Edit Video With Kdenlive
Sometimes we edit video to tell a story. Other times we edit video to communicate a certain "mood" or a single idea. For this purpose there is a powerful open source video editing application that is Kdenlive — a professional editing software providing a plenty of effects and transitions.
How To Tell A Story With Video:
What does it mean to "edit" video, anyway ?
Editing a video is, quite simply, removing the "bad" parts of a video until just the "good"s stuff remains.
What makes a footage bad or good depends on what you are trying to say with your creation.
If you are editing footage of the wildlife you find in your backyard, you might cut out the parts of the shots that prominently feature your rubbish bins or the shot of you stepping on a rake. What remains is sure to make your backyard look like a “magical secret garden” filled with hummingbirds, butterflies, a curious rabbit, and a playful dog. On the other hand, leave that "bad" footage in, and you can instead create a “comedy” about a suburbanite taking the rubbish out, stepping on a rake, frightening all the animals away, and generally making a nuisance of themselves.
There is no right or wrong. Whatever you "cut", nobody knows ever existed. Whatever you "keep" tells a story.
Importing Footage:
When you start Kdenlive, you have an empty project.
The Kdenlive window consists of:
- A project bin in the top left corner.
- An information panel in the center.
- A project monitor in the top right.
- The timeline along the bottom.
The Timeline is where your story gets "created". Everything in the Timeline at the finish of your project is what your audience sees. That is your "movie".
Before you start building a story in your timeline, you need to "add" clips to the Project Bin. Right–click in the empty space of the "Project Bin panel" and select Add Clip or Folder.
Cutting Footage:
In Kdenlive, there are lots of ways to make "cuts" in video footage.
The Three–Point Edit:
Historically, the official way to make a cut is to perform a three–point edit — count the points:
- Open a video clip in Kdenlive's Clip Monitor panel, find the point where you wish the video had started, and press I on your keyboard to mark in.
- Then find the point where you wish the video had stopped and press O to mark out.
- Drag the video clip from the Clip Monitor to a point in the Timeline at the bottom of the Kdenlive window.
The Art Of The Cut–Away:
Another kind of edit is the cut–away. You have seen lots of cut–aways in movies and on TV, even if you do not realize it. Every time someone on the screen looks up in surprise, and then you see a shot of what they see, that is a cut–away. When a newscaster references a place in your city, and a shot of that place follows it, that is a cut–away.
You can do cut–aways in Kdenlive easily because the Kdenlive Timeline is "layered". By default, there are four tracks in the Kdenlive timeline: the top two for video and the bottom two for any accompanying audio.
When you place video footage on the Timeline, the footage on the "highest video track" takes precedence over footage on a lower track. This means that you can functionally edit out footage on one video track just by placing something better on the track "above" it.
Export Your Movie:
When done with all of your edits, you can "export" your movie so that you can post it online for others to see.
In order to do that, click on Project in the toolbar at the top of the Kdenlive window, and then choose Render…. In the "Rendering window" that appears, select the format compatible with your video hosting service. It is capable of 4K, stereoscopic imagery, a wide color gamut, and much more, and all major browsers play it.
Rendering "can take time", depending on how long your project is, how many edits you have made, and how powerful your computer is.