The importance of the editing process

Why do we need to edit? Can’t we just film something and be done with it? In a word, no. Post-production is a process that’s integral to any video, TV, or film production. A video won’t make it to its intended destination (YouTube, Vimeo, or maybe even a film festival) without some kind of input after it’s been shot. Even if the sum total of your off-camera effort is clicking upload, that’s still a post-production process.

You cannot avoid the post-production process. Film has always been synonymous with editing, but ever since television first arrived, production methods have been developed to reduce the need for tinkering with footage and create almost ready-packaged shows. But editors and post-production houses are still employed to apply finishing touches or make a recorded program fit to a time slot. Live programs still have edited clips played within them. A Tom Scott video impressively recorded in one take still benefits from audio adjustments and captions. Quite simply, editing is everywhere.

But if you can minimize the post-production process to simply clicking upload on what you recorded, why not do that? Well, without editing, you won’t be able to fix any mistakes you made when the video was recorded. Secondly, the video is likely to be full of gaps and hesitations that make the video look unprofessional. Thirdly, an unedited video is unlikely to make its intended point very quickly, or it won’t give the audience enough information. Finally, an unedited video is very likely to be boring, confusing, or both.

They say time is money, but a little bit of time spent editing can make a world of difference to how well your video is perceived. Moreover, editing doesn’t have to be a waste of time if you’re focused and deliberate. To help you focus on editing the most important bits of a video, entry-level editing programs such as iMovie have stripped-down interfaces that help you to prioritize the most important tasks.

iMovie was the first editing app I found, and I stuck with it for three reasons: it’s free, unintimidating, and – unlike most basic software – it grows with you. Once you’ve learned the ropes, there are a lot of avenues available to expand your creativity and begin editing like a pro without the outlay of pro software. Before we jump into using iMovie, though, it’s important to understand why we edit in the first place. Accordingly, this chapter is going to cover the most basic principles of editing. Keeping them in mind will make your video (and by “video,” I mean anything audiovisual – a social media teaser, a tutorial, or a feature film) more engaging and effective.