Shotcut tutorial · companion page
No effect, no transition, no clip. This one is the empty project you open before the editing starts: a custom 18-9 30fps video mode, seven tracks named for the three cameras, the titling and the three kinds of sound, one Size, Position & Rotate hung on each camera track and one Limiter on each audio track at three different ceilings. Built once, saved as an MLT file, reopened for every video after it.
Reading in another language? Use the translate picker in the header, or your browser’s own translate command — the Shotcut filter, control, track and value names are marked to stay in English so they still match what is on your screen.
Everything here is done on a timeline with nothing on it. The footage Ben drags in halfway through is there only to prove the setup works — it is deleted again before the file is saved. What survives is seven named, pre-filtered tracks and a project frame size.
Left alone, Shotcut sets the project resolution and frame rate from the first file you add. Ben picks a saved custom mode — 18-9 30fps — before any file exists, so the project shape never depends on which clip happened to land first.
Phone clips go on PIXEL, action-camera clips on DJI, 360 clips on X4. They still play in sequence, so the viewer sees one continuous cut — but every clip from one camera is now reachable as a group.
Select the track head rather than a clip and the Filters panel header reads Track: DJI. One Size, Position & Rotate there fixes the aspect ratio of twenty clips at once — including clips you drop in next month.
Three Limiter filters, one per audio track, at -5.0 dB, -15.0 dB and -20.0 dB. Voice can never be buried by music, whatever you drop in, because the ceilings are already ten and fifteen decibels apart.
[ That’s the template I use as a starting point for all future videos, so I don’t have to build anything from scratch ]
Ben Espanto · 0:33
This is the most finely chaptered video in the series — Ben tagged twenty-eight moments across twenty-four minutes. Twenty-eight cards would be unreadable, so they are grouped here at their natural seams: video mode, tracks, names, footage, the aspect fix, the audio ceilings and the save. Every one of Ben’s twenty-eight timestamps is still here — the ones folded into a group are listed as buttons inside that group’s card, and each plays from its own second. Click any screencap, timestamp or chapter button to play that moment right here in the card.
“Usually what I do once I’m done with what I’m going to show you is I save that MLT file as a template. And that’s the template that I use as a starting point for all future videos, so that I don’t have to build anything from scratch.”
1:28 · a blank instance of Shotcut on the New Project screen. The teal strip in the status bar reads Shotcut version 25.03.29 is available! Click here to get it. — Ben upgrades before doing anything else. The Video mode field already shows 18-9 30fps, the custom mode he is about to explain.
“The first thing I usually start with, and this is what I suggest you should start with, is decide on the frames per second of your timeline.”
2:30 · Settings → Video Mode open. The stock list runs Automatic, the HD 720p and HD 1080i/1080p rates, SD NTSC, SD PAL, the UHD 2160p rates, then Non-Broadcast and Custom. Ben walks past all of it to Custom, where his own saved modes live.
“Before I even add any videos or any audio, what I’m going to do is set up my timeline so that I already have a template that I can work with.”
4:06 · the timeline hamburger menu open on Track Operations. Add Video Track is Ctrl+I and Add Audio Track is Ctrl+U, so the entire seven-track skeleton is four keystrokes then three more. Ben also drags the track heights taller here purely so the names he is about to type are readable on camera.
“I want to make sure that all the videos of the like cameras are all in the same timeline, so that when I make overarching changes to those particular clips it applies to every single one of those videos from that camera.”
7:04 · V1 renamed in place by double-clicking the track head and typing over the selected text. The three cameras are a Google Pixel 5 phone, a DJI Osmo Action 3 and an Insta360 ONE X4; they become PIXEL, DJI and X4 from the bottom up. Ben’s worked example for why: if every X4 clip drifts red, one correction on the X4 track pulls the red down on all of them at once.
“This is the track where I’m going to put all the text overlays. I don’t want it to be on the track where the videos are.”
8:25 · all four video tracks named. TEXT sits above all three camera tracks, which is what lets lower thirds, titles and labels composite over whichever camera happens to be showing underneath. Nothing but text ever goes on it.
“Foley, usually in filmmaking, are the extra sound effects that they add to the video to add more feeling to the movie — like forest sounds, or dripping water in the background, or footsteps.”
13:20 · the finished head stack, top to bottom: TEXT, X4, DJI, PIXEL, VOICE, FOLEY, MUSIC. Splitting sound three ways by role is what makes the three different limiter ceilings possible later — on one combined audio track there would be nothing to set them against.
“From your perspective, once you’ve flattened this video, you think this is one flat video file — but really it comes in on one track, then it goes to another track, then it goes to the third track.”
15:30 · clips from all three cameras laid out end-to-end in playing order but on three different tracks. Nothing overlaps in time, so the viewer sees one continuous sequence while the editor keeps three separately correctable groups. Ben hits a genuine drag-and-drop glitch around 14:40, works around it via the Playlist, and says on camera that it could be a bug — it is left in the video rather than cut.
“Rather than going to each one of the videos and adjusting their aspect ratio — knowing they’re all from the same camera and I’ve dragged them all on the same track — I’m just going to go to the track itself.”
17:44 · Size, Position & Rotate applied to the X4 track. The Filters header reads Track: X4 rather than a filename — that is the whole trick. The camera footage is not 18:9, so it arrives with black bars either side; Zoom 112.5 % pushes it out until the bars are gone, and every clip on that track inherits it, including ones dropped in months later.
“The voice, whether it’s a narration or me talking in the video, is usually the loudest part of my video — because obviously I want you guys to hear what I’m narrating.”
19:30 · the VOICE track’s Limiter: Input gain 13.2 dB, Limit -5.0 dB, Release 0.51 s. FOLEY and MUSIC get the same filter with no input gain and the ceiling dropped to -15.0 dB and -20.0 dB. None of these are added by hand — each one is recalled as a saved filter set.
“You could save this as a template. Just go File, Save As, and save it as the starter. You don’t have to think about this in the future, because now everything is set up.”
22:20 · the sample clips deleted and the seven configured tracks left standing. This empty state is what gets saved. Worth being straight about: the save is described and never demonstrated — no Save As dialog opens, no folder is shown, and the title bar still reads Untitled* - Shotcut to the end of the video. The word “starter” is spoken as an example of a name, not typed anywhere.
“I want you to see the implementation — what are the end results of all these tips? Am I practicing what I’m preaching?”
23:00 · the Bentacular channel on screen, showing 318 subscribers and 84 videos at the time of recording. That is where the travel and food videos this template is built for actually go; this channel is where the method gets explained. The video runs to 24:05 and the last spoken line lands at 23:54.
Every number below was read off the screen in the video, not off the audio. Where something was never shown — and on this video a few important things never are — this page says so rather than filling the gap.
Ben opens a blank instance, sees the update strip and takes the upgrade before starting. His reasoning is the plain one: newest features and, more to the point, newest bug fixes.
This is the version evidence, and it is thinner than on other pages in this series. The About Shotcut dialog is never opened and the title bar shows only Untitled* - Shotcut, so the running build is never stated. What is on screen is the update strip: Shotcut version 25.03.29 is available! Click here to get it. The build being demonstrated is therefore something earlier than 25.03.29, on a video uploaded 31 March 2025. This page will not name a version it did not see.
Shotcut’s default is Automatic, which the New Project panel explains as taking the resolution and frame rate from the first file you add — or falling back to 1920x1080p 25 fps if that first file is a still or an audio clip. Ben never lets that happen. He goes to Custom and picks a mode he saved long ago, 18-9 30fps.
Why 30 fps and not the cinematic 24: Ben used to shoot 24 and switched everything over around mid-2024, because 30 is smoother on the long panning shots travel video is full of and takes the judder out of them. He describes the mode aloud as “18 by 9 at 30 frames per second, and that’s usually at 2.7K”.
The exact pixel dimensions are never displayed. The Custom mode dialog is not opened in this video, so the only naming on screen is the mode’s own label. The numbers can still be derived, though, and they are — see the note under the video mode table in the settings section.
Open the timeline hamburger menu, go to Track Operations, and use Add Video Track four times and Add Audio Track three times. Shotcut numbers them V1 upward and A1 downward, so you finish with V4 at the top and A3 at the bottom.
Ben also drags the track heights taller at this point. That is purely so the names are legible on camera and has no effect on the project.
Double-clicking a track head turns its label into an editable field with the current name selected, so typing replaces it and Enter commits. From the bottom up they become PIXEL, DJI, X4 and then TEXT on top. The three camera names are the actual gear: a Google Pixel 5 phone kept for grab shots, a DJI Osmo Action 3, and an Insta360 ONE X4.
The reason for separating them is not tidiness, it is correction at scale. Colour cast, aspect ratio and lens character are properties of a camera, not of a clip. Put every clip from one camera on one track and any fix you make becomes a fix for all of them — the alternative, as Ben puts it, is dragging everything into one track and then working out which camera each clip came from afterwards, which is “just not efficient”.
On this build the track head renders the name in capitals, and it renders in capitals inside the edit field too, so this page records the names exactly as they appear on screen: PIXEL, DJI, X4, TEXT, VOICE, FOLEY, MUSIC. The Filters panel header agrees with the head — it reads Track: DJI, Track: X4, Track: PIXEL, Track: VOICE, Track: FOLEY and Track: MUSIC.
V4 becomes TEXT and carries lower thirds, titling and any labelling — nothing else. Because it is the topmost video track it composites over whichever camera track is playing underneath, so a title is never tied to the clip it happens to sit above and can be moved, retimed or restyled without touching the footage.
A1 becomes VOICE for narration and any externally recorded microphone. A2 becomes FOLEY for added sound effects — footsteps, forest, dripping water. A3 becomes MUSIC for the background score, which Ben mostly uses under B-roll where there is no voice and no foley and he does not want dead air.
This split exists so the next step has something to work with. Three roles on three tracks can be given three ceilings; three roles on one track cannot.
Click the track head — not a clip — then go to Filters. The panel header changes from a filename to Track: DJI, which is how you know you are filtering the whole track. Add Size, Position & Rotate, then raise Zoom until the black bars either side of the frame disappear. Repeat on X4 and PIXEL.
Ben scrolls the mouse wheel over the Zoom field rather than typing, reaching 110.0 % first and then going on to 112.5 %, which he says is the right magnification for this camera and which he knows from doing it repeatedly. He finds the same figure works for all three cameras — so all three tracks end up at 112.5 %, and the phrase he uses for the result is that the tracks have been “equalized”.
Two of the three tracks read Size 2,882 x 1,441 and Position -162, -81 at a displayed Zoom of 112.5 %, where the DJI track reads 2,880 x 1,440 and -160, -80. That is the scroll wheel landing a hair off the round figure and the display rounding it to one decimal, not three different zooms. Typing 112.5 into the field gives the exact values.
Same move as the video tracks: select the audio track head so the Filters header reads Track: VOICE, then add the filter. Ben does not add a raw Limiter and dial it in — he recalls a saved filter set, one per track, from Add a filter → the Sets tab. They are named SOUND - Voice, SOUND - Foley and SOUND - Music, and each contains exactly one filter: a Limiter.
The arithmetic is the whole design. Voice is capped ten decibels above foley and fifteen above music, so however loud a music file is when it lands, the limiter pulls it under the narration. The Limiter’s three controls are Input gain, Limit and Release, with a Gain Reduction meter beneath reading from -24 to 0. Release is left at its default 0.51 s on all three and is never discussed.
Ben clears every sample clip off the timeline, leaving seven named tracks carrying six filters and nothing else, then describes saving that with File → Save As under a name like “the starter”. From then on a new video begins by opening that MLT file instead of a blank project: the frame size, the track names, the per-camera aspect correction and the audio ceilings are already in place, and the only thing left to think about is the edit itself.
What the video does not show. The Save As dialog is never opened, no filename is typed, no folder is shown and the title bar reads Untitled* - Shotcut from the first frame to the last. Nor is there any use of a template feature in Shotcut — this is an ordinary project file that Ben treats as a template by convention. If you want a fixed copy, save it read-only or re-save under a new name as your first action each time, because opening it and pressing Ctrl+S will overwrite the template with your edit.
This is the payload of the whole video: seven tracks, their names exactly as the interface shows them, what each one carries and the filter sitting on its head. Everything below was read off the frames, not off the audio.
| Track | Name as shown | What goes on it | Filter on the track head |
|---|---|---|---|
| V4 | TEXT | Lower thirds, titles, labels — all titling, no footage | None |
| V3 | X4 | Everything shot on the Insta360 ONE X4 | Size, Position & Rotate · Zoom 112.5 % |
| V2 | DJI | Everything shot on the DJI Osmo Action 3 | Size, Position & Rotate · Zoom 112.5 % |
| V1 | PIXEL | Everything shot on the Google Pixel 5 phone | Size, Position & Rotate · Zoom 112.5 % |
| A1 | VOICE | Narration and external microphone recordings | Limiter · Limit -5.0 dB |
| A2 | FOLEY | Added sound effects — footsteps, forest, water | Limiter · Limit -15.0 dB |
| A3 | MUSIC | Background score, mostly under B-roll | Limiter · Limit -20.0 dB |
| Setting | Value | Where it was read |
|---|---|---|
| Shotcut version | Never shown — see the note below | Title bar reads Untitled* - Shotcut throughout |
| Update offered on screen | 25.03.29 | Status-bar strip at 1:28 |
| Video mode | 18-9 30fps | Settings → Video Mode → Custom, and the New Project panel |
| Aspect described aloud | 18:9 | Spoken, and the mode name |
| Frame rate | 30 fps | Mode name |
| Resolution described aloud | “usually at 2.7K” | Spoken only — never displayed as numbers |
| Frame size, derived | 2560 x 1280 | Derived from the filter panel — see below |
| Video tracks | 4 | Timeline |
| Audio tracks | 3 | Timeline |
| Preview scaling | ON at 360p | Player status bar |
| Project file | Never saved on screen | No Save As dialog is opened at any point |
How 2560 x 1280 was derived. The custom mode dialog is never opened, so the frame size is not printed anywhere in this video. It is still recoverable: Size, Position & Rotate reports Size in project pixels, and on the DJI track the settled values are Zoom 112.5 % with Size 2,880 x 1,440 and Position -160, -80. Dividing out the zoom gives 2880 ÷ 1.125 = 2560 and 1440 ÷ 1.125 = 1280, and the offsets agree exactly — half of 2880 - 2560 is 160, half of 1440 - 1280 is 80. An earlier reading on the same track at Zoom 110.0 % gives 2,816 x 1,408, which divides to the same 2560 x 1280. That is exactly 2:1, which is what 18:9 means, and it is a little under the 2.7K Ben names aloud. This page reports the derivation rather than the spoken figure, and flags that the two are close but not identical.
| Control | DJI | X4 | PIXEL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preset | empty | empty | empty |
| Position | -160, -80 | -162, -81 | -162, -81 |
| Size | 2,880 x 1,440 | 2,882 x 1,441 | 2,882 x 1,441 |
| Zoom | 112.5 % | 112.5 % | 112.5 % |
| Size mode | Fill | Fill | Fill |
| Horizontal fit | Center | Center | Center |
| Vertical fit | Middle | Middle | Middle |
| Rotation | 0.0° | 0.0° | 0.0° |
| Background color | untouched | untouched | untouched |
| Keyframes | 0 | 0 | 0 |
The small disagreement in the Size and Position rows is the mouse wheel, not three different settings — all three tracks display Zoom 112.5 %. No stopwatch is ever pressed, so none of these three filters is keyframed.
| Control | VOICE | FOLEY | MUSIC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recalled from | SOUND - Voice | SOUND - Foley | SOUND - Music |
| Preset | empty | empty | empty |
| Input gain | 13.2 dB | 0.0 dB | 0.0 dB |
| Limit | -5.0 dB | -15.0 dB | -20.0 dB |
| Release | 0.51 s | 0.51 s | 0.51 s |
| Filters on the track | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Headroom between the three is 10 dB from voice to foley and another 5 dB down to music. Ben points out that the input gain on foley and music is deliberately left alone — you can raise it if you like, because the ceiling is what actually governs how loud the track can get.
| Set | What it belongs to |
|---|---|
| SOUND - Voice · SOUND - Foley · SOUND - Music | The three audio limiters used in this video |
| Flash Transition (12 frames) · Glitch Transition (16 frames) | The transition tutorials — the frame count lives in the name because a set carries no length |
| HyperZoom (8 frames) · HyperZoom (12 frames) · HyperZoom In - 6 frames · HyperZoom Out - 6 frames | The hyperzoom family |
| Light Burst (12 frames) · Spin Blur (12 frames) | Earlier effect tutorials |
| Fit to 18:9 | The same aspect problem this video solves by hand on each track |
| LUT - Adjustable · LUT DJI REC709+Vibrant LUT | Colour grading |
| Fast Up · Glow Intensity · Gradient with Opacity · Obscure With Blur · Obscure With Mosaic · Picture Drop from Top · Sound Effects · Soundtrack · Text Simple with Gradient Back | Other saved sets, listed alphabetically alongside |
This list is partial — it is what is legible in the two moments the chooser is scrolled past on camera, not the whole library.
| Question | What the video actually shows |
|---|---|
| Which Shotcut build is this? | Never stated. No About dialog, no version in the title bar. Only the update strip offering 25.03.29, so the running build is older than that. |
| What are the custom mode’s exact numbers? | The Custom mode dialog is never opened. 2560 x 1280 is derived from the filter panel, not displayed. |
| Where does the template file live? | No folder, no path, no filename. The save is described aloud and never performed. |
| Where do filter sets live on disk? | Not shown here either — consistent with every other tutorial in this series. |
| Is there a real template feature in Shotcut? | None is used. This is a normal project file treated as a template by convention. |
| What made the drag fail around 14:40? | Unresolved on camera. Ben checks for a locked track, works around it through the Playlist, and says “it could be a bug”. |
How this build compares with the rest of the series. This is the newest interface on any page here, and two things have moved since the 2020 and 2022 tutorials. The project-wide filter target at the top of the timeline reads Output, as it has since 20.07.11. The Filters toolbar now carries eight buttons — add, remove, copy, paste, save a filter set, move up, move down, close — where 20.07.11 had four and 22.12.21 had seven without the set button. And the filter chooser’s tabs are Favorite / Video / Audio / Sets with a search box: the Time tab that 22.12.21 showed in that fourth position is not present, so on a 2025 build that slot belongs to Sets. The delete hint under the list is unchanged word for word: Delete a custom filter set by right-clicking it.
Where this page fits. Almost every other tutorial here is one effect on one or two clips. This one is the container they all go into — and it is the page that shows filter sets earning their keep in ordinary work rather than in a trick. It also touches ground other pages own in detail: adding and naming tracks, Size, Position & Rotate, filter sets and the Sets tab. Where those pages go deeper, they are the authority; this page’s job is the layout.
Machine transcribed from the video audio. Spoken phrasing is left as it was said — this one is unscripted and Ben says so in the first minute — and only the product and interface names the transcriber mangled have been corrected. Every timestamp plays the video in the hero from that second. Nothing numeric on this page comes from here; all of it was read off the pixels.
Okay, so it's been a while, I haven't really done any tutorials for you guys, but I have
been making a lot of travel and lifestyle videos on my other channel called Bentacular.
I'd love for you guys to go over there and like and subscribe as well, but I at least
want to show you guys how I get started in editing those videos.
And so I'm going to start from a blank slate and I will show you guys how I do it from the ground up.
Usually what I usually do once I'm done with what I'm going to show you is I save that MLT file as
a template. And that's the template that I use as a starting point for all future videos so that
I don't have to build anything from scratch and I can also leverage a lot of things that I've
already done in previous videos, especially things that have been successful for me. So the first thing
I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and load Shotcut. Hold on a second here. I'm just going to
load a blank instance of Shotcut. It's loading on my other screen so bear with me. Okay,
so here is Shotcut and it looks like there's a new version and so I'm going to go ahead and
upgrade to that new version first. You want to make sure that you upgrade to the latest version
so that you always have the newest functionalities and especially any bug fixes that they've
provided in the most recent version. So I don't know if they have any current bugs. I'm okay with
what they have right now but I'm just going to go ahead and download it and then work through it.
So let's pretend like we've already uploaded the latest version. So here is a blank instance
of Shotcut. So the first thing I usually start with and this is what I suggest you
should start with is decide on the frames per second of your timeline. And so I go to settings
and I go to video mode and you're going to decide on whether or not you want your timeline,
your resulting timeline to be 1080p at 24 frames per second which is typically cinematic or 4k
which is 2160p at 24 frames per second or 23.98 frames per second. I usually use a custom
video mode and I've already saved it here. I use an 18 by 9 ratio and I use 30 frames per second.
I know the cinematic frames per second is supposed to be 24 and that's what I used to do in my
previous videos but I've decided maybe mid last year that I'm going to switch all my cinematic
videos or all my travel videos to 30 frames per second because it just adds a little bit more
smoothness to it. It removes a little bit of kind of the the stuttering when you're panning
across with 24 frames per second. So that's what I've been going with is 18 by 9 at 30 frames
per second and that's usually at 2.7k. So you're not going to see any difference on the
timeline at this point. It's just you know that the current video mode you can see here is 18 by
9 at 30 frames per second. So that's the first thing. Now before I even add any videos or any
audio what I'm going to do is I'm going to set up my timeline so that I already have a template
that I can work with. So first I'm going to go to this icon here the three lines and I'm going to go
track operations and I'm going to add a video track here and I'm actually going to bump this
up a little bit so that you guys can see where's the height here right there so that you can read
what I'm going to add you know the labels I'm going to add later. Then I'm going to add
another one another video track and then let's go another video track and let's go for a fourth video
track. Okay so I've added four video tracks here and since I don't really have any videos right now
let's just bump that up so you can see so I got four video tracks and what I'm going to do next
is I'm going to add some audio tracks. I'm going to add one audio, two audio,
three audio. Okay and I'll tell you what these things are for later. So I'm going to go to the
main to the first video track which is v1 and I'm going to rename it and so typically when I
travel or when I take these videos I usually take three sources or three cameras that I use to
record this. One is my phone, the other one is the DJI Osmo Action 3 and then the last one
is an Insta360 X4 and so what I want to do is I want to drag videos from these various cameras
on its own timeline because their colors are all different and maybe their their aspect ratios are
all different and so I want to make sure that you know all the all the videos of the like cameras
are all in the same timeline so that when I make overarching changes to those particular clips
it applies to every every single one of those videos from that camera and so for example if
my X4 videos all seem to shift to the red to the red side what I can do is I can
make an overarching change across all the videos from that camera and kind of lower
lower the red levels and so on and so forth so there's there's there's all these blanket changes
that you can do from from a camera per camera perspective and this is what helps me do it
instead of just dragging everything into one timeline or one track and then figuring out
which which camera it came from and then manually updating each one of the videos that's just
not efficient and so for v1 here what I'm going to do is I'm going to rename it by double clicking
it and this one I'm just going to go and type pixel so so my phone is a it I have an old phone
I have a Google Pixel 5 and so just in case I'm on the plane or something like that I whip
out that pixel and can you know I take take some quick b-rolls take some quick videos for
there so all my camera all my phone videos are going to go on to this timeline the next one
is my DJI so I'm just going to say DJI right so all my DJI and click enter
and then all my DJI clips will go on this track here and then last but not least
the Insta360 X4 I'm just going to call it X4 for short and then click enter so now I know all my x4s
go on that track all my DJI is going here and then all my pixel ones go in here and then here
v4 this is the track where I'm going to put all the text overlays I don't want it to be on the
track where the videos are so here I'm just going to put text so all my lower thirds my titling
you know any any kind of text that I add to a video any labeling I I I put it on that layer
right there now let's go to the audio so a1 a1 is where I want my primary voice
to go to so all my voice sounds if I've recorded voice from from an external mic I want to put it
there and then and then the next one I'm going to call it Foley and Foley usually in in you know
in filmmaking it are the sounds the extra sound effects that they that they add to the video
to add you know to add more feeling to to the movie like you know like forest sounds or or
dripping water in the background or something like that or or footsteps and then
last but not least here I'm going to put music because I usually put a background
soundtrack on on certain areas of my videos especially when it's when it's b-roll and there's
no there's no external voice sound there's no Foley sound I kind of just I don't want
dead air and so I usually would put music or soundtrack in there and I'll show you later why
why they are all on different tracks right so I'll show you an example here of of what I've done so let
me grab let me grab just some sample ones on on things I had previously previously been working
on so okay so I went to Seattle I went to Seattle last month and so here is a video
that I recorded off the DJI DJI camera and so here and it looks like this is just the
yep
I just I just created one of these time lapses here and so that goes on that goes on the DJI
camera now I also created some videos from my Insta360 X4 so I'm going to grab one from the X4
and I'm going to drag it in here and so if if we're pretending like this is a linear video where
the time lapse plays first and then right after that it then transitions to the next video
typically when you're when you're working on it when you're working on a simplistic
you know simplistic track or timeline what you would do is you would just put all your videos
all in one line so you know you have the time lapse here playing and then you then have the next
one playing here but the problem is there's probably different color casts and there's
different there the different kind of elements that are common within one camera and then
doesn't show up in another camera and that's why I want to put my X4 clips here but when I
played a video because you know here it looks like it still fills in the gap it plays as if it's
one one track right so let I'm just going to cut that here so that we're not playing with
really long videos here so the end result is from from the from the the viewer is you're
still seeing a linear track here even though this one here the X4 video is actually playing
on a totally separate track let me find one from my phone let me see if I can find one I might I
might not have one from my phone anymore here let me just at least not from the Seattle trip let me
go to another folder here just randomly again this isn't going to make any sense but let's
just go with it okay so here's one here's one from my pixel okay it looks like me on a plane
here so again so that that one is on on that so but again from your perspective when you're
watching it once you've flattened this video you think that this is one flat video file but
really it comes in one track and then it goes to another track and then it goes to the third track
right so so now let's pretend like this long video here represents a bunch of different videos that
I recorded from the DJI a bunch of different videos from the X4 and a bunch of different
videos from the pixel so what you're going to see is a bunch of zigzags right you're going to
see this video is here and then this one and that one and this one and that one depending
on the order that I wanted to play right so so here's an example here so this so this time lapse
and and and the other videos from the DJI they actually have a different aspect ratio
than the 18:9 actually all of them have a different aspect ratio than the 18:9 so as you
dragged all my DJI videos what I'm going to do is rather than select the video I'm going to go over
here in the the screen area here and I'm going to select that and that allows me to select
the track instead of the video and so while I have the track selected I can go to filters and I'm
going to go and find Size, Position & Rotate just for an example before I do that you know
I'm going to delete that I'm just going to add another DJI video here so that you can see the
results here let me just grab another one from my folder DJI okay so let's say this one is another
DJI video here did I drag it and end up dragging it I don't know why that's not oh
let me go back into this track here let me my why can't I drag this now so let me go into playlist
I'm going to drag it into my playlist real quick here okay so I'm going to grab it and put it here
did I lock this track why is it not allowing me to do it now filter what did I do
that's weird
am I allowed to move this okay so I can move it okay so let's pretend I'm just going to cut this one
something's happening it could be a bug let's pretend like this is a separate video here
so now I'm going to move all these other elements I'm going to move this here that
let's say this plays right after that this plays right after that and then this plays
right after that so the sequence of my video now if I play it is the time lapse first
then a room view then the airplane and then another and another time lapse but what I'm
going to show you is now I have two videos here on the DJI track and both the videos are of the
same aspect ratio of course because they're all from the same camera and you can see the black
bars here and then if I choose this other video here you're also going to see the black bars
there so rather than going to each one of the videos and adjust their aspect ratio knowing
they're all from the same camera and I've dragged them all on the same same track I'm just going
to go to the track itself and then I'm going to choose Size, Position & Rotate right and then
with my with my mouse scroller I'm just going to scroll up a little bit as close as I can get
so that looks like it now is at 110 110 zoom and I know just because I do this all the time I know
for this particular camera it's actually 112.5 is the perfect magnification so there it is
so what happens now as you're viewing it from this video here I'm going to turn that off
real quick if I jump into this other video so that aspect ratio has also been fixed because
this is an overarching change to this entire track so let's say you have 20 videos from a DJI camera
all on this one track they've essentially all been adjusted to 112.5 zoom same thing I'm going
to do let's pretend like there's a bunch of videos here on the on the X4 track I'm also
going to go instead of choosing the video I'm going to go to the track itself over here again
I'm going to add Size, Position & Rotate and I think this might be the same setting also so
112 this might be 112.5 as well so there you go 112.5 I can click that off and all of a sudden
you know when I play this and I go to this other one again you're not seeing those gaps on
the side anymore last but not least my pixel here this it looks like this might be the same
aspect ratio so I'm going to go into the track again I'm going to add Size, Position & Rotate
and then I'm going to zoom in real quick and yep it looks like it's going to be 112.5 as well
so 112.5 and they've now all been equalized
for all for all the videos
so yep simplistically that's what that's what I do to get started and again once I've edited
all these videos and I've made all the adjustments I then go back in here and then I add my text
overlays so those are kind of the general adjustments that I make for for all these particular
tracks before I even begin adding videos to it and so now let's go to the voice
why do I have voice separate from all the other sounds so usually I go to the voice track
and then I go to filters and I already have a filter set and I'm going to show you the
components of the filter set so if I go here and I go all the way to sound I usually have a filter
set already for voice so I'm going to set that to to my filter set which is basically just a
limiter and what I do is I bump the the input gain up to 13.2 but then I limit how how high
the decibels are which if you look here in the audio peak meter I limit it to negative five
so the voice whether it's a narration or me talking in the video the voice is usually the
loudest part of my video because obviously I want you guys to hear what I'm narrating or I
want you to hear what I'm saying so so I set everything to five decibels maximum on the voice
side now if I go to Foley which is the sound effects I also go I also have a filter set on
there under sound I go to Foley here and I set this entire track as you can see here I don't
really put an input gain but I can if I want because what I'm saying is regardless of how loud
the volume of the Foley is the maximum decibel sound I I want it to output is negative 15 decibels
so you see the difference between the voice the the highest is negative five and then here it's
negative 15 so there's a 10 decibel difference in in loudness between the voice and the Foley
and then last but not least when I go here to background music I also have a filter set already
I go in here and again under sound I just go to music and in music this one is kind of the
faintest because usually this is this is the score or this is the background so maybe
there are times that I'm actually talking on top of the music I don't want the music to be
the same volume as my voice or my narration and so this one here I don't also don't put an input
gain but again you can put an input gain it doesn't matter how loud you make this to be
because under the limit in the limiter I put negative negative 20 and so that's as loud as
I can get it on this one here and so that's it this is how I set up my
you know all my all my travel videos all my
you know food blogs or any any other you know travel vlog or experience life experience vlog
so what you can do is I'm just going to delete all the videos that are placed in here
um you could save this as a template just go file save as uh and then save it save it as you
know the starter and you know you don't have to think about this in the future because now
everything is set up um you know all the videos that you place on on the track as long as
they're coming from the same video as you used before they're now going to be adjusted to the
right um aspect ratio and then the volumes on all your audios are going to be pretty much set up so
now all you all you need to do is think about just the edit just you know the order of the
edit and all the effects that you're going to do so um hopefully this was helpful um
you know all of this work that I put in usually goes to my other channel my lifestyle and
travel channel and I'd love for you guys to watch it because you've probably seen me give you
tips and tricks and techniques but I want you I want you to see the implementation
like what what are the end results of all these tips like am I am I practicing what I'm preaching
so I I implore you guys if if you can please visit my my other channel um it's called Bentacular
um I'll also link it link it below in the description and I you know I appreciate uh for you to like
and subscribe I'm I'm also growing that channel that channel's not monetized yet so every little
subscription is is going to be valuable for me and you know if you've loved this channel
and you've loved all the tips that I've provided for you it's it would be a big help for me
if you could subscribe to the other channel so until next time uh thank you for watching
and hopefully this was helpful
