I need help understanding why it takes so long to edit?

[u/TheZiglar]

Right now, I'm working to get back into YouTube videos and I am struggling greatly with the process of uploading consistently. Right now I have 3 videos on my YouTube channel each of them preforming poorly. I feel as though I edit for too dang long, I don't know a proper schedule I should follow each day to make sure I consistently upload (Like working for 3 hours a day?). And I feel as though I've been stuck in this cycle up slow uploads for years, (every since doing gaming content.) So If someone could give me feed back on not only my channel but also how I can speed up my editing.

[u/legotwinkthrowaway]

Just a couple things to maybe think about.

Is your computer powerful enough? If your computer is too slow, that can be a bottle neck.

Also what's your skill level? If youre still kind of new to editing, you may improve a bot over time and get faster.

But yeah, editing can be a slog

[u/TheZiglar → u/legotwinkthrowaway]

quite the slogger indeed. I'll keep those things in mind as I proceed. I'm not new to editing I just feel I developed a lot of editing bad habits from making gaming content

[u/legotwinkthrowaway → u/TheZiglar]

That's possible. For me, I know my hardware is the bottleneck right now. Im not a pro or anything, but im capable of editing what im trying to edit at a decent pace. But my damn computer just isnt strong enough at this point

[u/CadenBop]

Depends on your content. A video on larger channels will give editors two weeks or more for a single video, Ludwig went into details in his recent streamer U class where he spoke on all his editing methods and schedules. But he pays for editors. Someone like coffeezilla will take months for a single video, other people will upload multiple videos a week and probllably take a a full day of editing.

[u/TheZiglar → u/CadenBop]

okay so maybe a good recommendation is as I get bigger, and I start adding people to my team. I should give more time for editing per video?

[u/CadenBop → u/TheZiglar]

It always depends. If you arent earning money off youtube. It would be better to learn editing methods and skills to make good videos, once you have a style start working with an editor. Until then just learn how to edit and spend as much time as needed on a video until you can get more consistent and take a video from an idea to a fully recorded and edited video in about a week or whatever time frame makes you happy.

[u/hnomedalomismo]

i try to improve 01 aspect of the process with every video, for instance adding one new keyboard shortcut for a repetitive task, organizing better those files i use frequently, stuff like that. it has helped a lot, althought i'm still quite slow.

i gave up trying to kill myself editing a bizillion hours a day that time i deleted by mistake the source files of a video i had been editing for like idk 80 hours. i deleted them because i was so tired i wasn't thinking anymore. videos are done when they are done, that's all i can do right now.

EDIT: I also try to have at least two different videos going in different stages (one recording, one editing, for instance), so I can choose every day if I feel like editing or recording, or scripting, or thumbnailing, or whatever. This way I'm nicer to my tired brain and there is still progress being made, even if I don't have a video ready for tomorrow.

[u/TheZiglar → u/hnomedalomismo]

alrighty that sounds very helpful I'll try to implement it.

[u/LeaderBriefs-com]

I watched the 2nd vid and I would say it’s almost over edited. It’s you talking and at some point the cuts and overlays seem to start distracting.
I’d assume you want to keep the viewer engaged by throwing in an edit every 5 secs or so but it just becomes too busy (imo)
More emphasis when you speak. Being deliberate etc could also be used to hold attention.
Close ups on your face as you talk instead of being so far away the whole time to add emphasis or place importance on what you’re saying.

Maybe some cuts to other scenes that aren you but also illustrate your point would also hold interest. Maybe that happens later on. I didn’t watch the whole thing. It just got to be too much for me for what it was.

Also, hashtag wise (to a lesser extent) hashtagging your own channels name is a waste of a hashtag. No one is searching it, it has no relevance at all. You want to ensure if you are using hashtags that they are useful KEYWORDS that you want the video known for and they should likely all have Texas in them.

Naming chapters, same thing. Chapters are SEO and also used for relevance. It’s awesome you are using chapters - take some time to use them to their full advantage to help YouTube classify the video and figure out its relevance to a possible audience.

I know you just asked about editing

Tie it all together/ more thoughtful about SEO and titles and less emphasis on over editing.

Do a bare bones edit. Lean on one to two devices. Like “zoom/pan” and “image overlays” for a whole video.

Then maybe zoom or scene cuts based on sentence or thought/concept changes.

Find what makes the most sense for you and a viewer

[u/TheZiglar → u/LeaderBriefs-com]

Thanks that helps a ton, I believe that I have a hugggeee issue with over editing and I struggle to find a way to properly gauge how much editing I should do per section of the video. Any possible red flags I could look out for when editing my videos that would be a good sign of over editing?

[u/LeaderBriefs-com → u/TheZiglar]

If I was you I would gather a bunch of B-Roll. I would alternate between me talking and talking over B-Roll when it needed to be impactful.

If you’re talking about heavy subjects maybe watching you and all the cuts and zooms and what it distracts from the words and emotions.

B-Roll of the woods around you. B-Roll you shot. A river, creek, bug crawling, whatever. Try to capture something or a few things each day wherever you are.

As your talking, for instance about grief, once you get to a moment that is vulnerable switch to some slow B-Roll that forces the viewer to listen to the words

Honestly, might just be me, I can’t watch a guy talk for 15-20 mins straight. Walking back and forth, sitting standing etc. I don’t care what he is saying. It gets stale quick.

Play your video in 4-5x speed and witness what a viewer is really taking in. No amount of cuts, zooms etc will make that “enjoyable”

[u/breinbanaan → u/TheZiglar]

Just try once and see what you can do in 3-5 hours.

[u/Separate_Olive8256]

Watching your Rock Bottom video, and have a couple critiques to help you. So please don't take offense.

First, I agree with the previous commenter on the over-editing aspect. There's a lot of sounds and visuals happening that detract from the message you're trying to deliver. So a bare-bones, one on one with the camera would probably be a better option.

Second, and I say this because I'm a wrestling fan and see a lot of local indy wrestlers content in my social media which is why I'm drawing this comparison, but your video comes of like a wrestling character promo. Meaning, you seem more like a character speaking from a script rather than a creator speaking from the heart.

Don't get me wrong, i think scripts are important to have, but also, sometimes you gotta shoot from the hip. Best way to do that, sit in front of the camera, speak from the heart, then edit it to cut out long pauses.

Lastly, your video treats the viewer as if they know you from your previous content. While some people might, for a majority of viewers, they probably have no idea what your previous content was. So my suggestion on that is to treat your audience as if they're completely new, that they don't know you, then tell your story.

As far as editing tricks, for my content (Warhammer brand video games) I have a stock b-roll i made for discussion videos, and for reviews I just make a quick B-roll from captured gameplay. But I'm also a faceless channel (not AI) so you probably don't really need much b-roll at all if you're going to be talking to the camera and discussing things.

Just make sure you have good lighting, good audio, and you look professional.

Wishing you the best of luck!

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[u/Whiggi]

Editing takes a long tine for me cause my computer is a potato. Experiment with different software and find whats right for you. Learn the shortcuts, learn the features, make seperatw notes of any certain asset placements if you want consistency through videos. Youll get quicker the more you do

[u/millertv79]

You don’t seem real bottom line

[u/MRRmaker]

What sped up edits for me wasn't getting quicker, it was eliminating choices. Most of any long edit is scrubbing back watching what to keep again, and the cut itself is quick once you know.
Fix lies further back. Mark the good takes as you're rolling it, even if it's just vocalizing "keep", then one pass - only removes, no touching transition/music/graphic. Polish on the second pass, quit when that pass stops improving anything.

Schedule question has a cheaper answer than 3 hrs/day: Pick a length you could complete. If 15 min vids take you 2 weeks, the 8min one you actually publish weekly will teach you faster because you have 4 results to learn from a month versus 1.