Do you know how to edit well? I think that if you're a creator, you really need to ask yourself that question and answer it honestly. Welcome to the Muthership Creator Strategy because that is the topic that I wanna cover today. And I was talking a little bit about it this week in my studio with my members just about content and what makes good content. So I'm gonna cover that a little bit.

I have thoughts about the whole process of filming and editing. And before I get into it, I wanna just share our creator of the week and give a big shout out to Vicky 60, who is another one of our founding members in the studio. Her account is focused on brain health, but I'm gonna tell you one thing. Vicky is working on her brain health because the best way to keep your brain active and sharp is from learning, always learning new things. And she has taken on content creation.

I'm so impressed. Somebody who didn't wanna get in front of the camera necessarily, feels shy at times, doesn't always like to film in public, and she has taken the leap. I've seen it. She has the receipts. She's making transition videos that are so slick and perfectly edited that I have no comments.

She's out doing videos in public and getting her husband in on it. Honestly, it's impressive, and I wanna give her a big shout out and a thank you to her for trusting in the studio and being one of our founding members. And now let's get into editing because, well, Vicky sure knows how to do it, so the rest of you need to learn. But seriously, I I think that peep that with all of this talk about UGC, user generated content, and people monetizing, and then I go and I see their videos, and I see creators that are supposedly making good money at doing user generated content, and their videos are not very well done. So it led me to think, here's a service that I can offer to my studio members, which is teaching you how to actually make good quality videos so that if you are up against another, creator that has the same niche and someone, a client is scrolling through and looking at your content, looking at the different content from the different creators, you would actually stand out in the crowd.

So that is what I'm doing in the studio. So if you have any interest in that, I'm gonna say upfront. That is what I'm seriously focused on for the month of March. It is March. Love a good alliteration.

And with that comes learning how to make good videos. So you are not gonna monetize squat if you can't make a good video. So I wanna talk about what the ingredients are for a good video. And I will say that if you are interested in learning how to edit, this whole month is dedicated to learning how to get create good content, how to edit good videos. We there I'm focused on live editing lessons, and all of the things are happening.

So now let's cover some of the things. Oh, so if you wanna get in on it, you know, go to the show notes. There's a link there, and there's a there's even a code code that gets you $10 off for your first month. Join us if you're interested. This is a good month to get in it if you are even percolating it.

You don't even have to be ready to take the leap because this will give you the inspiration to consider lots of different ways to monetize, not just UGC. That's just one example that I'm using because we just talked about it in the meeting. But knowing how to make good videos starts with I think that new good videos are made of four basic things. One is the plan or the script, the creative idea. So that's number one.

Number two is when you're recording, filming, the shots, the angles that you choose, that everything is very intentional to tell your story. The third thing is the editing process, putting those shots together, making sure they're cohesive, making sure it tells the story in a nicely paced way. Okay? And then the fourth thing is, of course, adding the things, which is part of editing. But adding the text, adding the captions, adding auto captions, making sure if there's if you wanna add music, so it's the enhancements.

Okay? So I'm gonna put that separate from editing. I'm gonna call editing how you put the shots together, and then the enhancements are still part of editing, but it's a fourth to me, it's a fourth thing. So let's just take it from the top. And we'll start with number one.

When you're planning a creative idea, when you're scripting, and when you're thinking about it, even if you aren't gonna read a script, which please don't read a script. Okay? You need to have an idea of what you wanna say in your mind. So whether it's bullet point notes so you know what you're gonna say, maybe it's a voice over that you're gonna read after the fact, who knows, but your story needs to be told. And if you would be so kind as to scroll back in this in this podcast to the one titled engagement engaging opening lines, okay, That's the one you wanna go back to to learn about the opening lines for your videos.

I'm not gonna cover that again, but I'm gonna tell you now, the first three seconds of your video is when you have an opportunity to engage your chosen audience. So go listen to that episode for more specifics on that topic. But you need to know that once you start once you put your video out there, the first three seconds are gonna put you kind of on the map and keep people with you. And then from there, wanna be concise. You wanna be nicely edited, nice and tight, good messaging, not too wordy.

And if you need to have a call to action, you're you're gonna have a call to action somewhere in in the video or at the end. Alright. So planning is key. And what does planning involve? Because the next step is recording.

You make a plan so that when you record, your shots help you tell the story. So let's talk about some different shots. You can have a wide shot, an establishing shot. I'm sitting here at my desk. Maybe I'm making a video about the process of a day in my life.

So I would start I might start with me getting ready in the morning, getting dressed or whatever, but then I'd be a nice wide shot here of my filming setup. That would be a wide shot. That's sort of an establishing it's called an establishing shot. Gives you an idea about what the topic or what the video is heading towards. A nice visual reference.

There are so many different types of shots that will help you do specific things. And that, in a sense, is a lesson in of itself. But I'm gonna just list a few, give you some examples. So you've got the wide shot. You've got a close-up.

So let's say I wanted to emphasize something. I might punch into a close-up on myself here. I might just punch in means zoom in or cut in to a closer shot. We learned nicely in the studio today how easy it is to just if you shot something wide and you want to crop in on something or have a close-up, how easy it is to do by just making two cuts and then zooming on tapping on that one little section and zooming it close-up. Yay.

Thank you, Kim, for asking the question. So we learned how you can cut to a close-up for emphasis. Okay? You can shoot POV shots. That means I am not you're not in the shot, you're traveling.

So your camera sees what you are seeing. POV, point of view. You could do shots where you're opening your refrigerator, so you have the master shot of you opening the refrigerator, and then maybe you want to see, put your phone inside the refrigerator and capture a shot of yourself looking in the refrigerator. Then you might have a shot of a close-up of your hand grabbing something out of the refrigerator. So if you're trying to tell a story, you could do it through a series of close ups.

You could do it through a series of a combination of wide establishing, establish me walking to the refrigerator, close-up of me opening the door, close-up of my hand on the door handle even. So you can think about a movie. Turn off the sound and watch the shots in a movie. Turn off the sound on commercials and just watch the shots. I find this so intriguing to do, especially in my industry, because a lot of times we are not distracted, that's a bad word, influenced by the sound, the music, what's happening, even sound effects.

The minute you turn that off, you're so focused on the shots, the angles, at least for me. So it helps me to really focus, like, what shots did they use to make this dialogue happen in this kind of dramatic way. Alright. So good tip if you're learning is like just watch a commercial and turn tone off the sound for a minute and watch what shots they use to do different things. So different types of shots serve different purposes.

You've got overhead shots. So if you wanted to have your hands doing something, if you're doing cooking videos, You can, also have low angle shots that make everything look more dramatic and looming. So you wanna make something look gigantic. So you put your camera down low and you're looming over it. You can have moving shots, so a tracking shot where you're walking forward with your camera.

Okay? So walking slowly, dolly, like a tracking shot. You can have a zoom in, a quick zoom. I like to call it a pop zoom. Okay?

It's when you zoop zoop, so it's sound effects. It's when you take your two fingers and zoom quick and then back out. So it's like a pop zoom to emphasize something. There's all these different types of shots you can use that help to tell your story. You just have to think a little bit less linear and straightforward.

You have to really think about what are you saying and what could really punctuate what you're saying. What serves what you're saying in a different way? What visually serves it? Love this. Don't you love this?

I love talking about it. I love teaching about it. I'm so inspired to help people make better content, especially as you're moving into monetizing. You don't wanna be left in the dust because your your other peers have so so much better video better quality videos than you that you're not getting the gigs, and then that's frustrating and disappointing. We don't want that to happen.

So what I'm doing, I decided instead of teaching a course like a UGC course or a monetization, Fiverr course or something, I'm actually giving you the tools that you need after you take that course. Or once you go on Fiverr and figure out how to set up blah blah blah, or once you go on these apps and you put in all your information. Eventually, you have to make the video. And for some of the platforms, have to post the video as your resume. So I want to help you make good videos for getting the work.

And that means what is your video saying about you? Is it telling what you can do as a UGC creator? Is it showing the brand your special skill set? You have to think that you're not copying someone else because you have a different skill set than that person. This is the same on social media.

People love to just copy everybody's ideas. Like, come on. Think about your idea, your content, what can you share, and what can you do differently. It's so frustrating that we are all always thinking about the copy mode. It just it it gets me a little down in the dumps.

Even though I could often be inspired by another creator, I would never blatantly go, oh, and a copy of that. That's a great idea. I I don't know. And I know we all share ideas amongst ourselves, and I love when people ask me, oh, I love that idea. Can I copy you?

And I'm like, yes. Go for it. I don't can take it as an insult when they say copy me because I know they mean can I do something similar? And I I'm gonna Betsy, hi. If you're listening.

Betsy actually contacted me and said, I love this idea of what you did with, I can't remember what it was now. I can't remember what the idea was, but I did something. And she said, oh, can I do the do you mind if I steal your idea? I said, no. You you don't I don't mind.

Like, it's an idea. You you can use it. It's a you have a different type of people that you're serving. It's not I don't consider it like, I just don't consider it copying when someone wants to do something that I've done. What I think is upsetting to me as a creator is when I go to someone's video and they have used my word for word lesson.

Word for word. I don't mind someone else wants to teach stop motion, you go girl. Teach it your way. But when you are taking my words from my video, it was almost scary when this happened to me because I was freaked out. Even from the little nuances that I said, like, oh, then twirl it like that, and then, oh, make it look like it's doing a little dance.

Every word this creator copied of mine, I was was speechless. I'm like, I don't mind if you put, you know, this creator did the stop motion lesson. I'm gonna show you I'm gonna show you it too. Even if it didn't tag me or anything, it just happened to show up on my feed. And it was like I was hearing myself, but it wasn't me.

Very freaky. That is copying. That is copying. And that is not okay. So there's a difference between doing something similar and you do it in your style.

Being inspired by someone and you do it your way. Very different than let me word for word write down what that person said and then put my microphone up and word for word read it or word for word say it. Gosh, please don't do that. I'll leave you there. Okay.

So last part of it is next part of it, not last. Third part is editing. And now we get into the nuances of how to put something together to create a pacing, an energy, or a vibe. Because you can shoot something and have two very differently edited vibes. One can be a very emotion I could shoot something in New York City.

I'm gonna give you a really good example. A snow day. Picture a shot of me here, here, here, here, all over, like, exploring the snow. I could have slow and sappy music on it and make the cuts, like, three seconds each or four seconds each. And that's gonna give you a very cool, like, cinematic maybe, vibe for the for the piece of content.

I could then put, like let me see. I can't think of a fast song really off the top of my head. Like like a Taylor Swift, you know, shake it off song or something. Like shake it off, shake it off, and I can make the cuts one second, one second, one second, two seconds, one second, two seconds. Like mix it up at quick quick quick slow cut.

Quick quick quick slow cut. And I could have a completely different vibe on the video from the exact same footage. That is editing my friends. And that is what I'm saying when I when I say it is so important because you can take any crappy stuff that you filmed and say, oh, I can't even make anything out of this. I guarantee that I could take that crappy videos footage and make it into something.

Because it's the knowledge of how to use the shots, pacing of how look, if it's a bad shot and then it veered off to the left, take off the part where it veered off to the left and just you could even repeat the shot, like one two. If you don't have two shots, repeat it. Reverse it. There's so many things you can do in that. You can do have the shot and then a close-up of the shot.

Have the shot and then it plays again in slow motion for emphasis. You see what I mean? Even just those few things that I just mentioned are different styles that would create a different outcome and would give a different feeling to the viewer. So you can do this. I mean, it is a skill.

I have so much experience doing it, so I felt so compelled that I need to share this with studio members this month, and that is what I'm doing. And I'm taking on beginners. I'm teaching people from the beginning how to think, how to how to pace, how to add an overlay, and we're doing it in live meetings, and it's so excellent and fun. So if you're not in it, get in it to win it. And the fourth and last thing is adding music and captions, which I kinda just said.

In the quick cuts, you'd have a quicker music pace. In the slower cuts, you'd have a more dramatic, like lyrical music piece. In terms of text and captions, that enhances and gives your viewer information. So if you're starting a video and you're trying to do a hook, but you're afraid that the hook doesn't exactly say what the rest of the video is going to be about, so okay. Do you suffer from sleep apnea?

I'm just making a I don't know why I thought of that. I must have seen an ad. Do you suffer from sleep apnea? Maybe at the top, even though you're starting with that question, you might have people that are going like, no, don't, so they're gonna scroll. You could say solutions to share with sleep apnea sufferers, because maybe that person would know a person with sleep apnea.

You could have this gadget changed my life on the text. That could be, you know, and so by the way, you could do the reverse. Let's say you start with this gadget changed my life, and then in the top it says Attention all sleep apnea sufferers. I don't even know what that is. What's really funny about this is I don't have sleep apnea because I sleep like a baby.

I go to sleep and I don't wake up till morning, seven hours later. That's me. Anyway, okay, that's it for me. I am, gonna leave you to have a wonderful weekend, and of course, I'll see you next week. We're going hard into monetization, so I am really gonna be talking on the next episode about different ways to monetize, and that is the other part of the month because because monetization, you need editing first, but the goal is to monetize.

So this episode leads into the next episode. This episode of the podcast actually leads into what I'm heading into in the studio for the month of March. And that is it for this week. I hope you have a nice weekend, and I will see you next Friday. Bye.