One of the worst feelings in the world is losing great edits because you didn’t save your work. You know that there’s no way you can replicate every edit. Even if there was some way you could, it’s still going to take hours to do so.

Our tip to you? Get in the habit of saving. Save, and save often. If you’ve just saved, save again. If you think it’s been awhile since you last saved, click save. If you forget to save, remember, and then save it. The point here is you can never save too much. The general rule is to save every five minutes and especially after completing time-consuming or difficult edits.

Saving different versions of your project every so often can help you as well. That way if you make several edits and realize you don’t like it, you can go back to an earlier version without having to start completely over. An easy way to do this is by adding a “v1” to the end of your project name (i.e., ProjectName_v1). Now, with just a glance, you know that the file is version one of that particular project. Continue to save as many versions as you like, being sure to change “v1” to “v2,” and so on. Try saving a new version when you reach editing milestones or when you start experimenting with what you already have.

Being diligent about saving your work is crucial to keeping your sanity as an editor. Don’t let your work be a victim of power outages and applications crashing. By developing good saving habits you’ll save yourself from the agony of unnecessary headaches and missed deadlines.

For more editing tips check out Home Video Hints: Editing 101: School’s in Session.

Interested in more tips on editing? Sign up for Videomaker’s free Video Editing Course. This free tip series is designed to help you improve your video production skills, fast. Learn More. 

Everyone loves a good fight scene. Whether the fight takes place in a boxing ring, dark alley, or grocery store, the editing techniques for a fight scene remain the same. As an editor, the question you need to ask yourself is, “what kind of fight scene am I trying to portray?” Do you want to add drama to your scene or an element of chaos, or both?

Using multiple quick cuts within an action creates a fight scene that is fast-paced, while emphasizing the struggle between dueling parties. Cutting to the beat of a rowdy song will also add a chaotic element to any fight scene.

If it’s drama you want, try adding slow motion into the mix. Using slow motion allows the viewer to see elements of the fight that would otherwise go unnoticed. Reserve the use of slow motion for an action within the scene that you would like to add emphasis to, such as the dramatic impact of a punch or kick.

Action-enhancing editing will allow you to create a fight scene that is believable and packs a whole lot of punch. To find out more about the techniques you can use to add suspense to your video check out the Videomaker Action DVD.

Interested in more tips on editing? Sign up for Videomaker’s free Editing Course. This free tip series is designed to help you improve your video production skills, fast. Learn More.

Videomaker’s Webinar Training series continues next week with an all new topic: The Art of Title and Graphics. Our live webinars are taught by our experts and feature a wide spectrum of video production and post production topics such as Green Screen and Special Effects, Advanced Editing, Advanced Shooting, and Documentary Production. Next week, Videomaker’s team is pleased to present The Art of Title and Graphics.

Great titles and graphics can add a professional element to your video production. However, if not done properly they can be the tell-tale sign of an amateur.Videomaker’s The Art of Titles and Graphics webinar will cover purpose, design and placement, as well as mistakes to avoid. You will learn how to create great-looking titles and graphics that are clean and professional.

In addition to valuable information, our The Art of Title and Graphics Webinar will also include a live Q&A segment; our team answering your questions. Next week’s The Art of Title and Graphics Webinar starts at 11:00am on Wednesday, September 15th, so be sure to sign up soon!

One of the more mysterious aspects of video editing is the use of proxies. The very word can strike fear into even the most confident of video editors and make beginning editors decide to start a new career. However, with the onset of high bit rate HD video editing, proxies have become a necessary evil. Just recently while working on the newest how-to video on shooting reception videos, I decided I had enough. Previewing my Canon 1D Mark IV footage natively on the laptop I was working on was like watching molasses dripping into a bucket in the middle of a North Dakota winter. In other words, it was unbearably slow. As a result, I decided to go online and figure out this proxy editing thing once and for all. I already had some knowledge having gone through several forums and news stories on the subject, but never really figured I’d need to use it. Boy was I wrong. I mean, when waiting for Premiere to spit out even one frame of the 45 Megabit per second HD video is less preferable than watching Robin Williams play Popeye, you know something has to change.

My search led me to all sorts of places on the net, but eventually I found the best solution was using either MPEG Streamclip, Compressor, Adobe Media Encoder or Super to make quick proxy versions of my files and then rename them with the Bulk Rename Utility. In case you were wondering, the best encoding settings were either ProRes Proxy (if on a Mac), or H.264 at about 3-5 Mbps (on Windows). At that point, it was possible to edit with the proxies scaled to the size of the source footage. Even though I lost a little quality, I more than made up for it in saved time. Instead of waiting for hours for my footage to render, I was able to watch my edit in real time which is crucial in order to get a “feel” for the edit (and not get mind-numbingly bored). Once I was finished with my edit, I simply reconnected my footage with the original source footage and because it had the same timecode and video settings, I was able to render it without any hiccups. I’m not going to lie to you though. Even though this method saved me time and effort, it still required two programs and an awful lot of time, which really wasn’t cool. Read the rest of this entry »

We are in a war. Not a war between two countries, but a war for our computer’s operating system. Software makers such as Microsoft and Apple have been waging this ruthless war for more than thirty years without even a moment of reprieve. On one hand, Microsoft has such a pervasive operating system that software designed for it is practically universal. On the other hand, Apple has clever and fashionable programs that are hard to turn away from. On still another hand (if there is such a thing), Linux is absolutely free and for those with coding knowledge, is a world of endless software possibilities.

Even with these possibilities, up until this year there had been limited options for easy to use, flexible editing programs running on Linux. Software such as Kino, Cinelerra, Lives, and Mainactor all have had the ability to make simple edits and even some transitions, but have historically lacked a diverse video format support, a flexible work flow, and a stable interface. As a result, some desperate Linux users went so far as to use several programs in order to do what one editing program could do on a Macintosh or Windows PC leaving a big hole for a new kind of editing software to fill. Find out what that software is after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

The particles solution artists have been waiting for.

Sprite-Based 2D Particles Plug-In Delivers Stunning Natural Effects With Unprecedented Simplicity

Wondertouch by GenArts announced today the immediate availability of particleIllusion for After Effects (pIAE) for users of Adobe After Effects on Windows. Available as a plug-in for the first time, particleIllusion for After Effects enables artists to create gorgeous particle effects directly within After Effects, producing a more efficient workflow and significantly enhanced productivity. Like its stand-alone sibling particleIllusion 3.0, pIAE is built on the industry’s most robust 2D particle generation engine. As a result, it features the same highly acclaimed speed and ease of use that have made wondertouch products so popular with more than 10,000 compositing artists around the world. In addition, pIAE provides access to the thousands of existing wondertouch emitters — downloadable presets designed to allow users to effortlessly create natural, high-quality effects such as smoke, fire, explosions, sparkles, fireworks and countless abstract effects — without ever leaving the After Effects environment.