Editing Basics: Start by Deleting, Not Adding

The idea that saves you months

When you hear the word "editing" you picture effects, transitions and colour. In reality, ninety percent of good editing is one repeated decision: do I keep this part or cut it?

A good video isn't one that had a lot added. It's one that had a lot taken away.

The three stages, in order

Don't mix them. Each needs a different frame of mind, and mixing them means polishing something you're about to delete.

Stage one: delete the bad

Go through the recording start to finish and cut:

• Failed takes and sentences you stumbled through
• Long silences at the start, the end, and between sentences
• Filler sounds: "umm," "you know," "right"
• Repetition: an idea you said, then said again in different words
• Digressions where you wandered off and never came back

Don't get distracted by anything else at this stage. No music, no text, no colour.

Stage two: reorder what's left

Now watch what remains and ask:

• Is the order logical? Sometimes you discover the third thing you said belongs first.
• Is there a boring section even though it's accurate? Cut it.
• Does it start fast enough? Usually you'll cut the first ten seconds.

A useful test: watch the video at double speed. The places where you feel bored even at double speed are the ones that need cutting.

Stage three: add only where needed

Now — and not before — add what serves the video:

• On-screen text to clarify a name or a number
• A cutaway showing what you're describing
• Light music if the silence feels heavy

The rule: every addition must answer "what does this add?" If you can't answer, don't add it.

Where exactly to cut

A question that puzzles beginners, and it has practical answers:

Cut right after the meaning ends. Don't leave the speaker taking a long breath after the final word.

Cut on movement. If there's motion in the shot, cutting during it is smoother than cutting on stillness.

Never cut mid-word. Obvious, but working fast makes it happen.

Leave a frame or two of silence after a sentence ends. A cut pressed right up against the word sounds clipped.

Transitions: the fewer the better

The default transition in every professional film and programme is the straight cut — that is, no transition at all.

Fades, spins and slides draw attention to themselves and tell the viewer that what they're watching is amateur.

Use a fade in two places only: the start and end of the video, or to signal a long passage of time. Everywhere else, cut straight.

How long does editing take?

At first it will take you three or four times the length of the finished video. A ten-minute video might take forty minutes or more.

That's normal and it shrinks with practice. What speeds up editing isn't the software or the machine — it's the quality of your filming. The more organised and clear your footage, the less work in the edit.

Mistakes that eat time for nothing

Hunting for the perfect effect. The time you spend trying twenty transitions is better spent on two minutes of cutting a boring section.

Colour grading early. There's no point setting the colour of a scene you might delete.

Listening on your phone speaker. Use headphones — audio problems don't reveal themselves on a small speaker.

Rewatching dozens of times. After the fourth pass you lose the ability to judge. Leave it an hour and come back.

What software you need

Any phone editing app does everything described in this article: cutting, reordering, text and audio.

Don't buy software or learn a complex tool before you hit an actual limit in what you have. What you genuinely need is set out in What Do You Actually Need to Start? And What You Don't.

In short

Delete first, reorder second, add last — if at all.

A beginner editor asks "what do I add?" An experienced one asks "what do I cut?" The difference shows in the video immediately. How to set a video's pace while writing is covered in Pacing and Transitions in a Long Script: When to Speed Up and When to Slow Down.