After many hours of work, I finally finished editing the video of my recent hiking adventures in Utah! I think it turned out pretty good for a beginner, but you be the judge.

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Turns out there’s a bit of a learning curve when you’ve never used actual video editing software. Filmora is a bit more complicated than your basic video editing app, but I have learned a lot in the past week! For the price I would say that Filmora works pretty well and it’s basic functions are not hard to figure out. There are plenty of tutorials available to help with the less intuitive steps. I made a few mistakes that resulted in some frustration, but that is to be expected with any editing software.

For example, I should have made sure I had downloaded and arranged all of the images and video first, then added special effects and titles. This would have made it easier to add the correct amount of music and voiceover to the video. Since I was learning as I went, I had to redo, copy and paste, delete, and move things in the timeline.

Using multiple tracks gets tricky! When you delete or add things in one track, it can affect the alignment of the other tracks. My titles and effects keep getting out of place! But I am learning to use grouping feature and to lock the tracks so I don’t accidentally swipe my pointer and move something.

I discovered the hard way that you have to be sure to SAVE the project after adding media or some of the uploaded media may show as unavailable even though you’ve added it to the timeline and it will have to be uploaded again.

I also had to learn the difference between elements and effects and how to use them. For that I went to YouTube to watch videos. As you’ll see in the video, I learned a lot. Or maybe you won’t notice because, if you’re like me, you never realized how much work goes into creating videos!

If you want to check out Filmora, use my affiliate link. There is a free version that has a watermark or you can pay monthly or annually. Additional special effects are also sold separately, but are not required. The program comes with plenty of effects to make a good video.

Another thing I learned was that I should have taken more video on my hikes, not just still images. The reason I didn’t do that was to conserve my limited phone storage. I took my actual Nikon camera with me to Utah, but then I was afraid to carry it on the hikes and risk breaking it. Also, I made the mistake of not always taking wide shot photos. Live and learn!

After watching, you’ll probably want to learn more about hiking Utah and rock art, so here are a few great books on the subject.

Don’t want Filmora? Check out Corel Video editing software on Amazon!

Hope you like it! Please leave a comment on YouTube!