2 TIPS To SUPERCHARGE Your VIDEO Editor
If your business requires lots of video, you might consider a video editing system. In a production, the most expensive aspect is usually the filming; and editing, while being the most time consuming, is usually the cheapest.
Normally, the production company you hired will take care of the editing as well. But what if you want to make minor changes, or edit lots of simple videos that don’t require advanced skills? Hiring a professional every time might get expensive; therefore, some companies have opted to have either a dedicated in-house editor or train a current employee (i.e: Marketing Assistant or Social Media Manager) to handle the less technical edits.
So, if you do hire someone or decide to delegate that task to a current employee, here are 3 TIPS to SUPERCHARGE Your VIDEO Editor to set them up for success!
1. BUY AN EDITING COMPUTER & DRIVES
Editing Computer
Video editing on a slow computer is like running in quicksand, it sucks. Not only does it take considerably longer, its frustrating, you get glitches and is an overall unpleasant work experience. So, to spare your new editor some suffering, you need a powerful machine for a streamline work experience.
See the chart below for the different required specs depending on your video needs.
I also recommend buying a laptop instead of a desktop. Yes, they are more expensive, but will get your videos edited much faster. Here is why: Editing can be addictive, but if the editing computer is in the office and the editor works a normal 9-5, that means they can only edit during office hours (with all its associated distractions). But if the editor has a laptop, they can edit during work hours, they can edit at night, on weekends, anywhere and anytime! Video is editing is very time consuming, so you want them to edit as much as possible. Since editing can get addictive, they will WANT to do it even if its outside of work hours. Trust me, get a laptop 😊
If they want the desktop experience, get an external monitor for their office. That way they can edit with two screens (which I recommend).
Editing Drives
You want to edit in an external drive to not take up space and slow down your computer’s internal drive. Your editor will need at least two drives. An editing drive, and a storage drive.
The editing drive will the one they works from (where all the current projects are saved). This should be an SSD (solid state drive) as they are the fastest. I recommend Sandisk’s 2TB.
The HDD (hard disk drive) storage drive should be much larger (4TB+) and this will store all the videos and files once they are edited. The reason we have two separate drives is because having a large SSD (2TB+) is hilariously expensive. So once the editor is done editing a video, they won’t need the SSD anymore, so they can simply store that video in larger cheaper) HDD drive. I recommend the WD Black Game Drives.
2. TRAIN THEM (PREMIERE PRO)
This won’t require years, but it will demand a couple of months of hard work to get to a minimal competency level. Nonetheless, I believe is a worthwhile investment that will surely pay off. I use Adobe’s Premiere Pro, so that’s what I recommend. We teach our own editing workshops at CORTESI PRODUCTION so feel free to contact us to schedule a class.
Whatever you do, don’t learn from YouTube! For every 2 minutes of good content there are 20 minutes of filler, and since its not an organized list of skills, it will take exponentially longer to learn on YouTube than it will from an organized curriculum. You don’t know what you don’t know.
That’s it guys hope this brings you some valuable insight into setting up a video editor. If you have any questions feel free to reach out, peace!