If I Could Just Cut to the Best Edits

I'm not exactly sure how it all started, but I somehow learnt over the years since the pandemic that photography and videography are skills that I want to hone. Pretty things attract me, really, and I mean things like really good photo and video editing. One thing led to another, and it has now become something that I truly want to become really good at.

Perhaps it started when I bought a powerful phone for the first time in 2019. The camera of the Redmi Note 8 Pro fascinated me so much that I wanted to see how good the photos with it would be. That made me want to learn more and more, and now I regularly found myself through social media, discovering amazing photographers and video editors.

Creating content is something that I know that I really want to do, aside from engineering, particularly video content creation. Realising that this would include turning myself into a one-man production team, I started to consider video editing a little more seriously.

Observing how the YouTube algorithm works, clearly the successful videos are mostly the ones with really good effort put into them, and that includes how the video looks. The more engaging, satisfying, and aesthetically pleasing your video can be, the more likely it is to do well in some ways. And that's what makes good video editors really valuable, generally.

For me, video editing is a form of art, and it is a creative outlet where I can express my ideas and emotions visually. And the videos I make every now and then, whether or not I share them publicly, would only be much better with good editing. That I know, but guess what's missing? Yes, being a good editor.

I have been using video editing apps like Capcut for a while now. Most of my videos were made with Capcut. But I don't exactly call myself an editor yet. It's not even about being humble. It's about realising the really wide gap between myself and where I would like to be.

Everything I have been doing with video editing has mostly been casual, until a reason for me to take it a little more seriously came along the line. That was when I realised how much I really wanted to do this thing. What was stopping me the most, among others, was my laptop.

I know gear doesn't matter much when you're learning a new skill. "Work with what you have," you'd hear often. While that is true, there are some tiny ways gear could matter. In my case, not only is my laptop not as powerful in the least way it should, but it had a battery problem. Sounds like complaining, but it really isn't because I keep on working and learning regardless. I only acknowledge that things would be much easier if I had a much more capable device.

While I am consuming as much learning materials on how to use certain video editing software and seeking how to improve, I have my eyes on a particular model of laptop that would allow me to unlock more creativity and productivity. When I lay my hands on it, trust that I will forge ahead even more relentlessly.

Thankfully, I can put in a lot of hours of learning and practice into it, so time isn't really an issue in this case. Although I reckon that having a private tutor or perhaps being in an academy may speed up and streamline things for me, I can't really have those, so I am blazing through free materials I can find on places like YouTube.

Another thing I thought was going to be an issue was having raw files to work with. Then I realised how that is actually easy and shouldn't even be considered a problem. I can always shoot anything with my camera and work on that. There are some friends that make videos every now and then that I could do video editing for. Regular practice would make me better—that, I know.

Video editing is a skill I wish I had and that I think matters in today's world. I am already working on it, so I wonder how things would be like in a year. I am mostly doing it for myself to create content better, but I imagine also making a lot of money with it getting the right gigs. For now, I'll be cooking.

By the way, if you're into video editing, there's the #editors-corner where we talk about video editing and learn from ourselves. You're invited.

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