Once again, I'm emphasizing on the fact that I'm only 1 year in the industry, with a lot to learn, and a lot of grammar to correct (for my previous post, that is).
But I've learnt quite a few tricks from a few of the people in here. One earns more than five thousand a month just doing editing, and one does wedding videography. Looking at their style and works, I think I might have just found a winning formula on how to make videos look good.
1. Rack Focusing
This is probably more for the videographer. Always a surefire winner. When you put in pull focus shots, especially for on-the-fly event videography, it adds a touch of sophistication and somewhat enhances credibility. Always popular, whether it's a pull from the flowers in the foreground to guests in the background, the only thing is to restrain yourself from doing too much of it or the viewer will get sick of it.
2. Magic Bullet Looks
The one Final Cut Pro plug-in that all editors should have. You can throw your 3-way colour wheel out the window and stop fretting over colour-correction. Not everyone likes colour correcting, and it's always hard to define a mood. But with this plug-in, let the music play!
http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/magic-bullet-looks/
They didn't pay me to advertise for them, but I thought I should. If you use Instagram or any photo filter software on your iPhones, Magic Bullet works in the same way- except that you can continue to fine tune parts such as exposure, contrast, add vignettes and all the works, in a very user-friendly interface too.
3. Music
I always thought that one bed music would work for an entire clip, but after having edited 12 episodes of a tv show, it pays to change the mood through music. It will definitely enhance the emotions greatly, especially when you use the right piece at the right time. Big Bang and Fuzz are our current paid music source for now, and it's got quite a fantastic library. Of course, there are free ones around, like Jamendo.com, which I used to go to during my penniless university days.
4. Style
This is something that I'm trying to work on, and something that a lot of established editors already have. Sometimes I steal a glance at the experienced editor's timeline in FCP, and I can see the number of layers and the tricks that they use to add effects to their video. Finding your style is probably the hardest part, but with the above tools like Magic Bullet, music, and rack-focusing, it won't be as daunting.
Thumbs up to learning.
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