Transcription
Editing is not just about making things look cool. It's about controlling human attention. As an editor, you have more power than you think. As an editor, you have the ability to completely change how someone feels. You're manipulating time, emotion, and perception. And when you play around with human psychology inside of a timeline, you can become unstoppable.
Now, before we jump in, I want to say that I have a school community that recently launched all about getting better at video editing and building a business as a video editor. But more on that in a bit. For now, let's rewire how you think about editing.
Now, I've spoken to a lot of the top editors in the space. I've edited for really big creators myself. I've been editing full-time for on the back end of 7 years now. I've even hired editors myself. And through it all, I've learned the problem is that editors think better editing means mastering these trendy motion graphics, these super cool unique transitions like Sam Cer or these super cool new effects or expensive plugins. But despite what you might think, that is not what gets you hired by more clients. That's not what makes people binge watch your video, and it's definitely not what makes someone feel something.
Great editors don't just edit, they translate emotion. See, bad editors, they focus on just cutting clips. But great editors, they translate what was felt in the moment. The question isn't what shot comes next? What should I cut next? Where's the next mistake? No, it should be what should the viewer feel next? How is this next cut motivated? And when you think like that, your pacing changes, your shot choices change, and your entire edit starts to flow completely different. You're not just piecing together footage, you're building an emotional experience.
In fact, just to show you what I mean with a real life example, take one of my favorite movies of all time, Batman: The Dark Knight. In this scene, when Joker's talking about how he got his creepy smile, there's a part in here that just had masterful editing. And a way in which we can show emotion as editors is with extra footage that we may have available to us. So in this example, we could hold this scene on Joker, but to evoke more emotion in this scene, we can also cut to Rachel and get a reaction shot. For example, watch this scene.
"And you are beautiful."
"Well, you look nervous. Is it the scars?"
See, we have Joker and then it cuts to Rachel reaction shot and then it cuts back to Joker. But now, let's watch that same scene versus having it without that reaction shot from Rachel and try to feel the difference.
"And you are beautiful."
"Well, you look nervous. Is it the scars?"
See, if we get rid of her reaction, it doesn't have as much power or emotion. Not even close. The reason this works so well because we're seeing the reaction and because it just makes Joker become way scarier. Not just from what he says or how he looks, but from how other people react to him. You see, this is called a reaction cutaway. And it can also be applicable in YouTube. For example, when editing podcasts, you can use this a ton as there are usually more than one guests on a podcast at a time. So when one person's saying something, instead of having it only on him, cut to a reaction shot of the other guest. But this is just one technique of many many.
See, now what I really want to talk about is actual theory that can shift the way you think about editing as a whole to help you improve. And the first mindset shift in doing that is understanding the theory that video editing is mind control. People talk a ton about, especially when it comes to YouTube, obviously, average view duration on videos. Like, it's some sort of mystery or something, but it's honestly not at all. If you really want retention for your own personal brand or for your clients that you're editing for, then here's what actually matters. You have to control attention. You have to control emotion. You have to control curiosity. And as editors, we can control a lot of this, more than you likely think that we can. All it takes is a little bit of thinking outside the box from time to time.
And one thing that I really like to do that's worked for me really well with clients I've worked with is when editing to always make sure that I'm building a masterpiece in the timeline is to ask myself a lot of questions as I edit instead of just mindlessly cutting. For example, around every like natural section of a video that occurs or you know if there's no sections or breaks or chapters just every 60 seconds or so. I always ask myself, what question is stuck in the potential viewer, the potent the person who's potentially viewing this video? What question is stuck in their head right now in this part of the video that we're in? Then what I like to do is based on that answer, I'll try a few things that make sense for that part. Things like, can I delay the answer to said question to create a curiosity loop to maybe pay off later in the video? Uh, can I build tension in this moment even more? Can I take away anything in the video to be able to give just enough info to keep them more hooked instead of just giving them all the information?
You see, it's not about throwing in a ton of fancy animations or using crazy plugins. It's about making the brain itch for the next frame. In fact, there's um there's a psychological principle called the zygarnic effect that really drives this whole point home here. The zygarnic effect essentially means that your brain remembers unfinished things or things that are unfinished way better than things that have already finished or things that are concluded. Have you ever been heartbroken and you didn't get the closure that you wanted and then that breakup ended up haunting you and it stuck with you for more years than you'd like to admit versus if you had a relationship where you got closure, you probably moved on pretty quickly. You probably forgot that about that relationship altogether. The reason for this is because of the zygarnic effect. That breakup with no closure, it stuck with you in your brain for years because the brain, the psychological principle of the zygarnic effect kept that unfinished relationship in your mind way clearer than the one that had finished, that had concluded, that did end with closure. So, if we can understand this and apply it to our editing by not allowing things to finish until the end of the video or not at all, we can hold them for much longer. we can make our content, our clients content stand out in their minds for much longer.
But that still isn't enough because this next principle is also equally as important. But I first want to let you know really quickly that if you want to learn more about video editing and you want to learn more about growing a business as an editor, then you should join my school community below. Inside the community, you get full access to complete master classes on how to become a better editor, how to learn to do so, not just via the technical side of things, but also through storytelling and understanding the human psychology side of things to be able to implement that into our edits. Then you have entire master classes inside a module on how to actually start a business as an editor and make a good living with editing. I have a goal inside of there to help you break free from the noise that you're fed by so many gurus in the space today and how to actually land a high-paying client or just clients in general and all of the systems, frameworks, and SOPs that go along with that. Plus, for some of the clients that I've edited for, I've ended up also becoming their YouTube strategist and growing, for example, one of my old clients channels from 2,000 subscribers to 40,000 subscribers in less than 90 days. And I have a whole module inside of my school community on how I did that. So editors like yourself can do the same thing to build your own personal brand and so so much more. So if that sounds interesting to you, for the first 100 people who join, you'll get discounted access at only $39 a month. Then after that first 100 people, the price will jump to $67 per month. So make sure you're part of that first 100 and click the link in the description below.
Anyways, I was saying that the next theory is that the cut isn't just a transition, it's a decision. See, every time you make a cut, you're making a choice. You're making a choice about what the viewer sees and what they don't see, which is equally as important. You can take raw footage of someone talking. By shifting just a few pauses or removing a few breaths, you can completely change how confident, nervous, or authentic they come off on camera. You have that power. Same clip, totally different perception. That's editing at the highest level. Not just arranging footage, shaping reality.
This is why it's so frustrating to see so many editors using AI tools to cut the footage, then just focus all their attention on the animations and stuff. No, you can't build a house on sand. You need a good foundation to do so, a solid foundation. And it's the same thing in editing. The foundation of the video is the A-roll and how it's cut. So, to build a good edit, we need to make that foundation strong. We should all be striving to make our edits feel like a a stream of thought, not like a checklist. Because if we make it feel like a checklist, if we do that, it'll look like But when it feels like someone's actual thought process, when we cut it accordingly, that's when people are way more likely to lock in.
And remember that you're not just cutting things together as an editor. I really want to drive that point home. You have a lot more power behind the content than you think. You're not just editing, you're telling people what to feel. And I know a lot of editors don't want to hear this. But the harsh truth that most editors miss is that if someone finishes your video and says, "Oh man, that editing was pretty cool." You actually missed the mark. That's not our goal. The best compliment that you can possibly get as an editor is to hear something like, "Man, I could not stop watching that." Or, "Wow, that really hit me." Or, "I don't even know why, but I really felt that." When the edit disappears, when it becomes part of the story itself, that's when you've hit mastery. The best video editing is invisible.
And don't get me wrong, the the flashy stuff, the cool animations, the expensive plugins, it's fun. and I enjoy it and it can definitely add a ton of value to you as an editor and to the edit. But if you want to actually get better in a way that nobody else is, it comes down to emotion, to attention, timing, and intent. And when you master this, all of this as an editor, even as a content creator, that that is when content becomes a game. That is when you win.