Edit Better: Hollywood-Tested Strategies for Powerful Video Editing

TL;DR:Buy this book. Although it's written in a laid-back voice ,the book covers several interesting topics that would be beneficial to editors at any level. Easily worth the price and time that it takes to finish. I walked away with insights and plenty of notes. Highly recommended.Longer Review:Jeff mentioned this book when introducing himself during a pre-recorded virtual summit a few weeks ago. I wrote it down without much of a thought - as I often do whenever someone mentions that they are an author. Over the course of his presentation, I realized that Jeff both knew his craft intimately and also excelled at conveying his experience in a way that was both engaging and easy to comprehend. His presentation was dynamite and buying his book was a no-brainer.Fast forward to today and I've just finished reading his book, Edit Better. The book is directed towards anyone that wishes to get better at their craft. This spoke directly to me and I loved learning about both editing strategy (the "telescope") and techniques (the "microscope").There were several useful nuggets of information in this book that will completely change the way that I edit future videos. In particular, his approach to sequencing attention magnets blew my mind. It's powerful yet simple and makes you wonder why you didn't always approach editing this way!At a technical level, I appreciated that he covered when to cut between shots, how to best implement transitions, the importance of using music & text to direct viewer attention, and some simple rules that govern the use of subtitles. The sections about audio compression, sound EQ, color correction and the organization of footage were also helpful.I'll recommend this book to as many folks as possible going forward. It's perfect for anyone who is transitioning from talking-head videos to more of a shot-based approach, or simply wants to make their videos more visually engaging.In my case, I've been holding off on a beast of a project, daunted by the intensity of editing and mixing dialogue/story with visual elements. This book has saved my project and given me the courage to tackle this project in the right way!Thanks to the author for having taken time to write such an incredibly helpful book!

Edit Better is a fantastic 'best practices' book for people beginning in the world of editing, or for experienced professionals looking at a new way to approach the creative process with renewed creativity. Edit Better takes a philosophical and practical approach to the skill.I bought the book on sale, but I feel strongly enough about it's approachable look at the fundamentals of editing, cutting new media, and the role of an editor in the creative process, that I'm about to buy the book for two of my professional buddies. It's genuinely worth reading and paying full price.With humor and a real "working editor's" overview of just what an editor does, Bartsch's smart and applicable rules about improving your cut, working with clients, and even networking, are things that took me *years* to learn with the bruises to prove it.I can't begin to count all of the wisdom nuggets in this book. Every one, invaluable. How do you approach using transitions, and WHY? How do you fit music to the work, and not force the work to the music? How do you actively direct the user's attention whilst remaining invisible?Jeff covers so much without a hint of techno-jargon or software pandering. It's all about how to approach editing, regardless the tool.The only drawback? Not much about the lifestyle and business practices of a freelancer, or the various paths towards becoming a pro.Guess that's what updates are for! Highly recommended!

I do recommend this book. I graduated from film school a couple years ago, and I keep myself busy making independent films, which I edit myself. I've taken a couple of editing classes, and have now edited a dozen films or so. I consider myself a competent editor, but I'm always reading, researching, listening to others, and looking for ways to improve my craft.First off, I'm glad that I found this book, and have learned some things that I consider valuable from it. Mostly the author's extensive list of "rules" (along with explanations, anecdotes, and in many cases accompanying videos on his website). These rules make up the second half of the book. Great stuff! Yes, some of them are things that I already had ingrained into me from school, some of them were things that were intuitive, and I just "did" without really giving it much thought, and some were new concepts that I look forward to exploring in my next editing project (which I'm just starting now). It's an inexpensive book, it's a quick read, and it's useful. It should be a no-brainier for people wanting to up their game as editors.My criticism of the book though, and why it loses one star in rating (and I very nearly deducted 2 stars from it), is that ironically it needs, well, better editing! The author badly needs to take Walter Murch's advice and cut out the "bad stuff". In this case, the "bad stuff" is the first 20 or so chapters. That stuff is nonesense imo, and it makes a bad first impression, and greatly reduces the probability that the reader is going to make it to the really good stuff before setting down the book in frustration. It's a bunch of abstract, weird, questionable, and non-useful discussion. No, editing is not like building a house. No, it's not like Newton's laws of motion. No, it's not like any of the other bizarre things that you are comparing it to, and even if it were, all those bizarre comparisons are not really helpful, and nor is the rest of that discussion imo. That's just my opinion though, others may disagree. But in any case, the rest of it is really good, so I'm going to just forget those first 20 chapters exist, lol. Get the book, it's good, and it will very likely help you with your editing.

Diese Ansammlung von persoehnlichen Erfahrungen des Authors sollte man lesen, wenn man sich ernsthaft fuer professionelle Filmbearbeitung interessiert. Als Kindle-Edition ist der Preis kein Thema und wer bei den englischen Begriffen Fragen hat, kann per Klick auf den Begriff im Oxford-Lexikon (in Kindle integriert) schnellstens eine Erklaerung finden.