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Overview
Brandon Baldovin
Editor & Creative Engineer
instructorI am a video editor, content strategist, and educator, and my mission is to help creators understand not just how to edit, but why video editing works.
I hold a Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering and have taught at the college level as an engineering instructor. Over the past three years, I’ve also taught video editing to beginner and intermediate creators, helping them build a stronger foundation and how to edit with more intention.
My engineer’s mindset strongly influences how I approach creative problem-solving. I focus on breaking down complex editing concepts into clear, practical techniques that creators can confidently apply. Over the past five years, my work has centred on visual storytelling, with a deep emphasis on DaVinci Resolve.
I was born and raised on California’s Central Coast, and I create educational resources designed to help others create more.
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I'm gonna bring my playhead all the way back
to the beginning and before I begin to preview
what we have right now, you're probably already wagering
that this is gonna be too loud.
Look at how big the waveforms are compared to our voice.
If I were gonna play this, the music is gonna come in so
stinking strong
and loud that we're not gonna be able to hear anything.
So again, I have my audio over here lowered a little bit so
that I don't blow out my eardrums,
but I'm gonna go ahead and hit play.
Let's talk about some editing mistakes
that a lot of beginners make.
So a mistake that a lot of beginning editors make is
that they focus on and wow, can you sure hear the song now?
Okay, so
what volume level should our audio be
with my music track selected?
I'm gonna go ahead and look to the upright here
to our inspector tab.
Now remember the inspector tab is what controls the video
and audio properties.
So if I were to click on a video track, go over
to the inspector tab and if yours isn't open,
it's this upper right icon over here
that says inspector on it.
On one of our video clips, I can go over to the video tab
and we have all of our video properties, right?
So we've got the zoom, we've got the
position, et cetera, et cetera.
I click these little reset icons to reset that.
When I click the audio track here, we don't have a video tab
because there, well there's no video,
but we do have this very big
and important slide over here called volume.
We're not gonna worry about any
of these other intimidating looking things down here.
We're just gonna look at the volume.
Now you see here how it says zero.
Well that might not quite make sense
because obviously we, we have sound,
our volume is not at uh, zero.
Well, what I'd like you to do is this up in the upper right
hand corner over here, click the mixer icon.
Now I can't remember what the default opener is,
but you might have one of two things.
It might say mixer or meters.
I would like us to just look at the meters.
So if you have the mixer on first open, go
to these three dots right next to it and turn it on meters.
Now we have one single bar over here to the right.
Now, it might be a bit hard to see,
but you, at the very, very tip top of this bar,
you see how it says zero.
Most of the time when we're talking about audio, the way
that it is produced is it's normalized on a tippy
top max of zero.
Anything that goes past zero peaks the audio.
And it's when you get that like real crunchy squeal noise.
And so what that basically means is that when we're working
with audio, zero is the max.
If we wanna lower audio, we need to subtract
and bring the audio down.
So if I were to bring my playhead all the way to the left
and play this, let's talk about some editing mistakes
that a lot of you see how we clip this zero mark,
which means our music is going
past the zero point, which is bad.
We do not want that. So again, how lad do we make our music?
Well, let me open up my handy dandy,
very official whiteboard. There are gonna be
Three very general volume ranges
that we can sit in depending on what we'd like to do.
If we want our audio to be the prider driver
of the video, meaning music video, a montage,
the audio is the thing that is making the video happen.
We can go anywhere from, I would say minus three
decibels, two minus 10 decibels.
What's decibel? Well a decibel is the unit
of measurement here for our audio.
So when we're subtracting volume here,
we are doing it in terms of decibel.
So it's, it's not just a random floating number here.
These are decibels.
If we would like our audio to be complimentary,
meaning something that is heard
but isn't quite as loud as our primary audio,
we're gonna go anywhere from minus 12 to
I will go minus 21 db.
This volume range is definitely still gonna be heard
by the viewer, but it's not gonna be in a way as much
as when we're up in this range.
If we want back round music.
So something that is not in the way
but can still fill in some of the dead spaces of our video,
we're gonna shoot for the minus 30 DB range.
We can go a little above and below this,
but minus 30 DB is gonna be our happy space.
So what I would like you guys to do is
with our volume track selected,
you can either type in in the inspector tab minus 30
or hit Ctrl z click and hold this property.
So again, I am left clicking and holding
and drag this to the left until you hit minus 30
or what you can do hit control Z once is go over
to the music track itself in the timeline
and it's gonna be a bit tricky to see,
but there's this little floating white line right here
and when your mouse hovers over it, the icon changes
to two up and down arrows
and you can drag the volume down directly on the timeline.
Now it's pretty fast when you do so.
So if you'd like to slow down how much it changes,
we can hold down the shift key
to add a little granularity when we're changing the volume.
And now our music is gonna sound like this
and I would recommend having headphones on.
'cause if you're on speakers, it might be a little difficult
to hear the music.
Hey, let's talk about some editing mistakes
that a lot of beginners make.
So a mistake that a lot of beginning editors make is
that they focus on the spectacle
of the edit over the story of the edit.
So see how in moments like this where there's just little,
little pauses between the things that are being said,
the music kind of fills that gap.
That's what we want. The music isn't the focus here.
What I'm saying is the focus,
and we wanna make sure we're hearing what I'm saying.
What I suggest doing in your own time is changing the audio
level of the music track here
and seeing how it affects your, the understandability
of what I'm saying.
I'd also suggest changing where the music starts.
'cause if you remember this
Section right in here is where the main beat
of the song kicks in.
When I say kicks in, I I, I all, I mean is
that it's starting right there, right where a lot of more
of the instruments are coming into play.
I increase the volume level a little bit.
So I make sure I can, I can hear the, the song editors do.
Opt-in is the overuse, right? It's right in here.
Optin is the overuse of, so
what I can do is I can make a cut here on the music track
exactly where the beat kicks in
and then I can shift this point around
to see how it affects the video.
So if I wanted to, I could actually have the beat kick in
much closer to the the beginning portion.
So I could drag this over to the left, grab the left handle,
pull it over, grab the right handle, extend it,
and then let's what happens if I were
to leave this at minus 18, right?
So somewhere in between this minus 12 and minus 21 range.
Hey, let's talk about some editing mistakes
that a lot of beginners make.
So a mistake that a lot of beginning editors make is
that they focus on the spectacle
of the edit over the story of the edit.
So you can still hear what's being said,
but the music becomes a much bigger presence of the video.
So again, experiment, play with these things,
see what makes sense to you.
Remember the whole point of this section in particular,
this course is to just experiment
and figure out how things affect one another.
So with that said, what I am gonna do is I'm gonna bring
this down back to minus 30.
'cause I would like this to be backing audio.
Again, I'm holding down the shift key to fine tune.
It doesn't have to be exact. Minus 30.27 is just fine.
And now we're ready to move on.