Why Learn Video Editing?

Video editing is the technical art of cutting together and altering video clips to create a finished video project. Video editing skills allow creatives to make cuts, preserve continuity between shots, alter sound, add digital effects, and replace or remove background assets. Have you ever explored all of the things Video Editing can do? Video editing training will open the door to many new career paths, but it can also help creatives make more compelling digital content or introduce them to a subtle but vibrant new art form. Here, you’ll learn more about the types of careers that benefit from Video Editing and how it can enhance your professional life. Regardless of your overall goals, learning Video Editing is a valuable and impressive skill to add to your resume. 

What is Video Editing?

Video editing is the art of taking multiple different film clips and manipulating them to create a single finished video composition. Video Editors cut together clips, add, remove, and mix sound, digitally alter and remove elements of the film, and add special effects in post-production. Taking cues from the arts of cinematography and photography, video editing is a necessary component of producing video content. It is also a hidden art, as Video Editors strive to make their presence invisible, creating a seamless edit that washes over audiences.

Video Editors use tools like Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro X to create finished video projects by blending different video and sound files. Video Editors are responsible for synching audio and visual elements of the film, ensuring continuity between individual frames and scenes, and cleaning up elements of the film, such as correctly handling green screens or removing ambient sound and replacing it with desired music. Video Editors will work with directors, cinematographers, and producers to dictate a video's pace and movements, and even though their work isn’t always lauded, they represent an essential part of making professional quality video productions. 

Read more about what video editing is and why you should learn it. 

What Can You Do with Video Editing?

Video editing lets creatives make both subtle and significant alterations to video files. They can make minor but meaningful edits to combine multiple clips, alter audio volume, speed up and slow down footage, or correct color and lighting. They can also make significant changes, such as altering backgrounds using a green screen and chroma key software, adding in special effects or music, or removing background obstructions. These kinds of edits will come together to help creatives produce professional quality videos, and learning these skills will open the door to a high-paying and in-demand career field.

Learning video editing skills is also useful for creatives hoping to break into the world of content creation themselves. Rather than editing videos for other people, you’ll be able to create and edit your own content, giving your online presence a professional quality that can set your work apart from the competition. Whether you are making YouTube tutorials, scripted content, Lets Plays, or you want to stream on Twitch or YouTube, learning the basics of video editing can help take your content to the next level.

Common Professional Uses for Video Editing

Video editing skills are utilized across every industry that produces or utilizes videos to communicate and persuade. Beyond the television and film industries, internet content creation companies, traditional and digital advertising agencies, government agencies and political campaigns, activist organizations and nonprofits, and even training firms and other large corporations regularly employ individuals with video editing training. Just a few jobs available to trained video editors include:

Video Editors: Video Editors are professionals who are tasked with ensuring that all of the video content that directors, artists, and other creatives produce is compiled and assembled into a finished product. Video Editors will work closely with storyboard artists, writers, and producers to ensure that the final edited video project is in-line with the goals and objectives of their team. Video editors will be responsible for maintaining continuity and creating meaning through how the film is cut. They will also be responsible for adding in special effects, mixing sound, and other technical aspects of the editing process.

Video Managers: On larger video projects, teams of creatives will collaborate to bring a project to fruition, including editors, directors, storyboard artists, and producers. Video Managers will oversee these teams and work closely with them to ensure that a finished video project meets the team's goals and specifications. In addition to video editing skills, Video Managers will need to learn other creative skills, such as motion graphics and digital storytelling, and soft people skills to ensure that the human element of the project works as well as the design elements.

Motion Graphics Designer: Some Video Editors may also work in the field of motion graphics design since the two fields use many of the same tools. Motion Graphics Designers will build the animated digital assets that Video Editors insert into film, television, or other video content. Motion Graphics Designers work with the kinds of computer-assisted editing work that is more clearly visible to audiences, building the imposing digital images that populate modern entertainment. They will need to be familiar with tools like Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro. Still, they will not need to pay as much attention to things like philosophies of editing and cinematography.

Build Better Video Content

Many aspiring creatives may be looking to enter the world of digital content creation. Likewise, small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs may be considering digital video advertising to get their brand out into the world. Both of these groups of up-and-coming professionals will want to be able to produce professional quality video content to set themselves apart from their competition. As the digital marketplace becomes increasingly crowded, the standard that consumers and audiences have for their digital content is becoming higher and higher. Learning video editing skills is a great way to ensure that the video content you put forward, whether a YouTube tutorial, an online stream, a digital marketing campaign, or an announcement video for a new crowdsourced project, looks professional and compelling.

Learn a new Art

While it is a subtle process, video editing is an art form and an essential element of film. While actors, directors, and writers produce the content you see on screen, it is the responsibility of the editors to piece that disparate content together into a completed project. Learning video editing is as much about learning complex techniques and artistic theories as learning individual tools. Learning the art of editing will let creatives tell more elaborate and complex stories through the process of intercutting, compiling and juxtaposing elements of a film file. This is why editing is a category of artistic awards in the film and television industry, and by learning video skills, creatives have the chance to enter into this rich artistic tradition. 

How to Start Learning Video Editing

Students looking to learn video editing have several different options available to them. Courses are available both in-person and online, and students learning online can enroll in live or asynchronous training sessions. Students should consider their desires and needs before enrolling in a video editing course to make an informed decision about which one is best for them. To learn more about the video editing course options available to them, students should consider consulting Noble’s Classes Near Me tool. 

The most immersive option available to students is in-person video editing instruction. These courses give students direct access to trained instructors and a cohort of like-minded students to network with. In addition, since they are taken at training facilities, students will have access to the computer labs of their service provider. However, these courses require students to attend a physical site for training, meaning that some students may be very limited in terms of their options for in-person instruction.

Students who can’t attend the in-person training course of their choice may wish to look towards live online video editing training options as an alternative. These courses maintain many of the advantages of in-person courses, particularly access to a live instructor who can provide students with feedback and assistance. Plus, since these courses are taken from a student’s home, they can choose from a much larger pool of online courses. The downside is that students won’t be provided with the hardware or software they need, so they will have to be sure they can provide their own technology.

Some students, particularly those with work or family commitments, may want to consider more flexible on-demand video editing courses for video editing training. These courses come in a wide variety of forms and costs, giving students additional flexibility over how they learn to use programs like Premiere Pro and After Effects. The drawback to these courses is that they lack a live instructor to help students overcome obstacles that arise for them.

Finally, students looking to experiment with video editing but aren’t ready to enroll in a professional training course can consider taking advantage of free tutorials and resources. Noble offers several free tutorials on the Video Editing and Motion Graphics playlist on its official YouTube page. Students can also turn to Noble’s Learn Video Editing page to see a collection of videos, articles, and other resources to help them learn the basics of video editing.

Read the full guide on how to learn video editing.

Learn Video Editing with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Students interested in the behind-the-scenes aspects of film and video production may wish to learn video editing skills. Video editing is an incredibly important aspect of filmmaking. Anyone who wants to work in the film, television, or online content creation industry should consider learning how to edit videos. Video Editors are in high demand as the marketplace for digitally produced content continues to grow, with trained and experienced video editors commanding an average salary of $80,000.

For students with creative aspirations, learning video editing skills is a great way to break into online video production, whether creatively or professionally. As the marketplace for amateur video production continues to expand, it is also getting more and more crowded, meaning that new creators need to set themselves apart. Learning video editing skills can help your up-and-coming content channel produce professional quality videos without needing to bring on an editor full-time. These skills will be relevant as long as you are making video content, so up-and-coming content creators, small business owners looking to produce their video advertisements, and Social Media Marketers looking to produce content for their clients all benefit from learning video editing techniques.

Read more about why you should learn video editing.

Key Insights

• Video editing is the art of combining, cutting, and juxtaposing video clips to create meaning, invoke emotion, or persuade an audience.
• Video editing skills are used in various industries, from film and television to video advertising, to government and nonprofits.
• Learning video editing skills can help aspiring content creators or entrepreneurs reach a wider audience with professional quality content.
• Learning video editing skills will also allow creatives who work in the medium of film and video to tell more complex stories and communicate more effectively through the use of complex editing techniques.
• Regardless of why someone wants to learn video editing skills, they can turn to Noble Desktop to find comprehensive video editing training offered in-person and live online.