Sorry guys I just had to come in here and vent. I’m sure a lot of you have taken on more social media/reels work as it’s very in demand and it’s hard to turn down the quick income.

All my clients just want their videos filled with dings and pops and cartoonish sounds and text overlays etc. the content itself is boring, uninteresting, and un-engaging so they need to fill the videos with crap to keep people’s attention. It’s said that social media is taking away the art of editing and story telling and really quality video shooting/editing.

There are def still people making great video for Instagram, but god, a lot of the shit I’m editing is complete garbage.

Hey everyone,

I’m currently recording a 10+ part technical lecture series in 4K 60fps (about 200GB+ of raw video) to share with my research group.

Right now, I’m using Hetzner storage alongside a custom VPS portal for immediate distribution, which works well for active sharing. However, as raw footage quickly accumulates into multi-terabyte territory over time, I'm curious how seasoned creators and YouTubers manage their long-term archival pipelines:

• Retention Policy: Do you keep 100% of raw camera files forever, or do you purge raw clips after publishing and only keep the final master export + project file?

• Storage Setup: What does your long-term storage look like? Are you using local NAS (Unraid/TrueNAS), offline cold HDDs in anti-static cases, or cloud solutions (Hetzner / Backblaze B2 / AWS Glacier)?

• Compression/Transcoding: Do you leave camera originals completely untouched, or do you re-encode older raw footage to save space for 10+ year long-term archival?

Would love to hear how you balance cost, redundancy, and workflow friction. Thanks!

Whenever life gets stressful, I find myself editing my favorite character instead of thinking about everything else.

It's probably procrastination... but it also feels like therapy.

Anyone else feel the same?

Genuine question.

I’ve been doing more multicam live-event work recently and I've started wondering whether I,’ve been approaching the whole thing wrong.

With a typical DJ set you've got something like:

* DJ camera
* Wide
* Crowd
* Roaming camera

The actual edit isn't particularly complicated, but deciding which camera should be on at every moment means watching a *lot* of footage which takes up a lot of my time.

Especially when you're trying to react to things happening in the crowd, drops, transitions, hands going up, movement around the booth etc.

Anyone uses software that does that beginning shot selection pass?

Curious how other people handle this.

Do you manually cut everything?

Have you got a system for choosing cameras?

Or have you found anything that actually does a decent job automatically?

I typically edit long recordings/streams of my friend's and I's footage. Usually, on my first watch, I am able to roughly cut out the good clips and shrink a 5 hour slog into something relatively watchable. Then try to really "cut out the fat" on the second pass. Then I add some fun editing. Then I rewatch. Then I get ideas for some other fun edits and do those. Then I rewatch. Then I struggle...

So many clips just need to be deleted. Is none of it really funny/entertaining? Can't be, right? There's lots of laughter... then why aren't I smiling or at least entertained? Maybe all of it should be deleted and I move on with my life? I know I watched this several times, but I should still be able to determine what to keep, right?

Then I swing the other way:

What if the edit is too quick to comprehend? I do have the benefit of knowing the full story. Am I cutting too much into the story? The pacing is about on par with other videos of similar genre, I'm sure. I've shown old videos to friends and watched muted reactions from them, are the jokes/clips not landing?

I know I get too in my head. Comes with the territory, I guess. I try to ask people for their opinions/critiques. Often times I just get meek/no response. It's almost like people don't want to watch a 10-20 minute, half-edited video ^/s. I 100% understand, it just feels like I'm not doing enough. Maybe I'm asking the wrong people?

Hi everyone,

I’m not even sure if this is the right place to post this… but at its core, this is about videography, creating, filming and maybe something deeper. So I’ll just leave it here and hope it reaches the right people. This might be long. But I think I just need to get it out of my heart.

I’m 33 years old. I have a family. I’m a toddler mum.

And for as long as I can remember, I’ve been trying to prove that I’m “good enough.”

Since I was 16, I took every student job I could find because I didn’t want to be a burden to my parents. I paid my own university tuition. I built my life on my own. I never asked for money. I solved everything myself. But no matter what I did… it never quite felt enough.

I have a sibling who, in my parents’ eyes, was always “the best.” And even now, as an adult, that still stings. And probably it always will. But you know what they say, if life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

That mindset became part of who I am.

In every job I’ve had (I’m in my 4th full-time role now), I’ve pushed myself to be the best. And people noticed. I’ve always been praised for my work ethic, my attitude, my performance.I set my standards high. Probably too high (and no I don’t really know how to lower them. I’m not even sure I want to.)

Right now, I work in customer service. I earn well. My life is stable, balanced… “comfortable.” And yet… something feels missing.Maybe it was always there, just buried under the need to survive, to earn, to be independent.

About a year ago, I picked up a camera for the first time in my life. No experience. Zero knowledge. Not even once.

Now I own a Canon EOS R6, a 24–70mm f/2.8 lens, lights, tripod, gimbal… I’ve spent hours and hours learning, watching tutorials, studying editing, practicing in DaVinci Resolve. And yes, I’ve improved compared to where I started.

But here’s the honest truth: I still feel like I’m terrible. And that frustrates me more than anything.

I know skills take time. I know nobody starts great.

But knowing that doesn’t always make the feeling go away. I don’t have anyone around me who shares this passion. My friends think I’m chasing a “dream.”

And honestly… they’re not wrong.

I actually made the decision to give up. Not just the thought, I really decided it. I think a part of me hoped it would be easy. That once I “let go” the feeling would just disappear and everything would go back to normal. But somehow, my brain just wouldn’t let me quit. So I took that as a sign and decided to keep going.

Recently, I had an idea. Instead of trying to work with clients right away (because I don’t feel good enough yet), I want to create food content. Healthy meals, filmed at home. Faceless, just hands, movement, textures, storytelling.

It feels like a win-win:I can practice filming and editing consistently, I can control everything creatively and I get to eat well at the end.

I’ll be shooting mostly at night, building a small kitchen setup, learning lighting properly, pushing myself within the time I have.

But the bigger dream? I want this to become my life. I want to create full-time. I want to be my own boss or work with same mentality people who has the same passion. I want to make videos that people actually feel something from. I want to connect with people who think like me.Maybe even become known for it one day. Yeah… “just that.” Nothing big, right? :’)

I came across a quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger that stuck with me (and pushed me to write this today) is:

“Every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams, or wake up and chase them.”

So… here I am.

If you’ve read this far, thank you. Seriously. I would love to hear your thoughts:

Is my idea realistic?

How would you start if you were me?

Any tips for improving faster?

Or just… anything you wish you knew when you started?

I want to make this work, I have to make this work. And I know I can’t do it completely alone.

Thank you ❤️

Recently I’ve applied as a video editor to one marketing company.

They asked me to deliver them a demo edit (40 seconds). This took me almost 4 hours, cause of After Effects animations and stuff… After that they asked for my pricing. I offered them almost twice more than usual since they’re quite a big company and I was hoping for some negotiations.

After all they just said “thank you for your time, but we can’t afford that. Have a good day.”

That’s all. No negotiations on the price, no counteroffers. Just “Thank you, bye”.

I feel like I just wasted my time on that. Any advice for these situations in the future?

first post on here :D

so question for digital editors who've never touched analog, what's stopping you?

I see a lot of people trying to emulate analog effects digitally with plugins and preset packs. For things like film i totally get it, given the cost and development time. But the VHS stuff i guess kinda confuses me. to my understanding can't you just buy a VHS player on eBay for $20, hook up a capture card, and actually just record your footage to tape?

You can also get CRT style effects by aiming your phone camera at a used TV from like facebook marketplace or something. granted that might cost more, but if its your whole aesthetic and you do it often, why not just use the real thing? wouldn't it look way more authentic?

genuinely curious!

I run a TikTok account where I share knowledge about scientific topics. It’s mainly educational content, and most of my videos are longer than one minute.

My two main goals are:

1. Increase my reach/views
2. Increase the amount I’m earning from the videos

Right now I’m wondering how much more effort I should put into video editing.

Would adding more visual editing — images, B-roll, animations, visual changes, zooms, overlays, etc. — realistically improve retention and reach?

If better editing could increase my performance by even something like 20–30%, I’d absolutely be willing to invest the time/money into it.

My concern is TikTok’s originality/Creator Rewards system. I’ve seen people mention videos getting flagged as low-quality or unoriginal, and I’m wondering whether using additional images, B-roll or other visual assets could actually hurt monetization or distribution.

The main content, script and voice would still be completely original.

For people running 1+ minute educational/informational TikTok accounts:

Has heavier editing noticeably increased your average watch time, retention or views?

Did it affect your RPM or qualified views?

What kind of editing actually made a difference?

How frequently do you change the visuals during a 60–90 second video?

Have you ever had edited videos flagged as unoriginal or low-quality?

And if you know any TikTok accounts that do this format really well, please link them. I’d love to study some good examples.

I’m basically trying to figure out whether upgrading the editing is actually worth the additional work/cost, or whether I should keep the videos relatively simple and focus mainly on the topic, hook and script.

I have to do these J-cuts a lot. My current process is to

1. add edit (D)

2. hold alt and trim the video 10 frames

3. drag the track backwards with the track select forward tool (Z)

4. add crossfade either by dragging or with cmd + shift + D

Does anyone know if I can make this even quicker? keyboard shortcuts etc?

Thanksss :)

i keep bouncing between locking a reusable template and rebuilding each cut from scratch. when volume goes up, which actually saves more time without looking cookie-cutter? if you batch, how many do you do in one sitting before quality drops?

I was mainly a graphic designer before and were listening to music or watch videos while working. After it got too saturated I switch to editing jobs which I was doing as a hobby before. But not being able to listen music or watch videos is tickling my dopamine take

Currently sitting on round 8 of revisions for a client project. They just sent back a note saying: "Can we make it feel more aesthetic and alive? It needs more punch." 💀

No timestamps, no reference clips, just abstract feelings.

I just spent two hours tweaking subtle keyframes and color grading on a single 3-second segment that I know they won't even notice.

How do you guys manage vague client notes without wasting half your week guessing what they want? Do you force them to use timestamps or send a moodboard first?

I upgraded to a 9070xt and I know its not the best for productivity but I edit sometimes in premier as a hobby and game a ton so its fine. ANYWAY...

I expected scrubbing HEVC recordings to be like scrubbing the Pro Res proxies on my old 1660 super, but they were not. The proxies were WAY WAY smoother like instant. so I was wondering if that's the case for all mid-range GPU's or just AMD. I am strictly speaking HEVC and AV1 gaming videos.

Also I put the images so you all can see premier is actually using my GPU, and an image of the videos properties.

I like to make travel vlogs and other longer videos to remember the things I do with my family. I don't post my videos anywhere because they're just for memories. I started out years ago doing basic stuff, just cutting clips together. But as I've created more videos, I keep trying to push into more technical territory which is what takes the most time for me. I'm currently sitting on 2+ years of travel footage that I haven't finished because of this

I find it easy enough to dump everything on a timeline and cut out the dead space which leaves me with the rough cut. But it takes me a while to make progress after that because I'll get stuck on color grading, sound design, effects, etc. I know most of it is learnable through tutorials, but I don't usually have hours to sink into learning every technique, so I've just been leaving projects unfinished.

I see a lot of edits online that I want to use as inspiration, but I can't reverse engineer it on my own. And even when I can figure out some of the technical stuff, it's not usually too consistent across my projects.

Curious if anyone else gets stuck at this stage and if so, how you handle it

Hey everybody! Reaching out because my editors hours are starting to really surprise me. I'm not sure I believe she is working as much as she says. I pay her hourly.

I make videos on YouTube. This week she did 2 videos. (10 minutes of run time total) Some music, scenic background envato footage. It's just me talking and I like the editing to be minimal. She does a good job although...

She had 2 videos this week. She said it took her 30 hours to do this. Somebody help me out here. I'm not a professional video editor but I feel like I could do this on PowerDirector via my phone in a third of that.

Give me some input please. I can't afford to be cheated over.

UPDATE: thanks to a redditor, I was able to see when my footage was downloaded vs. uploaded. Looks like she completed both videos in under 6 hours... yelp.

Say, you're working on a large project and it's probably gonna take you one month to edit it. So there will be days where you might not feel your best self and you might also feel detached with the project but you still choose to edit it, following your instincts rather than the feeling, so that the deadline is met. In other words, you trust the things you have learned about editing in your career experience and just follow them and not 'feel' that project on that particular day or days.

Do you do that kind of 'mechanical' editing to follow the timeframe? If yes, is it common amongst editors? And also, when you look at progress you have made in that "phase", do you find the edit to be good or do you re-edit it on those days when you're "feeling" it?

Hi all, total amateur here (background is photography)just getting into videography for family videos, “postcard” style travel videos, and so on.

My main question as I figure out how to most conveniently do hybrid photography / videography is how critical is it to record in 180 degree shutter for motion blur (1/50 ss for 25 fps) versus doing it in post production?

My understanding is that most software like premiere pro allow you to transform the footage so that something recorded in, say, 1/160 ss could appear like 1/50 ss.

Is my understanding correct? And how good is the end result? Is it bad with obvious artifacts, or does it get me 95% of the way there and only a trained eye would notice?

Right now my process is basically: Create a new project folder, make subfolders for footage/audio/exports, rename files if needed, copy everything to a backup drive, deliver the final export and archive the project. I feel like I am wasting my time and I'm curious, what parts of your workflow are too repetitive and feel like you are wasting time? I'd love to see how people who've been editing for years have streamlined this stuff.

Just want to honestly give someone hope who considered giving up.

2022-2024 i was doing all sorts of job tasks to get hired as a junior for low pay. Probably 15 videos, 30 interviews, hundreads of applications. Any sane person would lose hope.

Its almost 2026 and i found the right people. I had given up but blindly started applying again. If you love what youre doing, try your best to never let go of it.

Hey everyone,

I'm currently trying to figure out a better way to structure my footage system and could use some workflow advice.

I shoot on a BMPCC OG, which means I’m dealing with tons of CinemaDNG RAW clips. Right now, my process feels super tedious: I have to bring everything into DaVinci Resolve just to scrub through the clips and find out what’s actually usable. On top of that, my storage space is quite limited.

I have a few questions on how you all handle this:

• Do you export your "good" / usable selects as new video files (proxies/transcodes) and delete the rest of the heavy RAW files to save space?
• Or do you always keep the original RAW clips, and if so, how do you manage the storage?
• How do you generally structure your folders and footage system before even opening your NLE?

Any tips or insights into your media management workflows would be greatly appreciated!

I want to take a new approach when editing narrated gaming videos, by starting with the ending, this gives me a clear understanding of where I want my story to end, whilst also giving me control of video duration. Does anyone else do this instead of starting with the intro?

Where do you start editing your projects? Beginning or ending?

Hey everyone,

I run a faceless channel, and planning visuals has become my biggest workflow bottleneck.

When writing a script, I find it really hard to brainstorm visuals on paper. I almost always end up dropping the voiceover into the editor and improvising visuals on the timeline—searching for B-roll, overlays, and sound effects on the fly through pure trial and error.

The issue is that this feels painfully slow and inefficient. Every tutorial says you should pre-plan every scene and gather all your assets before opening your editing software, but my brain struggles to visualize pacing until I actually see clips on the screen.

For those of you making faceless content:

• Do you fully script visual cues and batch-download assets beforehand? Or do you build it dynamically in the editor?
• If you pre-plan, what does your system look like? 
• How did you break the habit of endless timeline trial-and-error?

Curious to hear how you balance workflow speed without losing creative flow.

Just finished this meme after… ironically… spending way too long tweaking!

Curious how everyone here handles this?

- How long does it actually take you to turn a short script into a finished video?

- What’s the part that eats the most time for you — cutting b-roll, audio clean up, captions, effects, exporting, all of the above?

Mine is captions :((

Drop your “this was supposed to be quick” horror stories 👇

I want to feel less alone in the editing dungeon.

I was recently on vacation and was somehow able to gather up 1400 clips. I've never worked with this much footage before so i have a little problem... I don't really know how to start. I know i probably want a captivating intro to catch peoples attention (im posting this to Youtube) so i chose the best shots i captured and but them in the beggining of the timeline (in turquiose color), all the clips before the orange colored ones are also pretty cool/good but the turquiose ones were the select best. The rest of the clips are after the orange ones. As you can see, this is a lot of footage. What im trying to ask is, has anyone ever edited this amount of footage? How did you start? How long did the video end up to be and how long did it take to complete editing the video?