When you’re starting out as a video editor, there’s a heck of a lot to learn. First, you have to figure out which video editing software or app is right for you. Then, you have to learn the video editing skills and techniques for that specific platform so you can actually start creating videos.
But it’s not just technical know-how that you’ll need to master. If you truly want to excel as a video editor in this challenging industry, you’ll need to master the personal, social, and technical sides of things all at once.
If you’re new to video editing and already feeling intimidated, don’t worry. While the road can be tricky—at least at first—the art of video and film editing is quite fun and creatively enjoyable. To help you level up as quickly as possible, let’s review some key professional skills every video editor should learn in 2024.
Personal Skills
As we mentioned above, succeeding as a video editor is more than just fancy VFX chops and speedy workflow tricks. The real “trick” to finding clients if you’re a freelance video editor and having a lucrative career as a video editor is to learn how to develop certain personal skills. These are necessary to build your network, develop your client roster, and ensure that you’ll have steady work for years to come.
Self-starter
A good video editor is a self-starter who doesn’t wait around for projects to come to them. If we all just sat around waiting, none of us would have careers. If you want to work on fun projects with cool brands, you’ll have to put yourself out there and drum up the work yourself.
Now, since this is 2024 and we’re very much in the digital and social media age, putting yourself out there is much easier than ever before. There’s a wide array of job sites where you can find potential clients and gigs for video editing work.
If you live in a large city with different creative hubs, you can also network in person at industry events to meet clients and peers alike. Also, make a point to learn about and get to know the agencies and studios in your area. Even if they’re not hiring right now, it’s always good to get your foot in the door by establishing a relationship.
However, even if you live further off the grid, so to speak, you can also build your own brand online by working on projects for fun and passion. Sharing your work (and your expertise) with different communities online and cultivating your social channels helps clients and brands more easily find your work.
Attention to detail
Another key personal skill that successful video editors need to develop is a keen attention to detail. Video editing is a fine process that requires the ability to cut exact keyframes. While these decisions are often quite minute, they have to add up to create something that feels very natural, flowing, and precise.
That’s why video editors must train to never miss a detail. The difference between one frame in a cut can make or break a sequence in an edit. So learning to hone in on those exact moments and stay focused through complex and laborious edits is crucial.
If you’re a newer editor and looking to develop your attention to detail, try reviewing your projects scene-by-scene in reverse, which can help you focus on the editing itself without getting too lost in the story. Another trick that always seems to work is to sleep on a final cut before coming back for a final check in the morning with fresh eyes. You’d be amazed what mistakes you’ll usually be able to find!
Organizational skills
Video editors need to be exceptionally organized. Not only do you often need to wrangle and manage hundreds (if not thousands) of files being sent to you by multiple clients all at once, but you also need to combine all these different files and assets into a system.
Having a place where you can quickly find, access, and share these assets throughout the editing process is essential to being able to work efficiently. And it’s even more crucial if you’re working on a project with multiple editors.
Of course, more tools are available now than ever to help editors with many of these tasks. However, if you think any of these file management apps will help you organize your thoughts and workflows, you’ll be quickly mistaken when the chips are on the table. And situations like those are where the next skill comes in handy.
Problem solving
Finally, as far as personal skills go, a video editor always needs to be a skilled problem solver. This goes for solving various problems and issues that undoubtedly always arise when managing a complex edit with lots of assets, deliverables, and stakeholders.
Whether it’s finding b-roll to replace a scene that didn’t come out as you envisioned or a stakeholder asking to change how the video flows, you need to be able to think quickly. Not to mention learning how to troubleshoot the inevitable crashes and bugs that come with digital video editing software.
In the history of film and video, there’s never been a project that went through perfectly and exactly as it was originally scripted. Filmmaking is a series of compromises and problems to solve, and as the editor, you’re usually responsible for making the final revisions.
Social skills
Even though video editing is a task that’s often done solo (which does help with focus), the most successful video editors are ones who know how to socialize and communicate with others.
From networking to providing direct communication with clients or the rest of your video editing team, the more social skills you can learn, the better prepared you’ll be to have a longer and more rewarding career as a video editor. Which is important, as it has been reported that the employment of film and video editors is projected to grow 18 percent in the next decade.
To set yourself up for long-term success in your video editing career, here are some key social skills to try to develop.
Team player
When starting as a video editor, the role is often a solo one where you’ll be asked to edit a single video from start to finish for yourself or a client. However, as you find more projects and opportunities, you’ll quickly see that a video editor’s role is just one part of a well-oiled video production team.
Even if you end up working with a video editing company or agency, you’ll often be one member of an entire video editing team. You’ll need to work with your teammates to tackle big projects with many assets, moving parts, and deliverables. With that, it’s good to understand the boundaries of your role. Establish clear areas of ownership between you and your teammates when you’re working on a project to avoid feedback loops.
Learning to be a team player early is important. The more you can do to become a positive team player who can contribute to an overall goal while still sticking up for yourself and your deadlines, the more respect and opportunities you’ll receive.
Communication skills
The best way to be a team player is to communicate well. The very best video editors know the value of communication and do so early and often throughout the editing process. And, in truth, so much of an edit’s success is decided before any cuts are even made. The more you can communicate with your teammates and clients about the totality of the assets, time, and resources you’ll need to do an edit well, the better.
Communicating in the video editing space has evolved over the years. Now, video editors will need to be good at not just in-person conversations but also Zoom calls with producers, as well as lots of emails, Slack or Discord channels, and other written communications. Especially if you work remotely. Having so many different communication channels also means it’s important to double and triple-check expectations for your assignments so nothing falls through the cracks.
There are also many more collaboration and review tools on the market these days, like Frame.io, where editors can communicate exact changes and updates with team members in real-time.
Networking
Now, while it can be fun to go out and have drinks with friends occasionally, for many of us—networking, especially with strangers, can feel like the most challenging work of all. However, putting yourself out there and engaging with your peers is incredibly important.
Not only will you learn more about the craft of editing and get insights into new tools and workflows to try out. But you’ll also build a network of peers who can refer you for projects and send more work your way.
There’s no real skill here besides putting yourself out there. If you can find groups to meet up with, either in person or online, then give it a shot, and honestly, just be yourself; that’ll always be your best bet. Plus, the more often you go, the easier it’ll get.
Learn the lingo
As a final point for social skills, learning the lingo and knowing how to “talk the talk” in the video industry will help you make connections faster and find more work or opportunities. In the old days of analog video editing, only a few avenues were available for those looking to learn the craft, so there were very defined terms and workflows to learn.
Nowadays, with so many resources being online and free to learn the art of video editing, these terms and lingo are becoming looser and more open. However, understanding the correct terms for different editing techniques and tools will always be helpful if you want to communicate clearly and show that you know your stuff.
We’ve compiled over 100 over the most common video editing terms in a post here. But I also recommend checking out forums like r/VideoEditing on reddit or following editors on YouTube to help you quickly pick up the language.
Technical skills
Now that we’ve covered the essential personal and social skills, let’s move on to the actual video editing techniques and tools that will help you succeed in this creative field.
Video editing software
To start with video editing today, you must pick a video editing software to learn first. While there are free software and niche apps out there that will do basic editing, those are primarily aimed at beginners. For serious video editors, there are really only three options that will provide you with the comprehensive array of tools that the industry dictates these days, which include:
Premiere Pro is the most widely used editing software for commercial work today, with Final Cut Pro being a close second. DaVinci Resolve is a great option if you’re interested in color grading, as it’s the industry standard for color work with video.
Now, there’s a lot to consider with each of these options, and there are a couple of other choices that might make sense for certain editors like Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Rush. AVID Media Composer is a great choice if you’re interested in getting into the traditional cinema or television industries.
Still, if you were to start a video editing career today, you’d be best served to pick one of the three above. If you’re not sure where to start, we have posts where we broke down Premiere Pro vs Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve vs Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve vs Premiere Pro.
PC skills
To access and use any of these video editors listed above, you’ll need a computer that can run these programs. Each program requires about the same level of specs for a computer, but while it might be helpful to get started cheaply, you’ll also be very limited by slow processing speeds and more frequent crashes.
Laptops can be a good option for those looking to edit on the go, but PCs and desktops will generally perform much better and be cheaper overall. You can find our top 5 recommended pre-built computers for video editing in this post. If there’s anywhere where it makes sense to spend the majority of your budget as a video editor, it’s getting the fastest and best editing computer you can afford. If you use a PC, be sure to invest in a good graphics card. For Macs, their newest “M” series chips offer some of the best performance per dollar when it comes to video editing.
Keyboard shortcuts
Once you are set up with a computer and your video editing software, you’ll want to learn all of the keyboard shortcuts for your NLE quickly. Each of the main video editing apps has its own set of keyboard shortcuts. Once you choose one and learn these strokes, you’ll usually be able to apply them to different software in the future and create your own custom keyboard shortcuts as well.
Or, if you’re feeling savvy, you could learn the keyboard shortcuts for all video editing platforms and be a true master. Whether you choose to memorize keyboard shortcuts is up to you. But if you’d like to work much more quickly and efficiently by using commands for splitting clips, making cuts, zooming in and out, and setting in and out points, then knowing the shortcuts will help tremendously.
Color grading
Another side-quest for most video editors, so to speak, is to learn as much as you can about color correction and color grading. In the past, different experts considered video editing and color grading completely separate tasks. However, as the video editing world has become less specialized and more generalized, video editors are often asked to perform at least basic color correction for projects these days.
That’s why learning the basics is hugely helpful. If you want to level up your color grading skills, DaVinci Resolve is one of the best platforms for you to learn.
Audio
Sadly, despite being a crucial part of the video editing process, audio editing is often an afterthought for many editors. But if you want your videos to stand out from the competition, the more time and energy you can spend on audio recording, editing, and design, the better.
One of the best ways to give your videos an auditory boost is to use different music tracks and sound effects, which you can find in the Storyblocks music library. These songs and audio assets will help you ensure that your videos sound and look as high-quality as possible.
Backup
Finally, if you’re going to learn one skill today to help you as a video editor that will help you out the most, it’s this: always back up your edits. And truthfully, it’s not just backing up your edits; you should be backing up all of your footage as soon as it comes in.
Many video editing software these days have plenty of auto-save features. But those don’t always work. Trust us when we say there’s no worse feeling than working on an edit for several hours (or days), only to have your project crash with no backups. Look out for your future self and avoid disaster by saving regularly, creating backups, and making copies of your project.
Continuous education
One cool thing about video editing, though, is that you’ll never be done learning. The art of video editing is always evolving. So you should be, too. Make a point to stay up to date with the latest tools and industry news.
Watch movies and tutorials, check out new software and plugins, and always be looking for ways to continue learning and improving your craft. We have a number of courses for beginner video creators and filmmakers including The Beginner’s Guide to Creating Video and Anatomy of a Story.
Is AI important for video editing?
As of 2024, AI is already well on its way to being an important part of video editing in numerous ways. There’s great AI tools that can help you speed up your workflow and create videos faster. However, while AI is here and quickly changing the landscape overall, its use still brings its own challenges and issues.
There’s a lot to shake out with AI video editing tools, particularly the generative AI ones. But for now, your best bet is to simply pay close attention to how the industry is changing today and into the future.
Final thoughts
These key professional skills, which range from personal to social to technical, give you some insights into the industry. If you work on mastering all of them, you’ll be on track to launch a successful career.
Building a successful video editing career is more than just the technical skills and tricks that you learn along the way. (And trust me, the more time you spend editing, the more these technical skills will come to you.)
If you truly want to become a professional in this industry you’d be best served by mastering both the hard and soft skills. Network, make video editing friends, and build up relationships with competitors and clients alike.
At the end of the day, editing is an art form, which is why it can be so rewarding and fun. However, if you don’t stay connected to your passion for video editing, you can burn out. So watch movies for inspiration (and analyze the editing), follow YouTube channels for advice, and never be afraid to explore your creativity in the space.
