(Part 2) Top products from r/VideoEditing

Surgical video editor and animator here.

HungryLikeTheWolf99 just dropped some science. The emphasis on organization can not be understated.

To this I would add:

• Learn the keyboard shortcuts for your software, they speed up your workflow significantly and speed is always of the utmost importance. 3-point editing is what's up.
  
  
• Know your codecs and file formats, learn about compression algorithms, linear workflow, stereoscopic and whatever else you hear about but don't use or don't think you need to know currently: when all of a sudden someone asks for/about it, knowing will make you look like a pro even if you've never touched it.
  
  
• Check out "Framed in Ink" by Marcos Mateu-Mestre, best storyboarding book I've come across and breaks down good cinematography fundamentals beautifully.
  
  
• Start getting your honorary-MBA-via-the-internet now. That is to say, dig deep into Google on the business stuff. Learn as much as you can about contracts and licensing agreements, marketing and the like. "Selling the Invisible" by Harry Beckwith is a great read for starters.
  
  Good luck.

Never been a better time to learn! There are tons of great, free resources available to you.

You can find basic technical tutorials for most any NLE you want simply by typing "[name of software] tutorial" into Google. This is where I started with iMovie back in 2009, digging through the web, looking for patterns and ways to piece together information from content that was sometimes only tangentially related.

My biggest piece of advice would be to start today, right now, and dive right in with whatever you've got. For someone with limited experience, technological constraints are often beneficial: you can focus on basic edits and storytelling techniques while not worrying about all the bells and whistles available to you. Not knowing what you don't know can be of the utmost benefit, especially considering that when the need for some more advanced tools does roll around, it forces you to think creatively to find a fix - it gets you thinking like an editor, like a filmmaker!

My second piece of advice would be to get some literature and start working your way through it. My two favorite books on editing are When The Shooting Stops ... The Cutting Begins and The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film. Some of the language might seem tough initially but you'll pick it up quickly and be able to reverse engineer much of what is discussed so that it is applicable to you.

In terms of software, you can find free trials of almost everything on manufacturer's sites, but if you've already got Windows Movie Maker/iMovie, I would learn that first. They really are good for teaching the conceptual basics and editing terminology, and although the feature sets certainly aren't that of a high end NLE, they are absolutely capable of putting together a film. Use what you have!

Most important thing though is to do it often. If you're interested in shooting, shoot a lot, then bring it in to your NLE and make a bunch of different stuff out of the same footage. Try to assemble a narrative, even if it's just a portrait of the city you live in. Work on different types of cuts: L cuts, J cuts, match cuts that weren't shot with the edit in mind. Have fun with it!

Best of luck to you, mate!

Get the free version of Resolve. It's free, so why not? And it's got a very solid and pretty standard toolset.

The best resource I've found personally is Alexis Van Hurkman's Color Correction Handbook - it covers theory well, and includes practical details in a generic sense as well as going into the specifics of some popular tools.

He has also written the manual (literally) for DaVinci Resolve.

Books that helped me:

• Avid Agility by Steven Cohen
  
  Great book, although only current to AMC 6.6 I believe....Great info; as we know Avid does not like to change things up too much, so the information is still quite relevant on the bare-bones side of things. You can supplement your reading with support materials from the Media Composer website regarding current versions.
  
  
• The Film Editors Toolkit by Chris Wadsworth
  
  Comes with a rich companion website with a lot of material to download. While Wadsworth teachings can be taken any which way; it's a good insight to how one person thinks it should be done. He doesn't specifically focus on software* here. Conversely, he says you can use the support-materials in any NLE you'd like. But, if you're in Avid - it's easier accessing what he has provided because the author was as well when building these materials out.
  
  
• Avid Uncut by Steve Hullfish
  
  Another book with a fairly strong companion website. You can access RED and Alexa files with a detailed walkthrough on how to access them (the files) in a number of ways within AMC. This book really digs into the NLE I feel...

Getting somebody a gift in this sort of area is VERY tricky. He probably already knows exactly what he wants or has it already or its out of price range. Trick is to get something, somewhat related but not in his direct field, so tripod is a no-no.

Maybe a camera slider, or cineskates type product? On cheaper end those run sub 100 bucks. I disagree with video editing book suggestions as he probably already has material he's reading related to video editing. If he doesn't have a graphics background maybe something like this? http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-3rd/dp/0321534042/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396895058&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Non-Designer%27s+Design+Book good book about general design rules/practices which assist when making titles and the like. Maybe just a nice coffee table book to gain inspiration from or something along those lines.

I would suggest adobes creative cloud subscription plan. I believe you can gain access to premiere for $20/month rather than having to buy production premium straight up! You could also start with free trials of premiere or avid.

I would suggest getting this book as you will most likely be getting a job as an assistant editor doing mostly digitizing, syncing, and other prep work for a few years before you do any major editing.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0615487750

That's assuming you're planning in getting a job in a post production house. You probably won't be doing much beyond the prep work I mentioned, string outs, and selects. It would be most important for you to learn the ins and outs of the technical side of editing, video codecs, how to handle specific video formats, etc etc.

> My question is what is the best way to stay motivated and positive when you encounter a lot of problems?

Motivation: Go buy the War of Art

> having problems with Adobe Premiere

This is a problem. It is solvable.

> It deleted a solid 2 hours of work, despite me saving regularly.

Did you look at the backups?

> computer will randomly freeze up on me and restart.

Sounds like something is wrong with your hardware. You wouldn't go on the road with a damaged axle would you?

> Most of the time it will work fine, play Skyrim or Bioshock and no problems but will freeze up when I'm trying to edit.

Well, both of these use different areas of your system. Premiere is more stressful than games are.

> My question is what is the best way to stay motivated and positive when you encounter a lot of problems?

Something you said was important:

> I have been struggling getting it together because of working and being really tired.

Get sleep. Life is significantly better with sleep. Work on that for a week. Get on the other side of rest. It's amazing how much lower stress things are with sleep.

The studio I work for uses Sony MDR-V6, so I bought myself a pair for home use.

They are great sounding headphones that do not mask the sound (eg: They don't add bass or enhance the sound in any way, which is essential for serious work). Very clear, loud enough and a nice coiled cable.

I'm under the impression that the 13-inch MBP has a FireWire 800 port, just like my newer 15-inch MBP. I just got a FireWire 800/400 Cable (9-Pin to 4-Pin) like this. They make small adapters, too.

You will see much better performance with two or more extra storage devices. A 250GB SATA SSD for your OS & apps, a PCIe 4 M.2 SSD for your Preview files/cache/scratch. And a large 4TB mass storage for final rendering.

The whole reason you're getting the x570 platform is for the PCIe 4.0 bandwidth. Might as well get a PCIe 4 SSD. The one I linked is $100 cheaper than the Samsung 970 which is only PCIe 3.

Do you like reading?

Sony Movie Studio 12:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008MIMIY8/ref=s9_psimh_gw_p65_d0_i2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=03DJZSYQ7VVJ1NAJRTY4&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846

Cheaper(that's the first time I've seen it as high as 60 bucks) and you more than likely will not use the features introduced into SMS 13 that 12 doesn't have.

It's essentially Sony Vegas(so you can use Vegas tutorials) that just doesn't have the high-end professional features.

• $75 up front = Sony Vegas home edition Amazon Affiliate link to the product
  
• $50 a month with a year contract: Premiere Pro.
  
• She could also try Premiere Elements, i have never used it personally.
  
  Both have downloadable 30 day trials.

Learn from the best

Thank you! It's crazy that it's been almost 8 years since that night.

I'm currently trying to get a crew together to do some short films so I can practice my editing but also learn things like sound design/editing and cinematography.

I'm currently reading a book called "The Invisible Cut" by Bobbie O'Steen. I won't say it's the definitive book on editing, but it analyzes the editing techniques used in some classic movies like The Graduate, Chinatown, Rear Window, and Twelve Angry Men, just to name a few.

http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Cut-Editors-Movie-Magic/dp/193290753X