Video Editing Terms Explained in Plain English

Objective

Recognize and correctly use the core editing terms, so tutorials, menus and conversations with other editors make sense.

Before you start

• No editing experience needed
• Optional: an editing program open so you can find each term on screen

Overview

Editing has its own vocabulary. Tutorials, forums and software menus all assume you know it. When you do not, even simple advice sounds confusing. Someone says to ripple delete a gap, add a J-cut and render before you export, and it can feel like another language.

The good news is that the vocabulary is small. A few dozen words cover most of what a beginner meets. Many of them also have the same meaning in every program, though some editors use their own labels for the same idea.

This guide groups the terms by what you are doing at the time: working with footage, cutting, building the picture and sound, and finishing the video. Read it once, then come back when a word trips you up.

Step-by-step

1. Terms for your raw material

   Footage is the video you record. A clip is one piece of footage, usually one file or one section of a file. A take is a single attempt at recording a shot, so you may have several takes of the same line.

   A-roll is the main footage that carries the story, such as a person talking to the camera. B-roll is the supporting footage you show over it, such as a close-up of the product being discussed. Assets is a general word for anything you bring into a project: video, audio, images and music.

   The place where you keep imported files in the program is called a bin, library or media pool, depending on the editor. Bins are like folders inside your project.

2. Terms for the editing workspace

   The timeline is the strip where you arrange clips in order. Some programs call a timeline a sequence. A track is a horizontal lane on the timeline that holds clips. Video tracks stack like layers. Audio tracks mix together.

   The playhead is the line that marks the current frame. The preview or viewer is the window that shows that frame. Scrubbing means dragging the playhead back and forth to look through footage quickly.

   A marker is a note you drop at a certain point, often with a color or text. Zooming the timeline changes how much time you see on screen. None of these change your video. They help you work.

3. Terms for cutting and trimming

   A cut is the point where one shot changes to another. To split or razor a clip means to cut it into two pieces at the playhead. To trim means to make a clip shorter or longer by dragging an edge. The extra footage is hidden, not deleted.

   In point and out point mark the start and end of the part of a clip you want to use. Setting them before you add a clip means only the useful section lands on the timeline.

   A ripple edit moves everything after the change, so gaps close or open up. A ripple delete removes a clip or gap and slides the rest left. A non-ripple edit leaves the other clips where they are. Insert adds a clip and pushes the rest to the right. Overwrite places a clip on top of whatever was there. Knowing which one you are using prevents surprises.

4. Terms for how shots connect

   A transition is the effect between two shots. The plainest is a straight cut. A dissolve or cross dissolve blends one shot into the next. A fade goes to or from black. A jump cut is a cut inside the same shot that skips ahead in time, so the subject seems to jump. It is common in talking videos to remove pauses.

   A J-cut means the audio from the next shot starts before its picture appears. An L-cut means the audio from the current shot continues after the picture has changed. They are named after the shape of the clips on the timeline. Both make cuts feel smooth because sound leads or lingers.

   Pacing is the speed and rhythm of your cuts. Short shots feel fast. Long shots feel calm. A cutaway is a shot of something else that you cut to briefly and then return from.

5. Terms for motion and change over time

   A keyframe is a marked value at a point in time. If you set a clip's size at 100 percent at one keyframe and 120 percent at a later one, the program fills in the change between them. This is how slow zooms, moving titles and volume changes are made.

   Speed or retime settings make a clip play faster or slower. Slow motion looks best when the footage was recorded at a higher frame rate than your project. A freeze frame holds a single frame still.

   Opacity is how see-through a layer is. Scale is size. Position is where a layer sits in the frame. Crop cuts away the edges of a layer. These basic controls are found on nearly every clip in nearly every editor.

6. Terms for sound

   Dialogue is speech. Music and sound effects (often shortened to SFX) are the other main groups. Ambience or room tone is the quiet background sound of a place, useful for filling gaps.

   Volume or gain is how loud a clip is. The meter is the bar that shows the level as audio plays. If the level hits the top, you get clipping, which is harsh distortion. Keep an eye on the meter and avoid pushing loud sounds all the way up.

   Fades raise or lower volume at the start or end of a clip. Ducking means lowering the music while someone talks, then raising it again. Mixing means balancing all the sound tracks against each other.

7. Terms for the picture

   Resolution is the size of the picture in pixels, such as 1920 by 1080. Frame rate is how many pictures appear per second. Aspect ratio is the shape of the frame, such as wide 16:9 or tall 9:16. The related guide on frame rate, resolution and aspect ratio covers these in detail.

   Color correction fixes problems, such as a picture that is too dark or tinted. Color grading gives the video a deliberate look. Exposure is how bright the picture is. White balance controls whether whites look warm, cool or neutral.

   A title is text on screen. A lower third is a name or caption placed in the lower part of the frame. Captions or subtitles show what is said as text.

8. Terms for performance and delivery

   A codec is the method used to compress video into a file. A container is the file type that holds the compressed video and audio, such as MP4 or MOV. Bitrate is how much data is used per second of video. Higher bitrate usually means better quality and a bigger file. The guide on containers, codecs and bitrate goes deeper.

   A proxy is a lighter copy of your footage that the editor uses while you work, so playback is smoother. The final export still uses the original files in most programs. Render can mean two things. It can mean preparing complex parts of the timeline so they play smoothly, or it can mean creating the final video file.

   Export or deliver means creating the finished video file. A master is your highest-quality finished version, kept for later use. A preset is a saved group of settings you can reuse. Dropped frames are frames the computer failed to show during playback, which is a sign of strain, not a problem in your footage.

Examples

Common mistakes

• Mixing up render and export. Render often means preparing parts of the timeline for smoother playback. Export creates the final file. If your video does not appear in your folder, you probably did not export.
• Using ripple edits without noticing. A ripple delete moves everything after it. That is useful, but it can knock other tracks out of sync. Watch whether neighboring tracks shift, or lock the tracks you do not want to move.
• Thinking trimming deletes footage. Trimming hides the ends of a clip. You can drag the edge back out. Deleting from the media bin is a different action, and it is the one that can remove the file from your project.
• Treating correction and grading as the same step. Correction fixes the picture so it looks natural and consistent. Grading adds style. Doing correction first gives your grade a clean base.
• Assuming every editor uses the same label. Names vary. One program says sequence, another says timeline. One says bin, another says media pool. When a menu looks different, look for the idea, not the exact word.

Best practices

• Keep this guide open in a tab while you follow your first few tutorials, and match each unfamiliar word to what it does on screen.
• Learn terms by doing. Try an insert and an overwrite on the same clip and see the difference.
• When a term is unclear, search for it with the name of your editor, since labels can differ.
• Use correct words when asking questions online. People answer faster when you say ripple delete instead of that thing that closes the gap.
• Learn terms in groups, as in this guide, rather than memorizing a long alphabetical list.