The easiest way to edit video is to shoot it in one take.  Here on the Etsy Video Awesomeness Team, we call those videos "One-Take-Wonders." 

But you can't always get it in one take, or maybe your take is too long.  That's when you need to learn how to edit.

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In this video you'll learn five things.

1. Cut — Get rid of that awkward moment when you spaced out on camera.
2. Titles — Add text to your videos.
3. Music — Add Creative Commons music to your video.
4. Exporting — The setting you should use before uploading to the internet.

I'm showing you how to edit in iMovie.  It's an editing platform that I love.  They changed iMovie a lot in version 8 and they made it a lot less awesome.  Luckily, if you've got iMovie8, you can actually download iMovie HD for free.  I recommend doing this if you're on a Mac.

If you're on a PC, Windows Media Maker is already on your computer and it's a completely functional platform.  Combine that with Quicktime Pro for compressing the avi formatted videos that it outputs and you've got a decent system for editing videos.  All the stuff I show in iMovie will work in a similar fashion in Windows Media Maker too.

When adding music to your videos, don't use music without permission.  It's copyrighted, and having copyrighted music in your video means that you won't be able to screen it at a film festival (and in a worst case scenario, the music industry could sue you). 

A strategy for adding music to your videos is to have musician friends hook you up.  We use music from our friends Barry London, Jukeboxer, Alice Cohen, and Lineland with their permission and we also have Matt and Eric, as in-house musicians.  No matter what music you use, make sure to credit it in your video credits and link to them in your blog posts.

Another way to get music for your videos is make it yourself.  I've made a lot of music with Garageband and it's fun! I put out my own album of music that you are welcome to use in your videos.  I released it under a Creative Commons license so all you have to do is credit me in your video and you're good to go.

You can also add music to your videos with Creative Commons music.  I've used music from this album that Wired put out, and if you search for Creative Commons music, there is a lot out there. Even if it's Creative Commons, it's always a good idea to ask permission for music, if for no other reason than to let your favorite musicians know how awesome they are.

I've also had good luck with the internet archive's open source audio collection.  I particularly like old 78 recordings.

Once your video is all done, you're going to want to compress it so that the file is small enough to upload to video sharing sites.  Here are the settings I use in Quicktime Pro for export. 

I'm always experimenting and trying new settings, so if you've got a different way of doing this, take a screenshot of your settings and post them to the handmade video flickr pool. 

If you're making videos and you make things, join the handmade video google group (which we wrote about here) where creative media-makers chit chat about how we do things. You can always shoot me an email with a question, but the handmade video google group is a great place to tap into a community of video folks to ask questions if you get stuck or need help.

Looking for more video tips? Check out the rest of the Getting Started in Video series! And let us know if you're making videos!