Sometimes, an editing session seems productive simply because the project window was open for several hours. Things get rearranged and the timeline ends up looking different, but it’s easy to look at the result and think nothing was actually learned. What a real practice routine should do instead is build repetition around a specific edit skill until that skill gets a little more legible, manageable, and honed in. That focus, in my view, is especially valuable to developing editors. You wouldn’t want to start trying to learn all that there is to know about editing all at once. What you really need is to return again and again to a core set of actions so that you end up with more control over what you’re timing, choosing, and pacing.
The easiest place to start a practice routine with is with short source material and a single, clear, and narrow focus for that session. A ten-to-thirty-second clip provides more than enough material. Longer clips are too likely to bring up story-related concerns that you won’t have time to explore. Decide to work on better openings one session, or perhaps shorter gaps between actions. Try making a sequence feel more fluid and natural next, but don’t rely on transitions to make that happen. Doing it this way means that each session will be linked to the actual editing, rather than to any other kind of work you might do. It’s not about proving to you how varied you can be. It’s just about repeating a type of decision you’ll eventually make without thinking too hard about it.
It’s possible to build a practice routine around the wrong things, like how motivated you feel. If you rely on feeling creative to decide when to work, your work probably won’t get done in a consistent way. Another thing a routine might miss is to practice only in the setting of new projects. While that could certainly sound like a fun way to spend your day, I think it also limits the kind of repetition that is most likely to make your editing improve. It helps to make edits that are revisited more than once. Recutting material in a variety of ways shouldn’t seem repetitive to you, especially if you are doing it with a different end in mind. You’ll learn about how a cut changes meaning in different ways. You will understand how much earlier you could begin the shot, how you’d be able to use less time in the reaction, and how you might be able to remove one clip and end up making a sequence more clear than ever before. It’s in the practice that video editing ceases to happen by accident.
A fifteen-minute practice routine is a good idea since you are likely to be able to come back to it without any problem. In the first few minutes, watch the clip and identify where you would say the first moment of action begins. Cut something rough right away with no thought given to the finish. Spend time working only on the length of the cuts; start and end each one earlier. In the final two minutes, watch the final cut twice and try to describe one aspect of the edit that was more successful than another. A bit of a written assessment helps make this task feel more like real video editing since you’re starting to link your observations to your actions.
You might need to change your routine if you are starting to lose interest in your work. That doesn’t always mean you should switch up every part of it. Using the same source material to practice different types of editing, or using new material to practice the same aspect of your editing, could be a good idea. Changing too much could prevent you from identifying what it is that you are learning, while changing too little could lead to a lack of attention. Adjusting the material while maintaining the practice is where the balance really lies. A good question to ask yourself if you get stuck is this: where does the first part of the video really get interesting, and when could that cut arrive? This kind of question alone can improve so many beginner edits.
Video editing will become a habit when you’re willing to put in the time. You don’t need to work for hours on end, or be able to edit in a completely flawless way. You need to work often and carefully, while trying out one type of edit repeatedly until that style becomes more clear to you. There’s something rewarding about keeping a routine where your observations are more valuable than your time. When you come back to editing every day, you’ll start to notice that the finished edits are much cleaner, that the pacing has become more steady, and that your edits are better because of the reasons they should be rather than the result being a matter of luck.
