How to Hire a Video Editor
If you’re a content creator, or even a small business, you’re probably making a very common mistake when you decide to hire a video editor. What mistake did you probably make? It’s all too common for people to not do the research on video editing costs before deciding to put out a job post. Just as people often mistake the time and effort that goes into writing a novel, they tend to do the same with video editing.
When you don’t take some time to research the costs, you end up with two scenarios: sticker shock and manipulation. When you get to speak with a real professional, and they share their very real prices with you, it can definitely catch you off guard. For small to midsize content creators and small businesses, hundreds of dollars for one video is quite the investment! But that’s if you even get contacted by a professional. You may end up trapped in the less desirable scenario where you are getting bombarded with messages offering to do videos for $5-$20 a piece. Initially, this may seem like a good thing. That’s super affordable! But remember the saying, “You get what you pay for”. It’s often true.
Let’s go over some red flags in the hiring process to better prepare you when you are ready to outsource your video editing work.
The price is so low it’s hard to believe
Let’s go a bit more in depth with this one. The normal range of pay for a video editor is between $20-$100 PER HOUR, not per video. Those who only have a few years of experience, are trying to break into the market for the first time, or are branching out to different niches, may offer their services for only $20-$30 per hour or an equivalent flat rate per video (~$200-$300 per video). Those who are really experts at what they do are going to charge upwards of $50+ per hour, and that is considered completely reasonable within the industry standards. The price will be higher depending on what type of project it is (i.e. YouTube video vs. short film) and how complex the project will be (i.e., simple cuts and transitions vs. full on VFX).
If you get contacted - and you will - by people offering you the service for as little as $20 per video and under, that should be a warning. Now this is not to say that NO ONE that does video editing for such a low rate is good at what they do, there will always be exceptions, but it should be a red flag to you in your hiring process. Rates that are that low often point to scammers or those who are looking to treat your projects like they’re running a content mill - fast and low effort. You are actually better off hiring a new editor FOR FREE to do the work because they are often legitimately looking to gain experience, build a portfolio, and break into the industry. It will require some extra time and patience as they are inexperienced, but there is no monetary risk for you and they are often eager to please so that they can get a recommendation and/or review from you. So if you can’t afford a professional for $20+ per hour, please consider giving a free project to an amateur for them to add to their portfolio.
2. They contact you as if they’re texting a friend
A lot of people who break into freelancing have missed out on more formal work opportunities that (usually) help them build better work etiquette and communication. Many are quite young - perhaps still in high school, or entering college. This is not to say that young people make bad workers - many of them are hard working. But video editing, like other creative fields, requires a certain amount of professionalism to get the desired result, especially when it comes to communication skills.
Because the work video editors do is so subjective in terms of what is “good”, that makes it all the more critical for the editor to be a strong communicator. They need to be willing to ask a lot of questions about the project before even starting, be willing and able to ask many follow up questions, give frequent updates on the progress, and adapt to the style and desires of the client. Sometimes a client knows exactly what they want but has trouble conveying it – that requires patience and ongoing communication to get right. Sometimes a client doesn’t have a clue what they want – same kind of scenario. If a video editor is unable to communicate strongly or refuses to, this could lead to a lot of delays and redos, leading to either a financial loss on the part of the editor or the client, depending on the arrangement.
So if a video editor contacts you with phrases like, “Hey DM me”, “I can do your project send me a message”, “Please give me work”, and other similar messages, there’s a good chance they lack the professionalism and communication needed to give you a good experience. The one possible exception would be if their message simply says “Sent DM” or something similar and then you receive a longer, more professional sounding message in your private inbox. If you’re using platforms like Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, etc. to hire, you shouldn’t expect your messages to resemble a cover letter, but you should expect a greeting, a brief explanation of relevant experience, and a portfolio link. Also keep an eye out for the portfolio links - those that are just using Google Drive are either still really new to editing or haven’t taken the initiative to create a free website or use a pre-existing portfolio platform to house their work, which could signal a lack of motivation.
3. They get angry quickly and easily
Now one would hope you wouldn’t hire someone that is being rude or discourteous to you, but I figured I would go over this anyways since some people may think that they are the problem rather than the prospective video editor. If you are having a friendly or at least civil conversation with a video editor and you are explaining to them that your project isn’t starting for a month, or that you still have many other editors to respond to, or you can’t hire them without seeing a portfolio, and their response is to get angry, it’s time to end the conversation. Not only is this an immature and unprofessional response, there’s also a good chance they’re a scammer.
You know how people trying to scam you by text or email seem to always have some urgency about their message? Well other methods of scamming typically use that tactic too. After all, the idea is to separate your money from you as quickly as possible and disappear with it before there are consequences. So it’s really aggravating for them if you’re holding up the process. A professional may be disappointed that they have to wait for the job or for an answer, but they won’t get angry or rude or abusive. If for some reason they can’t wait, they’ll let you know in a friendly way.
4. Their portfolio looks like it’s straight from AI
This is a pain point for pretty much everyone looking for someone in a creative space as well as anyone working in a creative space. AI has become so integrated into our lives whether we like it or not, but I believe there is a delicate balance to be had between letting AI tools support us vs. letting them take over our work. When a video editor takes on a project for you, it is highly likely that their editing software of choice (Premier, Resolve, FinalCut, etc) is using some kind of AI to improve performance or cut down on the manual efforts of a lengthy process (i.e., Magic Mask in Resolve). This should not be of concern. But what SHOULD be of concern is when the entire video looks like someone gave a prompt to an AI service like Invideo, said “Thanks”, and uploaded it to their portfolio. If you want your content to come off as genuine, you need it to BE genuine. AI can do a lot, but it does not have the creativity and intuition of a person - and it still makes errors. A lot. So things to watch out for are: Video footage that looks distorted or unclear, text that doesn’t match what the person on camera is saying or is moving completely out of sync with the narration, obvious spelling errors in the text, an unclear story or message, and any sudden cuts in footage that don’t make sense.
Now there’s a second part to this one, and that’s when the portfolio LOOKS like it’s from AI but it’s not - it’s just overdone. If you are still chasing the trends of don’t-show-a-clip-for-more-than-3-seconds, then you can ignore this part. If you see a portfolio full of videos that are moving a mile a minute (flashy transitions, texts so quick you can’t read it, something new happening every 2-3 seconds), it’s probably not AI, it just looks so fake that it gives that illusion. The problem with this is that video editors learned to edit this way because of trends on social media - most of them didn’t just decide they wanted to edit that way. It’s incredibly time consuming! So it’s not that this kind of work shows a lack of talent or effort, it’s that it DOESN’T show the ability to focus on a story. Anyone who is tech savvy can learn to edit in this method, and access to an asset store like Envato, MotionArray, or Story Blocks will certainly cut down on the time investment, but it’s a lot harder to learn to slow down and focus on the points of emphasis and make sure the story isn’t buried under VFX.
Did any of those sound familiar to you? If you found this helpful, sign up for the newsletter so that you don’t miss future posts!
