Organising digital assets is one of the biggest things an editor can do to speed up a project and remove hurdles to creativity. What are the benefits of keeping your files organised?

• It helps you quickly find files.

• It is essential for collaboration.

• It’s easy to create a backup.

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The music in the film helps drive the story forward, allowing the audience to anticipate what will happen, evoke an emotional response or simply support the audience‘s transition between scenes. Think about what mood you want to create in your film. Is it calm/exciting/ empowering etc.? When telling a story, choose music that moves the plot along, heightens emotions, and plays a part in the storytelling.

Then start searching for a song before you start editing the video. It is much easier to edit the video on the music.

INSTRUMENTAL VERSIONS

For videos with protagonists telling a story, choose an instrumental song. Using music with vocals might clash with the film‘s message or make it hard to hear when somebody is talking in your movie.

PACING

The pace of the music (fast or slow) is essential. Match the tempo of the song to the feel of the visuals. Music supports your visual storytelling and sets the film‘s tone.

GOOD INTRO AND OUTRO

When searching for a song, check its intro and outro. In the beginning, there should be something that hooks your viewer in. At the same time, in the end, it should leave the viewer with a fulfilling feeling.

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Editing is one of the most rewarding parts of making a short film. It’s where the story really comes together. Decisions about which shots to use, how you put them together, and how you use sound will make a big difference to your movie.

Four things to keep in mind while editing:

1. Use match cuts

2. Remember the “three over one rule”

3. Use cutaways to hide jumpy edits

4. Pay attention to pacing

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Sound is an essential tool for storytelling, adding realness and authenticity to your characters and scenes. Imagine seeing a waterfall on screen without any sound… something is definitely missing.

Therefore in post-production, you add sounds to your shots. You can use the original sound you recorded with the video or add sounds that fit the visuals.

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The ability to colour grade is a powerful skill to have. Colour grading is how you communicate mood to your audience and is integral to creating your style.

These steps will help you achieve great results:

1. Before you can colour grade, you must colour correct your footage. It involves essential fixes to video images, often correcting mistakes made during filming. In this process, you also aim to match all the different shots.

2. Colour grading involves artistic choices applied to multiple scenes or the entire film.

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When you make your film, of course, you are very engaged in the process. You know all the facts, and you probably have your favourite shots. They were perhaps tough to get because you woke up sooo early that day. Therefore, getting feedback from people who are not as emotionally involved in the process as you are is great.

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Now that your edit is complete and ready for delivery, there’s one step left. When exporting a video, the first thing to consider is where it will be delivered and how it’ll be viewed. There are loads of useful presets already installed. You can use these presets to choose settings for your exported file quickly. The best setting for web playback is the H.264 codec. The bitrate decides how big your file size will be. You can trim down your bitrate to minimise size if you need a small file size. For a master copy, you should export at a high bitrate to have the best copy you can export.

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Once you‘re happy with your film, the next step is to get it off the computer and show it to the world. Even the most fantastic film can’t have an impact if nobody sees it. There are many options for sharing your work: show it to your friends and family, share it in an email, or upload it to Social Media and Youtube. Film Festivals are also an excellent opportunity to show your film and meet like-minded people. The more people you tell about it, the more resonance you will get.

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