What's the advantage of creating a "Project" before you start editing a video?
I use Mini Tool Movie Maker a lot, and I can bypass the whole "Create a New Project" step and go right into editing a video, and then converting it into a new MP4 video.
Am I missing something valuable by doing this?
Steve Thomas
I can't speak for Mini Tool Movie Maker, but in the video editors that I'm familiar with the "project" is the file in which all of your edits are saved.
In most video editors the changes you make (trimming the start or ends of clips, changing the colour, zooming or panning etc.) don't actually change the files containing the source clips, but rather are simply a list of instructions that are followed when the movie is rendered. For example, if you trim 5 seconds off the start and end of a clip, the original clip is unchanged but when you render the movie the rendering engine will simply ignore the first and last 5 seconds of it as it's generating the output file.
The "project" is the file where this list of editing instructions is stored. If you don't save the project, then you've lost all the work you did and if you want to make a small change (change the color balance, for example) you'd have re-do all of your edits. Or you'd have to change the colour of the rendered file, which won't give you as high quality a result as if you re-rendered from your original clips.
It may be that Mini Tool Movie Maker has a different concept of "project" - if so then perhaps someone familiar with it could chime in...
Sean,
I am very much a novice, and don't really have experience working on a multi-day project. Mostly, so far, I've just done one or two hour sessions.
Almost every editing software programs I've looked at has you create a Project to start out with.
Here's a couple I've done though. They're very short - less than a minute or two.
I will keep your advice in mind. It will prove valuable down the road.
vimeo.com/manage/videos/756511366
vimeo.com/manage/videos/788793192
Steve Thomas
Maybe check out what they have to say for the long run dprevived.com/t/a-little-advice-for-hobbyist-video-shooterslearn-resolve/328/