Editing is an important part of producing a polished, cohesive video, it can make or break it. Editing involves taking raw video footage, audio or voice over recordings along with brand assets, graphics overlays and music and putting them all together in a way that visually and effectively tells the intended story. It’s a process that requires skill, collaboration and review throughout to get the best possible outcome. 

Here’s an overview of the steps involved in the video editing process:

• Ingestion: The importing and transfer of all raw video footage and audio recordings from cameras, audio recorders, and other sources to a storage device, this process typically involves backing up the files too.

• Organization: The management of the digital media files involves organizing and categorizing them into project folders and stock libraries based, this process involves naming and tagging files to make it easier to locate and access specific clips during editing and for repurposing them for future use.

• Rough Assembly: This involves reviewing and making selects from the raw footage and assembling them into a rough assembly edit based on script or storyboard.

• Editing: Using the brief, script and storyboard the rough assembly is then edited to bring out the story being told. This is usually a multi-draft process, with collaborative revisions with stakeholders to ensure the project is on track. 

• Audio Editing: Audio is a critical part of the editing process and involves overlaying any voiceovers, adding music and sound effects, and doing a sound clean up to improve audio quality and remove background noise.

• Colour Correction and Grading: This process happens towards the end of the editing process, once all the necessary revisions have been made and involves adjusting color and contrast to ensure consistency across all shots and color grading when the editor applies creative color grading to achieve a specific look or mood for the video.

• Visual Effects and Graphics: Visual effects, animations and graphics enhance the video’s storytelling or aesthetics and can be as simple as titles and logos, or more complex animations or motion graphics to highlight, convey key messaging or add visual drama to the video.

• Review and Feedback: Editing is a process and the review and feedback part of it is critical to ensure success. This a collaborative process between the editor, the production team and client stakeholders. The video is refined throughout this process to ultimately deliver a polished piece that hits the brief and delivers the desired outcome.

• Export: Render and export is the final part of the process. Once the final edit is approved the video is exported in the desired format, resolution, and codec suitable for its intended platform such as YouTube, television broadcast or social media.