How To Edit An Online Course

You’ve filmed yourself, you’ve got some B roll, you have even screen recorded some slides or a software demonstration. It’s now time to edit it together into a video.

How To Edit An Online Course

Since there are a few different video editing applications, let’s talk generally about what needs to be done.

The first thing you want to do is start a new project in your video editing application at a set the frame rate, for me this is 24fps,and a frame aspect, for me this is 16:9.

Then you can drag in all of your main footage on to the first video track layer. This could be footage from your camera or screen recording.

If you recorded the audio separately then line it up with the audio from the video and then mute the video audio.

Cleaning Up the Audio

You may then need to put on some headphones and clean up your audio.

Some video editing application have a sound panel for this otherwise you may need to use an audio specific application.

Some applications can do a lot of the analysis for you, so you can just identify the audio as dialogue and leave the options on auto to get the job done.

A few options to look at though are the loudness to make sure your voice is loud enough without clipping in the red.

Noise reduction to get rid of any background noise. This is why you’ll want to record a few seconds of background noise with no talking so it can be sampled.

EQ to get the right volume on particular tones. And you may even tweak clarity to improve this a little.

Don’t go overboard though with any of these settings otherwise your voice will start to sound
synthetic.

Trimming the Footage

Then you can move on to cutting up your footage to only keep what you need. This is where you cut out all of your bloopers.

Just take the play bar up to the point you want to cut and then cut and then do the same and the other end the clip. You can then delete clips and move the clips round to suit.

Add B-Roll and Voiceovers Into the Mix

Once you have your main footage sorted you can then add and cut up your B-roll to slot into the timeline. B roll will come in handy to transition between your main footage cuts.

You may find you’ll want to use another video track layer at times with whatever layer on top being the visible one.

If you recorded any B roll at a high frame rate you’ll note that this goes over a longer time frame
then shot. This can then be used for slow motion, which you can then dial in the speed to suit.

If you planned to add a voice over to the footage after it has been cut then you’ll need to do this

For some editing applications it is as easy as clicking the mic button and record from an attached mic. Just make sure you still clean up this audio.

To make the transition smooth across the cuts you can then add transitions. A cross fade
transition which basically fades one clip into the other can work well for this.

Enhancing Footage With Color-Grading, Overlays, and Royalty-Free Audio

Once all of your video and audio is lined up sweet then you may like to do some color grading to give the desired look. You can select from presets or tweak to your own personal taste.

Don’t forget to apply this to all of the clips in the timeline for a consistent look.

At this point you’ll have a video that would be good to go but adding some overlays will make it
better. Overlays work great for your intro, outro and for adding text at key points in the video.

Many editing applications have default overlays to choose from but just ensure you adjust to your branding colors.

If you want a custom overlay then there is a bit of a learning curve so if you are not familiar with this then it might be a better use of time to look into royalty free options or to outsource.

A nice final touch that you may like to add is a little bit of royalty free music. This works particularly well for the intro and outro.

You’ll want to make sure to fade the music out or to a low level before the main footage though to ensure the voice is still nice and clear.

Publishing Your Video

Before you publish, do a play through to check it against the script to ensure you got everything and then you can export the final video at the desired publishing quality such as 1080p.

Follow the same process for all your modules but for a consistent look at feel you may choose to duplicate the project or save presets such as for your color and overlays.

Once you are done you, can then archive your projects to consolidate only the footage you need
into one location for easy back up and maintenance.