National Holiday Video Editing Weekend - 7 Tips to Do it Now!

Posted by Keith · January 4th, 2008

In the midst of taking down tinsel and filing away the numerous gift cards you received, we want to remind you of all the wonderful footage you shot while in the throes of holiday cheer. While it’s tempting to put off editing ’til later, you are almost certainly dooming the tapes to a life of collecting top-shelf closet dust. Why not do it this weekend?! In mere hours, you’ll have a delightful piece of family heritage in the can. Here’s some advice for editing your masterpiece.

7 Tips for Editing your Holiday Video

1. Just Do It, Now! - The best advice we can give you is the old Carpe Diem mentality. Commit to finishing your video this weekend. It’s a quick and relatively painless procedure and you’ll thank us afterwards. Otherwise, human nature dictates that it will never get done (or worse, you’ll be sending it out as a gift for the 4th of July).

2. Fire Up Your Editing Program - Don’t worry if you haven’t done any editing before. For your purposes, any basic editing program on your computer or that came with your camera should do fine. If you’ve been aching to learn that high-end editing system you copied from your cousin, hold off until the task at hand is complete.

3. Import Your Footage - Glorious technology has made this step as simple as could be. Just plug the old handicam into your computer, push “play” on the camera and “capture/import” on the program and walk away. No babysitting required. Simple, no? As it requires little of your precious time to do so, make sure you capture all the footage you shot. Believe it or not, this will make editing easier for you later.

4. Cut It Down and Find The Flow - When in doubt, cut it out. Trust us, in this case, the shorter, the better. Get the highlights, and remove the rest. We recommend a video around 3 to 5 minutes. Don’t believe that it needs to be that short? Go to YouTube and start watching any random video and take note when you start to get bored. Uh huh, we told you.

5. Add Transitions and B-roll - First, find the flow of the piece, then go back to add transitions and b-roll to smooth out any rough edges. Good b-roll can be anything from close-ups of decorations to shots of family caroling. Just keep the pace moving! For transitions, stick mainly to the classic dissolves and fades, none of those lame star wipes (à la wedding videos).

6. Add a Nice Title and Some Music - Adding these to a holiday video are always a plus, but use some restraint. Moderation is the name of the game here. Music should be subtly placed and modestly pitched without distracting lyrics or vocal melodies. Titles should be large and easy to read, so lay off the curly-Q font.


 7. Share it! - After all that you’ve endured, make sure the fruits of your effort are seen by the whole family. Since most videos are too large to email, try using one of the myriad video sharing sites. YouTube is obviously the most popular, but we like Vimeo or Viddler both of which have higher quality and more privacy options.

Best of luck and happy editing!

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