It’s called Final Cut for a reason

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Want your videos to have that polished professional look to them? Of course you do. When I view a video produced by someone inexperienced, I see all the little things they could have fixed before they exported. Since I seem to be fond of top ten lists, here is my How to final cut your video before you compress.

It really is the final small fixes that can make or break a video. I often find myself, after posting a video, going back several times to fix things that bug me. A dissolve that’s too long, an audio level that’s too low or high. It is a perfectionist curse that I live with. It’s best, though, to fix your video before they’re posted.

 

• Start by listening to your completed project with your eyes closed. Hit pause when you come to something that doesn’t sound right and fix it. I find, by not looking at my timeline, I’m much more able to spot (hear) audio issues.
• When you’re listening with your eyes closed, do it twice, once with headphones and once with your computer speakers. You’ll be amazed at the difference in the subtleties of what can be heard between the to. Music is a case in point. A subtle music sound bed might sound great with cheap speakers, but be overpowering with headphones on. You have to find a balance for both ways the viewer will be listening to your video.
• Watch your audiometers— Yes, with your eyes open now. You want each edited clip to peak between –12db and –6db. Adjust accordingly.
• Have an audio clip that has really low levels? Don’t jack the audio levels up to the point of hearing hiss. Instead highlight the clip and duplicate it, several times if necessary, until it builds the sound back up to a decent level. Try it! It really works.
• Use lots of audio cross fades. I can always tell the iMovie productions because the bumps in audio between clips. Cross-fades work much like an video dissolve does by blending the outgoing clip with the incoming clip. Fades work best between clips that have consistent audio sound. An example would be an outgoing clip of traffic noise transitioning to a clip of crowd noise. Because you can get cross talk, be careful of cross fading dialogue.
• Always use split edits. The split edit separate the professional editor from the amateur. The way I define a split edit is that you want to hear the person before you see them. Split edits, also called L-cuts really make your video flow smoothly between a-roll and b-roll. Just watch a video where a person appears and starts to talk. It can be jarring to the viewer. You can fix it by unlinking the video and audio track, roll the talking head video back about four seconds, then tuck the exposed audio on a separate track under the outgoing b-roll clip. You now have a smooth transition viewers will hardly notice. There are a half a dozen ways to do a split edit. Find the way that works best for you.
• Using photographs in your video? Try to fill the canvas window so there isn’t any black bars above the and below the image. It just looks better, especially if you’re adding motion on the photo. What I do is drop the photo onto my timeline and load it into the canvas. With wire frame enabled, I hold my option key down (to constrain proportions) and grab a corner of the wire frame and scale up the photo until it fills the frame.
• My personal preference is to fade up a video at the beginning and to fade out at the end. Many videos I see just start, which I find jarring. I like to use Final Cut’s video transparency feature. This is that black line on the top edge of video clip. You can key frame it just like audio. If not, just use a cross dissolve. Also, try an audio cross fade on the opening audio clip and have it fade up with the video. It will be smooooth as butter.
• Speaking of cross dissolves, ask yourself if you really need one. I find editors who use too many dissolves are the ones who failed to sequence their video with wide, medium and tight shots. Remember, a dissolve is best used for transitions of time or place.
• Color correct your video. It’s really simple to do in a professional video editor like Final Cut Express or Pro. It is the last thing I do before I export my video out of Final Cut. The easiest thing to do with the color correction filter is to use the highlight eyedropper. Click a neutral white in your video and presto instant colorcast correction. Usually that is all I have to do to a clip. It’s a great way to take a cool color balance and instantly warm it up. Bad color in your video makes it look like a You Tube production.

Any other tips? Please share…

 

   

 

 

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