4 Best Video Editing Tutorials For Beginners

Without a doubt having a good and engaging teacher when learning a new skill or craft is extremely important, these tutorials should help you out at the beginning of your journey with video editing:

The 4 Hour Long In-Depth Tutorial (Adobe Premiere)
RocketJump Film School Playlist
PluralSight Video and Audio Course (30+ hours) paid but there is 10-day free trial
MasterClass Series of Videos, again paid but you have 30-day free trial

Learning Video Editing or Learning software? isn’t it the same?

So one of the first things we have to address is, do you want to learn to edit, or do you want to learn to use one of the video editing software? There is a fundamental difference, one is an art form, a craft that deepens and changes with time and years, the other one is mostly skill and technique, very often relevant mostly to each program.

It took me some time to find good in-depth tutorials that teach you at least some basics of video editing. In our university, it was an ongoing class that spanned 4 years and included countless studies of classic films, many books, and many hours of practice. I understand that not everyone may be able to attend film school for 4 years, and yes you learn the most in practice, in the wild, trying new things, failing, and experimenting but your base is extremely important too.

In the list that I put together, I had included some courses/tutorials that actually concentrate on one piece of software(in most cases it’s Adobe Premiere) but there is a plethora of knowledge about the skill of video editing included in all of them.

Some of them are paid courses, like MasterClass or PluralSight but both include free trials which I highly encourage you to use. I don’t think anyone should pay for access to knowledge but in especially the case of MasterClass I may forget that altogether. The ability to listen to Martin Scorsese explain video editing and some of the techniques used in his films is just one of a kind (and there are many more talented filmmakers in the platform too).

The 4 Hour Long In-Depth Tutorial – Mix of skill and techniques

This tutorial is coming to you from the main editor of LinusTechTips YouTube channel. And it really packs a ton of information, I still to this day come back to it from time to time, just to catch another gem of editing wizardry.

The video is concentrating on using Adobe Premiere Pro and a lot of it is about how to use it etc. but even in the beginning, you can learn things like: properly organizing your footage and files, preparing for the project, even time scheduling. It really is astounding how much you can learn from this 4 hour long video(which by the way, passes very quickly)

Still, as I said in the beginning it’s mostly tutorial of Adobe Premiere Pro and less so of Video editing as an art form.

MasterClass Series of Videos – All about the art

This one is the exact opposite of the previous example. If you never saw short YouTube clips or ads from them, please check them out right now. So, what it is a platform with different masterclasses from various, usually very famous and accomplished people in each field. And so it happens that they have quite a few videos about film making. Here you choose by the “speaker” of each class. So for example you could choose Werner Herzog to learn about documentary film making and his process, or Martin Scorsese, in which he actually goes through all of the stages of his productions.

Here you will learn a lot about the art and technique of video editing, you will still need additional reading materials but being able to learn from Masters of the craft is something exhilarating and very inspirational. Certainly worth checking out.

PluralSight Video and Audio Course – A bit of both worlds

This cource, although paid, is spanning more than 30 hours of different topics. From basics, and begginings, towards software, editing techniques, and even progressing to audio and color grading. It’s a long course but it encapsulates a lot about video editing and video editing techniques. I would say it’s one of the best courses out there for beginners.

You can use the 10-day free trial and try to cram as much information as you can in those ten days. This is what I would do if I were starting right now. If you need more time, you can look into their pricing on their site.

RocketJump Film School – Free and good youTube videos

So here we have something even different. In their editing playlist they include some of the classics of films and they analyze them, pointing out different editing techniques and rules. It’s not very extensive but I found it quite informative for beginners.

They do have many other different playlists, with topics such as Lighting, Cinematography, etc. I would really go check them out and combine their videos with some more technical video tutorials would give you a strong start in the video editing arena.

Summary

Depending on your needs and your expectations, choose what you want to learn. Either the craft of video editing or the skill of video editing software and how to use it. My personal opinion would be too combine both, learn the editing software and learn the language and the art of video editing: