The Complete Beginner's Guide to Editing Your First Video
Do you want to start editing video (specifically game trailers!?) but don't know where to start? This post will help you choose your video editing and capture, and some clips onto your timeline! This post discussed:
Choosing your editing software
Editing tutorials
Choosing your capture software
Picking a project
What to edit first
Getting ready to enter the pro industry
Choosing Your Editing Software
I use Premiere Pro because after years of editing on Final Cut Pro (before the release of Final Cut Pro X), it was the most similar video editing software at the time. At this point it's so ingrained in my muscle memory it's the most efficient use of my time to use (for now). The Creative Cloud subscription fee isn't a huge sticking point for me, but I know for some people it is (especially as the apps seem to just get more and more bloated). Premiere Pro has a rather stingy 7-day free trial if you're not ready to sign up for a subscription.
All of that said, whenever people ask me what editing software to use I tell them to use Blackmagic Davinci Resolve.
Why?
Because it's FREE professional editing software. This isn't free software where the exported video is watermarked, or free software with a severely limited number of features. No, it's INCREDIBLY FULLY FEATURED software for FREE!
I think to get stuff done it's best to limit the barriers to entry as much as possible, and I know that cost is that for a lot of people, which is why I currently recommend Davinci Resolve. As of the writing of this post I've only made one video essay with Resolve, but I still wholeheartedly recommend it.
Once you learn one video editing software it’s relatively easy to pick up another one. It’s sort of like learning to drive a car and then having to drive a totally different model (albeit with hundreds more buttons and switches)
The other big option is Final Cut Pro X which is completely inaccessible for Windows users, so I don't tend to recommend it. But there are a lot of Mac users who use Final Cut Pro X. It's a controversial software for pro editors because its "Magnetic Timeline" is totally unique, and for some feels too hand-holdy.
It also uses totally different terminology for long established editing software functions. For example, the "timeline" in most editing software is instead referred to as a "Project" in Final Cut Pro X. And in other editing software what is considered a "Project" is referred to as an "Event" in Final Cut Pro X. This is because whether Apple wants to admit it or not, FCP X was built upon iMovie which is Apple's consumer facing editing software people would use to edit videos of "Events" like birthdays, weddings, etc. There's a more generous 90-day free trial for FCP X.
Other benefits of Resolve and Final Cut Pro X are they are apps you pay for ONCE and never again. They're both about $300 USD. But again, Resolve's free version is incredibly fully featured and even professionals like me don't have much reason to upgrade to the paid version.
Final Cut Pro X is kind of the black sheep of the professional editing industry, but it’s probably the black sheep that’s quietly actually eating everyone’s lunch as far as editing software commercial success.
Editing Tutorials
After you've chosen your software you need to learn how to use it. That's far beyond the scope of this post, but I have some recommendations. The only one I can wholeheartedly recommend is for Valentina Vee's Complete Beginner's Guide to Premiere Pro which is excellently produced and about 2.5 hours long.
For Resolve, this beginner's tutorial by Casey Faris is quite good to get you going.
For Final Cut Pro X, this tutorial video by Justin Brown seems to be pretty good.
Choosing Your Capture Software
If you're making game trailers you need to capture footage and there are a bunch of options available. I use Nvidia Shadowplay which is a free feature of the GeForce Experience. I like this because of its Replay feature where it constantly records in the background and I can press a hotkey to record the last 30 seconds or other increment of time I select in the settings. I can also change the bitrate of the video which I keep around 100 Mbps. The other benefit is that it uses the GPU to capture, so it's not taking up CPU cycles which might hurt game performance. Here's a quick tutorial for how to use it.
AMD also has its own free capture software called Radeon ReLive which I have no experience with but you can take a look via this guide video.
Nvidia Shadowplay has very simple and easy to use options. It could probably use a few more features, but it’s gotten me through dozens of game trailer projects!
A lot of people also use OBS, which is another free option. I don't like using OBS because honestly, I find the interface just confusing enough for me to not want to learn how to adjust all the settings. All I want to worry about in my screen capture software is: bitrate, resolution, frame rate, and file location. Everything else isn't important enough to spend time getting into the nitty gritty little options.
But if you want to use OBS, this is a thorough guide for how to use it to screen capture. By the way, OBS also has a replay feature similar to Shadowplay, which is explained in this video. The other benefit of OBS is if you have an Nvidia card, you can use NVENC which is the Nvidia encoder which will use hardware encoding rather than CPU cycles (which can hurt game performance).
Just whatever you do, when using OBS make sure your files are saved to MP4! The tutorial video I linked above explains that it's ideal to initially record to MKV because MP4s can be corrupted if recording is interrupted. Make sure in the Advanced settings you check the option to remux MKVs to MP4 (this is explained in this tutorial video). The reason you don't want MKV files is because most (all?) video editing software will not let you import MKV files, so you'll have to remix to MP4 anyway which you can also do in batches in OBS.
I’m sure somewhere in here is an array of settings that creates a result better than my current setup, but I have a feeling there’s no way it’s SO much better that it’s worth the headache ^_^;
The other software options friends of mine have used are Bandicam and ACTION!, which are both about $50 USD. I've used Bandicam a bit and it has all the features you need. They also both have the option to hide your mouse cursor, which you can also do in OBS as explained in this tutorial. For whatever reason, Nvidia Shadowplay doesn't have that mouse option so you have to use this hacky trick.
Don't forget to turn off the game music while capturing!
Bandicam and ACTION! Also have nicely organized settings.
Pick a Game Project
If you're doing this for work or a fan project, you likely already have a game you want to make a video or trailer for. But if you don't have a game in mind, my recommendation is to find games on Steam which have a demo or prologue. This way you have a very short chunk of game to pull from and your projects won't be as intimidating. I'm always about making lessons as digestible as possible, and projects easy to complete. So it makes more sense to me to work from something small than a 30 hour game like Psychonauts 2.
What to Edit First
Once you have your editing software and footage to play with, you're ready to go! My recommendation is to start by just trying to cut footage to music with no sound effects at all and also no fancy video editing transitions (yes, I'm including cross dissolves and fades in there).
There's SO MUCH to video editing that it can be overwhelming, so start with the basics before adding on tools, filters, and layers of audio. There's SO much you can do with simply shot order, shot length, and where each shot sits in relation to the music. To make things even easier, look for trailer music on YouTube which is 60-120 seconds long. YouTube even has its own library of music you can download and use. It's not terribly extensive, but it's something to get you started. The reason I suggest using pre-made trailer music is so you don't have to worry about music editing just yet.
Once you're looking for more places to concentrate your editing skills, you can look at my series of posts on Elevating Your Editing which give you incremental editing concepts to try out as your skills progress.
It’s ok if your first projects don’t look much more complicated than this!
Getting Ready to Enter the Pro Industry
Everything up above is just to get you started from nothing, but a small percentage of you might be interested in doing this as a career either in video games or movies. This is when choosing your editing software is something worthy of more consideration, especially if you're looking to get hired as someone working in a larger company (and not an independent freelancer).
If you want to become a full time editor working for a bigger company then you will most likely have to learn Premiere Pro or MAYBE Avid Media Composer. For game trailers I think most people use Premiere Pro, and a large number of movie trailer houses also use Premiere Pro. But Avid Media Composer is still a huge chunk of the feature film and TV editing ecosystem (and some of the movie trailer system).
So if this is relevant to you, I'd concentrate on Premiere Pro first, but keep an eye on Avid Media Composer if you're going to be going to features and television (here's a tutorial for Avid if you're curious) In general, Avid tends to have fewer resources and tutorials because so many fewer people use it compared to its competitors.
Professional video editing timelines can get complicated indeed, especially for feature films O_O
Good Luck and Have Fun!
There are SO many ways to edit video nowadays. I didn't even cover all the mobile options like Premiere Rush and CapCut which people use to make amazing videos especially on TikTok. For game trailers, I think Desktop video editing apps are where it's at (for now).
My philosophy for learning is always to have a project you want to create before you seek out software tutorials. The amount of knowledge you retain through application is heads and shoulders above what you learn when reading through a manual. So think of the thing you want to make, and THEN find the tools to help you make it real!
