Why Does Video Editing Take So Long?
One of the biggest misunderstandings between clients and video editors is the time it takes to do the work, and of course that can lead to some pretty different views on the cost too. It’s tricky to understand how much work and effort go into something that you’ve never done. For example, I’m not an artist. I’ve only drawn for fun, not professionally, so I have no idea how long it takes to do a portrait, or a landscape, or a character design - you get the idea. I have to ask the artists I know how long it takes so that I can be sure I’m paying fairly. Video editing needs to be treated the same way. So let’s unpack the question: “Why does video editing take so much time?”
Scrubbing through raw footage
This is probably the most misunderstood part of editing when it comes to time investment. You may be thinking, OK, if I hand off 2 hours of raw footage to the editor, they don’t need to watch the whole thing, they can just fast forward through it and grab the good parts. They can use the audio peaks or the expressions on the faces as guidance. So that doesn’t take that long, right? If it doesn’t take that long, they’re doing it wrong. It is true that, depending on the project, they may not need to watch everything, they can just “scrub” (aka fast forward) through the footage and use visual or auditory cues to look for interesting parts. That does not mean it won’t take long though. In fact, there are some projects where scrubbing the raw footage is the longest part. If your footage is 2 hours long, you can expect it to take around 2 hours to scrub through it. Now I’m sure you’re thinking why would it take 2 hours if you don’t have to watch the whole thing? Because it takes time to dig out the good parts. Sometimes they have to replay a section a few times to determine if it's truly a fit for the project. Sometimes they grab some clips and then later decide to ditch them and need to go grab replacements. Being thoughtful in this step ensures that good content isn’t missed.
Making the cuts (and possibly adding b-roll)
Once they’ve grabbed what they want from the raw footage, it’s time to cut everything down so that the flow of the project is good and properly conveys the story you - the client - are trying to tell, as well as making the project fit the time requirements. Oftentimes, during the scrubbing process, the cuts are a little sloppy because the point is just trying to capture the moments needed. So making the cuts is where they get precise, sometimes trimming only a frame or two. There’s probably some parts that need to be tossed. Let’s say the final project needs to be 30 minutes long. While doing the scrubbing, they grabbed 50 minutes of footage to potentially use. Well, now they need to get into the nitty gritty with the cuts AND eliminate 20 minutes of footage. More tough decisions to make. And that decision might be made even MORE difficult if you have provided the editor with b-roll, or asked them to source b-roll for you, because now they also need to determine when they should cut away from the a-roll to show the b-roll, and should the voiceover still be playing under the b-roll, or should it just be audio from the b-roll, or should it just be background music?
Adding text & graphics/motion graphics
The timeline looks good now - it only has the parts they want to keep and the cuts are on point. But they’re not done - not even close. You gave them a bunch of assets to add in, as well as instructions on when you want text added. Now, if they were well organized, they would have added markers or some kind of notes during the cutting process on where to add the text and the assets to make this step easier. Either way, it takes time. You have 30 minutes of footage and let’s say 20 assets and 10 pieces of text. They need to get to each moment and pull in what’s wanted. Want the same text format over and over again? That will be quicker. Want something different every time? Well, now they have to change the settings every time they add the text to a new section. And how about those 20 assets? You probably don’t just want your images to pop on screen and pop off again - you want them to look nice and professional. So maybe a logo bounces onto the screen, hangs around for 10 seconds, and then bounces off screen. And later on you have 5 small graphics you want to come up on screen as different statements are said, so the timing has to be just right, and you want them to dissolve in, but then the entire screen should fade to black once the voice over pauses, and then fade back in when it starts again. You get the idea. It is rarely just a matter of “Here’s a line of text or an image, put it on the screen and off you go”.
Color correction & grading
Not all projects need this step, but if yours does, you need to keep this in mind for the total project time. Color can be a tricky thing - especially if the original footage is of poor quality, including poor lighting. This step can take a while because it requires some finessing and experimentation. Now the nice thing about this is that, once they get it right, that’s it - they can apply it to all of the clips that have been cut out. Or, depending on their process, they might do it first, when all the footage is together anyways. So it’s not time intensive because of needing to do it over and over, like with cutting, it’s time intensive because it requires some back and forth.
Audio Cleanup
Nope, we’re not done yet. I bet your project has audio! And let’s face it, audio is critical to the success of the video. If your video quality is subpar but your audio is crystal clear, you STILL have a chance at keeping an audience engaged, but if your video looks like it’s from Hollywood and your audio is full of background noise and plosives and peaking noises, no one is sticking around. So the time it takes to do audio cleanup is dependent on how good the audio is to begin with - so, hate to say it, but this one’s on you (or whoever did the recording for you). If all your audio needs is a little bit of noise removal and a slight boost, it will be done pretty quickly, possibly only a few minutes if it’s just one MIC track, but if your audio is overwhelmed by A/C noise in the background, your voice keeps getting quiet and then suddenly loud, you’re getting a crackly noise from your mic in certain spots, you’ve got a dog barking next door with your window open - yeah, that’s a lot to try and fix. And don’t expect perfection, either - audio is not as kind as video when it comes to covering up mistakes. So word to the wise - get your audio sounding as good as possible BEFORE recording.
Music & SFX
This may not apply to your project, but it certainly applies to a lot of them. Most projects call for some kind of music and possibly some sound effects as well, depending on the kind of work. If you have supplied your editor with the music and SFX you want, you’ve just saved them a lot of time and yourself some money, but they’ll still need to decide what goes where if you haven’t outlined that and get the volumes correct and make sure one track flows into another, if applicable. If you need the editor to source the music and SFX for you, that’s fine, but expect some additional cost. An editor - a good one, at least - takes sound design seriously. They want to make sure that what they choose for your project is a good match and follows along the story the footage is telling. Sometimes that means going through 10-20 tracks before finding a good match. Sound effects can take time too. Just because you want the sound of bells doesn’t mean the editor will choose the first one they find. There might be 50 different bell sounds available, and the editor will keep listening until they find the one that compliments your video. This may sound nitpicky, but this is the kind of nitpicking you want if you care about your project.
Exporting
Now we’ve finally come to the end - but the end takes time too. Once all the work has been completed, the editor still needs to get the file to you, the client. So it’s time to export the file. They make sure the settings are what was dictated (or what they recommend, if you did not specify), and let the software start rendering the project. How long that process takes is dependent on multiple factors, like how long the project is, the intensity of the effects used, how many VFX were used, what the frame rate is, what the resolution is, how many tracks are there, both for video and audio - and of course the computer too. Is the computer trying to do anything else while also exporting the file? How much RAM does it have? What CPU does it have? What about the GPU? What codec is being used? A lot determines the speed of an export. Now, I’m sure some of you are asking why this part matters. Why should you care about the exporting? The project is done! The answer? The editor can’t move onto their next project until your project is done exporting. It’s that simple. Unless they have a second set up, but considering the costs of having just one set up for editing, that’s doubtful if they’re not part of a business team. So your project is still taking up time. Not to mention, they still have to scrub through the exported file to make sure nothing went wrong during the export! Remember, technology isn’t perfect, and sometimes errors happen.
That was a lot of information, but I hope you found it helpful. It’s so important to have an understanding of the time investment involved in the project you’re hiring for.
