand how difficult it is to find the right song. It's like finding the right relationship. Maybe one day we'll find the one. But instead of relying on luck or tinder, finding the right music doesn't have to feel that way. Rorality-free music platforms like Artlist are really good at making it easy to find something suitable as long as you've established a theme or genre for your video. As long as you stay faithful to your vision and click the appropriate filters, looking for the right song doesn't have to be as intimidating as this guy. What I like to do is download a couple of songs I think would work and then throw them in my edit to see if it fits with the mood and pacing of my visuals. If they're close but not quite hitting the nail on the head, I check out similar songs for more options. Using Artlist this way is really fun since I can download as many songs as I want to make sure that I get the perfect one for my edit. Now, the last mistake I notice often and I am still guilty of to this day is either having my sound effect or music too loud. Loud sound effects can take your viewers out of what they're watching because of how jarring it is. Even if it's a great way to keep your viewers engaged, it can be a little rude sometimes. And loud music makes it hard to hear what I'm saying. Although I am exaggerating just a little bit, having your audio mixed poorly is one of the easiest mistakes to make when you're starting out. I often get carried away with sound design because it's fun layering sounds to enhance the visual. But I encourage you to always step away from your edit for at least a few hours and then listen to it again with a fresh pair of ears, whether it's your own or a friend's. You can even play your video on different devices like your TV or your phone and computer so that you can know what others are hearing when they watch your video. Just make sure not to play them all at once. Be sure to also gauge the levels of your dialogue, music and sound effects with the audio meter of your program while editing. Now, if you're new to sound design, then check out our step-by-step tutorial on how to sound design by clicking the little pop up in the corner. Just like how being a good editor means not noticing the edits, good sound design should be just as invisible to be effective. And those are 10 video editing mistakes I've made throughout my editing journey that I believe any editor should pay attention to no matter their experience level. If you're just starting out, I guarantee that just by fixing these 10 things, people will see that you know what you're doing. Don't be like me wandering in the dark, editing bad videos left and right and learning these lessons. Most importantly, I encourage you to apply the new things that you learned so that you develop a good habit early on. That way you can focus on the fun stuff, which is just telling captivating stories through video. Let us know which of the 10 mistakes you've made before in the comments below and if there is a mistake that you think other editors need to avoid. Make sure to subscribe to the Artless channel if you want to see more videos like this and hit the bell notification so that you don't miss the next one. Thank you all for watching and I'll see you in the next video.