Video Editing Tips

People who know me, know I love to create videos. Although I have a mini-video camera, many of my videos are created using still photos. I generally use Sony Vegas to create my videos, but I have used Windows Movie Maker too. Sony Vegas is my favorite video creation/editing software though. 

While creating and editing videos is pretty straight forward, experience has taught me a few things and upon request, I decided to share those tips here. 

In a nutshell, here are my top video editing tips .....

1. Create a new folder on your desktop for each video you create (one folder per video).  Give the folder a name that reflects the theme of your video (example, "Christmas 2011")
2. Within this folder, create sub-folders .... one for pictures (if using still photos), one for video clips (if using video clips), one for music, etc.  The goal is to get all of the video, pictures, music, etc. used in your video into the same folder (away from everything else) so it's easy to find and manage.
3. Copy the photos, video clips, music, etc that you intend to use in your video into their respective sub-folders which you created in step 2.
4. Once you complete steps 1-3, open your favorite video editing software and IMPORT your video, photos and music from the subfolders you created in step 3.  
5. When you save your movie, be sure to save it in the top level folder you created on your desktop (in step 1).  
6. When you render (or make) your movie, be sure to save the created movie in the top level folder (step 1).

To some people, the six tips above may seem like overkill since it requires moving (and copying) your files into a new folder as opposed to leaving them where they are.  But believe me, there is a logical reason to this madness.  And here it is .....

By default, most people store their pictures in the PICTURE folder (or in their DOCUMENT folder) and their music in the MUSIC folder, etc.  While this is the preferred method for most everyday uses, it creates a problem for video editing. 

The first problem is that people tend to delete, move, or rename their photos, music, video clips, etc.   If that photo, song, etc. was already in your video timeline and you move, delete or rename the file, then the timeline can't find it anymore (your software will tell you it's "offline" or "missing").  This means you have to find the original file and reimport it into your video software so the timeline can see it.  This can be a major pain (not to mention time-consuming). 

But by COPYING these files (photos, video clips, music, etc) to a special folder (as described in steps 1-4 above), your video editing software will always know where to find them.  In this case, it doesn't matter if you move, delete or rename your original files ... your timeline will remain in tact because it will know where to find the copies you created in steps 1-4. 

The other big advantage in using the tips outlined above is that once the video is complete, you can copy this entire folder to your backup hard drive, flash drive or DVD and remove it from your desktop (to save disk space).  But then if you ever need to make changes to the video or make more copies, you can just COPY the entire folder back to your desktop, open your video editing software and you're good to go again.  The software will knows where to find everything. 

Everybody has their own system, but through experience, this is the best system I've discovered for creating and editing home videos.

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