Video editing for beginners: how to edit your first talking video

What editing a video actually means

If you film yourself talking to a camera, editing is mostly removing what shouldn't be there and then making what is left easy to watch. You are not making a film. You are tidying up a recording of you explaining something.

Most beginner guides are written for people who want to become film or trailer editors. They start with computer parts, colour grading and keyboard shortcuts. You need none of that to post a good Reel, TikTok, Short or YouTube video. You need five jobs, done in this order:

• Pick your takes. Decide which version of each line you are keeping.
• Cut. Remove the retakes, the long pauses and the false starts.
• Add captions. Put the words on screen so people can follow with the sound off.
• Set the shape. Tall for Reels, TikTok and Shorts; wide for a normal YouTube video.
• Export and check. Save the finished video and watch it once on your phone before you post.

Everything else, such as music, zooms, titles and extra footage laid over your voice, is optional. Add those one at a time once the five jobs feel routine.

Is video editing hard?

The honest answer: it is easy to understand and slow to do. Every editor works the same way. Your recording sits on a long strip called a timeline. You split the strip where something should come out, delete that piece, and the rest closes up. If you can trim a voice message or crop a photo, you can do this.

What catches beginners out is the time. A single take of you talking can hold dozens of pauses and repeated lines, and each one is a small cut you make by hand. That is why your first video takes far longer than you expected, and why it feels hard when it is really just repetitive.

Two things make it quicker. One is practice: your fifth video will take a fraction of the time your first did. The other is filming with the edit in mind, which the last section of this guide covers.

Which editor to start with

Pick the one that runs on the device you already own, and stay with it for your first few videos. Switching editors every week is the most common way beginners lose a month. All four editors below can be used without paying; the table shows what each gives you and where it stops.

The details and prices change, so we keep them on separate pages with the date each was checked: iMovie, Clipchamp, CapCut and DaVinci Resolve.

On an iPhone? There is a step-by-step walkthrough in how to edit a video on iPhone.

Step 1: Watch it through and pick your takes

Before you cut anything, watch the whole recording once. It feels like a delay, but it saves time, because you stop cutting things you later want back.

1. Put your recording on the timeline

   Open your editor, start a new project and add your video. If you filmed several clips, add them in the order you said them.

2. Watch from start to finish

   Don't touch anything yet. Note roughly where the good takes are.

3. Keep the last good take of each line

   When you said a line three times, the last one is usually the best: you had stopped thinking about the words by then.

4. Decide what the video is about

   If a section wanders off the point, it goes. A shorter video that stays on one idea beats a longer one that covers three.

Step 2: Cut the retakes, pauses and mistakes

This is the main job, and it is the same in every editor. Each cut inside one take is called a jump cut: a pause comes out, and the talking carries straight on.

1. Find the sound view

   Most editors draw the sound as a wavy line along the clip. Talking shows as tall shapes; pauses show as flat stretches.

2. Split at the start of the flat stretch

   Move to where the pause begins and split the clip there.

3. Split again just before the next word

   Leave about a tenth of a second of room, so you don't clip the first letter.

4. Delete the middle piece and close the gap

   Many editors close it for you. In others, drag the rest of the video back so the lines meet.

5. Play the join with your eyes closed

   If it sounds like one sentence, the cut is good. Then move on to the next one, working from the start of the video to the end.

Some editors can find silences for you. Clipchamp's is free, but Microsoft's help page says it only removes pauses longer than three seconds, so the short gaps between your sentences are still yours to cut. To see how many pauses are in a clip before you start, drop it into the pause checker.

Step 3: Add captions

Captions are the words you say, shown on screen as you say them. Plenty of people watch with the sound off, on a train or next to someone sleeping, and captions are the only way your video reaches them.

Look for a button called captions, subtitles or auto captions. The editor listens to your video and writes the words for you. Whether that button is free depends on the editor, as the table above shows. If yours doesn't have one, you can type captions as text boxes, but for anything longer than a few lines that is slow enough to be worth choosing a different editor.

• Read every line. Automatic captions get names, brands and unusual words wrong. Fix them before you post.
• Keep them short. One or two lines at a time, a few words per line.
• Make them readable. A plain, heavy font with strong contrast against the video. You can try styles on the caption font preview.
• Keep them clear of the buttons. Each app covers part of the screen with its own buttons and text. The safe zone checker shows exactly where.

Step 4: Set the shape for where it's going

The shape of a video is called its aspect ratio: the width compared with the height. Set it in your editor's project or export settings, often under a button named ratio, format or canvas.

The easiest way to get this right is to film in the shape you plan to post: phone upright for Reels, TikTok and Shorts, phone sideways for YouTube. If you need both, film wide with yourself in the middle and space around you, so a tall crop still has your whole face in it. Exact sizes for each app are on the Reel size and YouTube video size pages.

Step 5: Export and check it on your phone

Exporting turns your project into one video file you can post. Look for a button named export, share or save video. If the editor asks about quality, choose 1080p: it looks sharp on a phone and uploads quickly.

Then watch the finished file once, on your phone, with the sound on and again with it off. You are checking four things: the first second starts with you talking and not with you reaching for the camera, no cut clips a word, the captions match what you said, and nothing important sits under the app's buttons.

Make the edit easier before you press record

Half of editing is decided while you film. A few habits remove most of the cutting:

• Know what you'll say. Write it down, even as bullet points, and check how long it runs with the script timer.
• Read it if that helps. A teleprompter scrolls your script next to the camera, so there are fewer retakes to cut later.
• Pause with your mouth closed before each new line. It gives you a clean place to cut.
• After a mistake, stop, breathe and say the whole sentence again. Whole sentences are far easier to cut between than half ones.
• Stay in the same spot. If you lean or shift between lines, every cut shows.

Once the five steps feel familiar, video editing tips covers the habits that make each one faster.