Best Video Editing Exercise For Emotion (Challenge)

The best editors will tell you that emotion is the most important criteria for video editing. But none of them are telling you HOW to practice it. Today, that’s going to change.

I’ve been a pro editor for over 20 years and I’ve developed an exercise that will give you a tangible way to practice editing for emotion.

First a little background: in his book, In the Blink of an Eye (affiliate), legendary editor Walter Murch shares his six criteria for successful editing. First on that list is emotion. Not only is it first, but he gives it a weight of 51%. And he's not necessarily talking about the emotion of the characters within the scene, but rather the emotion of the audience watching.

But how do we practice something so elusive?

Well, I think that we need to edit like therapists.

So before I reveal the practical exercise, we need to talk a bit about emotion.

I think we need to expand our minds a bit and talk about different types of emotions. If you’re like me when I started editing, I had a pretty limited vocabulary when it came to emotion. I was either trying to make the viewer feel happy, sad, excited, or maybe anxious. If you’re just getting started, that may be all you need, but progressing in your edits means becoming more nuanced in being able to name (and even feel) the emotion you’re targeting.

 So what if instead of trying to make your audience feel happy, you tried to make them feel calm, or peaceful, or delighted? Maybe even inspired, satisfied, or safe?

Instead of trying to make them feel sad, you tried to make them feel heartbroken, lonely, anxious, or edgy.

Instead of excited, you aimed for confident, determined, energized, or playful.

Instead of anxious, you wanted to make them feel irritated, impatient, agitated, or overwhelmed.

Zeroing in on more specific emotions will lead you to a better result in your edits.

Now for the exercise. I’m going to use a group of six shots I’ve downloaded from Artlist—check out the link in this week's YouTube video description (this one is called “Architect At Work” found by searching their stories).

I’m going to edit them into two short scenes targeting two different emotions.

In one version, I’m targeting the emotion of playfulness. In the other version, I’m targeting inspiration.

Now that I know what I’m targeting, what are the different decisions I can make to steer the audience’s emotion toward my target?

In this example I will be working with:

• Story (shot order)

• Rhythm (shot length and overall pacing)

• Sound (music and sound effects)

• Action (in and out points of each shot)

Check out the first scene where I targeted INSPIRATION, and below I’ll share some of my thought process.

In this version of the scene I wanted to tell the story of an architect building an impressive model. I started with the architect and then showed details of his work. The music adds some gravity and the sound effects mostly focus on the space itself.

What emotions did this evoke for you? Did you feel inspired by the architect in the scene? Let me know in the YouTube comments section.

Then check out version two where I wanted to evoke a sense of PLAYFULNESS.

In this version of the scene I wanted to tell the story of the model itself, as if it's coming to life and I didn’t reveal its maker until the very end. The score has a lighthearted feel and the sound design is meant to bring the actual model to life, rather than focusing on the space itself.

The overall rhythm of each scene is actually pretty close, but I let each music track guide my edit points. Also, you’ll notice that some of my in and out points of certain shots are quite different—like the shot of the car in the garage.

And as for the car in traffic, I actually reversed the shot in the “inspiration” scene so it went from the person to the cars. In the playful version I started on the cars and then revealed the person.

I think all of these small changes have a cumulative effect.

What did this version of the scene make you feel? Let me know in the comments.

Whether you’re just starting out, or you’re a seasoned pro, I think this exercise will help you build the skill of targeting specific emotions. I actually really enjoyed the challenge myself.

Austen is an ADDY award-winning film & commercial editor with over 20 years of experience. He has worked with global brands like Meta, KPMG, SAP, and Christianity Today. His PSA work has championed causes like school safety (with Matthew McConaughey), driving safety, and anti-tobacco. A thought leader in the editing field, his online lessons quickly amassed over 100K views after launch.