So you're the techie at your place of work and at home. You get called in to help the boss set up new equipment at work and you're the one getting calls at home about what camera Aunt Linda should buy. It's a fact of life, you're the one people depend on to do the technical tasks and with it comes the assumed responsibility of video work too. Corporate slideshows, presentations, junior's little league game and so many more projects are sitting on your desk waiting to get done. We can help you get started on the path to becoming a better video editor with these simple hints.

Don't Be Afraid to Ask For What You Need

If you're just starting your journey, you're going to need to be prepared. A full sized keyboard with a numeric keypad is a must. Keyboard shortcuts are an editor's best friend. We recently wrote about the basic keyboard shortcuts you'll want to know.

Make sure you have plenty of hard drive space. It would be wise to have an external USB 2.0 hard drive handy. Get the most storage space money can buy. Lastly, a second monitor makes your workspace much more functional. Make sure to check if your computer can support a second monitor before you make this purchase.

Software is key, but as you're starting off, sometimes it's best to work your way up. Most free solutions, like Microsoft Movie Maker and Apple's iMovie, are great for beginners as they don't have a lot of features that can be more of a distraction to the editor in training. If you want a more options and control in your editing environment, take a closer look at Adobe Premiere Elements or Apple's Final Cut Express. They are well worth the money as they can be real time savers and do a lot of what any editor (new or experienced) would need to do.

Techniques: Keep It Organized

Projects pile up quickly and video files all look the same when they're just sitting in a folder. Naming conventions for files and folders become quite handy for a busy video editor. We organize our file structure by project, one folder with a descriptive name. For example, you're creating a video for the local after-school program's annual fundraiser, so you label a new folder called "Boys and Girls Club Fundraiser 2011" and that should clearly explain what will be in this folder. Then, you can put a few more generic folders into this folder, like a Video folder, Music folder, Photo folder. Just a little bit of work will keep your organized and help you find what you're looking for. It will also make it easy to back up your work.

Techniques: Keep It Simple

Video projects big and small should start with a clear storyline (if it's a narrative) or an objective if it's a corporate presentation or something similar. Developing good storyline for narrative films is truly a fine art and outside of the scope of this article. But an objective for your video can be very simple and useful in saving yourself time and energy. A good objective should keep the audience in mind. Who will be watching your video. What do you want them to do as a result of viewing your video? Now ask yourself what is the most critical thing you can show them in your video to reach this outcome? There's your objective. Now it's time to get to work.

The building blocks of any video start with A/B editing. The primary action of the video is considered your A-roll and the secondary, supportive visuals are considered B-roll. Let's use an example to illustrate this example. Your producing a birthday video for your 3 year old nephew. You have a video clip of your nephew telling the viewers what he received for his birthday. He describes in short detail, (he's 3, remember), that he got a red tricycle. The clip is rather informal, with you behind the camera asking the questions and prompting your nephew. It takes you a good 15 seconds to get the details out of the birthday boy. A 15 second clip is a little long to run by most video editing standards, but you can't omit this crucial first-hand account of the birthday. This is A-roll. A crucial part of your video. So you drop in the A-roll into the timeline and try to remedy the lengthy 15-second description of the birthday present. This is where B-roll comes in. Looking through your video footage you find a clip of your nephew as he unboxes the new tricycle. Ah ha! Now we got a clip related to the first clip. We could just throw this in the timeline after the first clip, but better yet we should cut into the video about 5 seconds into the video clip while preserving the audio from the first clip. In this way the viewer continues to hear the boy describe his new tricycle while we see the action itself unfold. This is a much more powerful edit giving the viewer the visual context of what your nephew is describing on camera.

The trick with these edits is to think critically about what your audience needs to know (back to our objective) and then think how many different ways we can support that with visuals. The other trick is making sure that you (or whoever is working the camera) takes plenty of B-roll shots. Think of any professional wedding videographer, they are B-roll freaks. A wedding has so many different elements that comprise the entire day: not only the participants of the event, but the cake, the guest book, the church, the flower pedals left by the flower girl, the table settings, etcetera, etcetera. All these elements must be recorded as they will be used later to build the bride and groom's story. Plenty of B-roll is a must.