{"id":26806,"date":"2021-11-25T16:25:30","date_gmt":"2021-11-25T16:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/blog\/adobe\/five-editing-tips-adam-epstein-learned-from-his-time-at-snl\/"},"modified":"2021-11-25T16:25:31","modified_gmt":"2021-11-25T16:25:31","slug":"five-editing-tips-adam-epstein-learned-from-his-time-at-snl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/blog\/adobe\/five-editing-tips-adam-epstein-learned-from-his-time-at-snl\/","title":{"rendered":"Five editing tips Adam Epstein learned from his time at SNL"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Image source: Adam Epstein<\/p>\n

Some of the most entertaining and viral videos of the past decade come from the Saturday Night Live Film Unit. Part of what makes these digital shorts so sharable is super timely, socially relevant concepts with extremely high production quality, including snappy editing that makes sure each joke hits just right.<\/p>\n

Adam Epstein is one of the editors behind many of these top videos. While at SNL, Epstein learned how to efficiently edit fantastic short films in less than two days using Adobe Premiere Pro. Now on his own, his speed and skill have helped him maximize time and budgets for several projects across film and television.<\/p>\n

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Image source: Adam Epstein<\/p>\n

Most recently, Epstein has worked on several big comedy specials including My Favorite Shapes by Julio Torres, Dan Soder: Son of a Gary for HBO, and John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch for Netflix. He is currently working on Mr. Mayor, a new sitcom for NBC from Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, and when many productions went on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he stayed busy editing select episodes for SNL and Some Good News with John Krasinski.<\/p>\n

Epstein views filmmaking as a team process, and enjoys working with friends and colleagues who like to collaborate creatively. \u201cOne of the great things about technology today is that it\u2019s so accessible, someone could sit down and do everything themselves,\u201d he says. \u201cBut for me it\u2019s all about working with awesome people. We\u2019re playing with toys for a living, so it should be fun!\u201d<\/p>\n

Having worked for years in a fast-paced editing environment, Epstein has identified a few tips for working quickly, while delivering the highest-quality work.<\/p>\n

Tip 1: Stay up to date with new features<\/h3>\n

Working at SNL, Epstein took advantage of every new feature that could shave time off his editing process. His work on SNL wouldn\u2019t start until Friday afternoon when he was handed the footage as it was shot. From there, he had a little over 24 hours to get the edit into shape, and every minute would count.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we could find a way to save five minutes a day, we wanted to know about it,\u201d says Epstein. \u201cEveryone always kept an eye out for new Premiere Pro features. We\u2019d try things out and keep on top of every update. I know some folks get caught up in doing things the old way, just because it\u2019s what they know. But working on SNL really forced me to keep evolving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tip 2: Know where you\u2019re headed and don\u2019t over-edit<\/h3>\n

Over the years, Epstein has watched budgets for post-production get smaller and timelines get tighter. While technology helps him work quickly, he\u2019s also learned to listen to his gut. \u201cMy experience with SNL pays off in everything I do,\u201d he says. \u201cTraditional editing gigs seem simpler by comparison.\u201d<\/p>\n

No matter what he\u2019s editing, Epstein tries to start with an idea of what the final edit may look like, so he has a goal to work toward. He also likes to quickly get a cut to a place where he can share the edit and start getting buy-in for his ideas, starting the collaborative process as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

Tip 3: Learn the tools and shortcuts to accelerate editing<\/h3>\n

Another strategy for building speed is spending time understanding the technical side of editing. Epstein knows Premiere Pro inside and out, so he can focus less on the tools and more on the content.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been working with Premiere Pro for years, so I\u2019ve accumulated a huge list of shortcuts that are now just instinctive,\u201d he says. \u201cI know how to set up the timelines just how I want them and I\u2019m always refining my workflow to find ways to do things better or faster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tip 4: Start and end with stellar organization<\/h3>\n

One of the least sexy parts of editing is organization, but Epstein always takes time at the beginning of a project to set everything up to help him work as efficiently as possible. He keeps all the audio \u2014 like dialogue, music, and sound effects \u2014 on different tracks to keep them separate. He also like to color code everything so he can tell at a glance what goes where. When he uses Dynamic Link between Premiere Pro and After Effects, he creates a duplicate clip so that anyone can come in and compare the original source.<\/p>\n

\"Premiere<\/p>\n

Image source: Adam Epstein.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving things broken down and organized saves time during my edit,\u201d says Epstein. \u201cBut just as importantly, it makes it easy for other people to step into a project. Post-production is a real team effort, so ideally anyone should be able to pick up your edit at any point and take over. It makes a huge difference when people know exactly where to put the final effects or music mix.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tip 5: Don\u2019t just focus on what\u2019s on the screen<\/h3>\n

To create the best possible product, Epstein pays a lot of attention to sound, spending time smoothing out dialogue, creating the right background ambiance, and getting the music to hit at just the right moment. He finds that it\u2019s a lot easier to work directly with the sound tools built into Premiere Pro.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Essential Sound Panel in Premiere Pro is a huge asset to have for my initial cuts,\u201d he says. \u201cI use noise reduction all the time. There\u2019s also a reverb trick that I like to do for anything with music. You can extend the beat out, mix it down, and add heavy reverb to generate an out that doesn\u2019t naturally exist in the audio. Sound can make a big difference in how people view your edit.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more complex audio editing, he uses Adobe Audition to work with the audio time units to refine the timing on music. Clip stretching in Audition lets Epstein change the timing of dialogue or sound effects in a way that\u2019s totally natural and unnoticeable.<\/p>\n

Even though he typically works on a team with a sound designer, Epstein believes it\u2019s important to show how the sound fits into the edit. \u201cIf you can learn to use tools like Premiere Pro and Audition to smooth out the sound for yourself, you can draw people into your edit and get much stronger feedback that gets you to the final edit faster,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Watch the Tips & Tricks Tuesday interview with Adam Epstein and get access to host Valentina Vee\u2019s tutorial guide.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source : Adobe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image source: Adam Epstein Some of the most entertaining and viral videos of the past decade come from the Saturday Night Live Film Unit. Part of what makes these digital shorts so sharable is super timely, socially relevant concepts with extremely high production quality, including snappy editing that makes sure each joke hits just right. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26810,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26806"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26811,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26806\/revisions\/26811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepicpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}