Posted: 08/09/2015
(And how life would be simpler without them)
Below are some of our top video editing time wasters – the biggest bug-bears when it comes to editing video! We’ve given a short explanation for each, but look out for future blog posts where we highlight some of these in more detail.
Also, this is by no means a definitive list – let us know if you have some of your own to add by following us on Twitter @forscenepro or liking us on Facebook!
- Rendering – now we’re not saying rendering isn’t important, it really is, but this is about highlighting the biggest time wasting acts, and rendering takes the crown. Think about it: you’ve got an hour long panel presentation that’s going to take thirty minutes to render and during that time you can’t do anything else, not even export other files. It’s the biggest waste of valuable time, and life would be simpler if you worked at lower resolutions and full HD quality was restored on export, for example.
- Menus – when you’re deep in the throes of editing and you really need that specific transition, you know, the one you used once before but can’t remember the name of and didn’t save to your favourites. But there are so, so many menus and sub-menus to trawl through. Editors don’t have time to look through endless menus!
- Structured layouts – now, this can sometimes be helpful, as it keeps all of your windows aligned. However, just sometimes you want to be able to move your timeline to the exact height on your monitor so you don’t get neck ache. Life would be so much simpler if we could move windows independently of each other, without being constrained to locking proportions.
- No macros – some video editing software do come with pre-defined macros, but how efficient would it be for you to be able to create your own and apply them to multiple projects? This is possible, but requires you installing plug-ins and other apps. Big snore.
- Only playing one clip at a time – it would be really useful to be able to play your source footage at the same time as your edited footage. Say you’re listening out for a key word and aren’t too concerned with the visual – it would save so much time if you could play the media simultaneously, thus speeding up your workflow.
- Getting edits to production crew – you’re working to a tight schedule and you really need the producer and director, who are located on opposite sides of the country, to review what you’ve edited. So, you need to set up an FTP and load all the footage onto it, or, even more time consuming, burn everything on to a DVD or external hardrive and get it posted to them. This is an inefficient use of time and it’s costly – life would be so much simpler if you could send them clips straight from the editor, or even give them independent access to your account.
- Sitting through client reviews – this is similar to the previous point as it’s tiresome having to organise directors, producers and whoever else needs to review the footage to all meet in the same place. Nobody’s schedules ever align!
- Getting a list of corrections – sometimes you can think you’ve finished an edit job and then you still receive a list of changes to make from the producers. It’s a time waster because you’ve already got your audio aligned and then you need to add in an extra 10secs of footage… if only they could see how you’re editing as you work.
- Saving – remembering to save your work every few minutes when you’re trying to concentrate on a tricky bit of editing is really frustrating. And worse still is having that annoying auto-save box pop up at the exact moment you try to apply an effect to a clip. It would save a lot of time if editing applications would just save your work every minute, without having to inform you.
- Online support forums – now, I’m not saying that support forums are a waste of time, quite the opposite, they’re very useful; but what is frustrating is having to come away from the editing application, go to a web page and then search your query. I’m mid-edit; I need an answer right now! Life would be far simpler if every edit application had a chat window installed, with real-life people answering on the other end.
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Jon Hanford - Group CTO, Deltatre