Up and Running with Filmora X

By Pradeep Mamgain

The Up and Running with Filmora X book is ideal for both new and experienced Filmora users, as well as those transitioning from other editing software packages. This excellent guide walks you through the whole video editing process step by step. You will learn fundamental video editing principles and techniques that you can use in your own video editing projects.

 

This book takes a logical and pragmatic approach, starting with the interface and project settings and on to practical examples to help you improve your editing abilities. Each chapter builds on the information obtained in the previous chapters, demonstrating all of Filmora's basics. As you progress through the chapters, you'll build a strong arsenal of skills that, when combined, will constitute a full end-to-end process for creating high-quality edits in Filmora.

 

Key Features of the Book

• Covers all features of Filmora X.
• There are 27 tutorials–complete with before and after files.
• Tips, comments, and cautions are provided as additional guidance.
• Important phrases are highlighted in boldface so you don't miss them.
• The text under the "What just happened?" heading describes how the instructions function.
• The text under the "What next?" heading informs you of the steps you will take after finishing a step (s).
• Tech support from the author.
• Access to each tutorial's initial and final states along with the resources used in tutorials and examples.
• A PDF file containing color pictures of the screenshots/illustrations used in the textbook is included. These color images will help you in the learning process. This PDF file is included with the resources.

For more information, visit Neurons Factory's website.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Neurons Factory
• Release date: Jan 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201798048

Book preview

Front.png

Up and Running with

Filmora X

A practical, easy-to-follow power guide

to getting up to speed with Filmora X

Pradeep Mamgain

Up and Running with Filmora X - Pradeep Mamgain

© 2022 Neurons Factory. All rights reserved.

Except for brief excerpts incorporated in critical articles or reviews, no portion of this book may be duplicated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written consent of the publisher.

NOTICE TO THE READER

Electronic Files

The electronic file/eBook in any form of this textbook is licensed to the original user exclusively and may not be transferred to any other party.

Disclaimer

There is no patent liability assumed in connection with the use of the information included herein. Despite the fact that every precaution was taken in the creation of this book, neither the author nor Neurons Factory, or its dealers or distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book. All terms in this book that are known to be trademarks or service marks have been capitalized appropriately. The correctness of this information cannot be guaranteed by Neurons Factory. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.

Book Code: NFB001VE01

Filmora Video Courses

Wondershare Filmora – Complete Video Editing Course (English): https://bit.ly/filmorax-course

Wondershare Filmora – Complete Video Editing Course (Hindi): https://bit.ly/filmorax-course-hindi

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank everyone who helped me get through this book; everyone who gave me advice, contributed comments, and helped with editing, proofreading, and design.

Thanks to:

Parents, family, and close friends

Mentors and teachers: Thank you for your wisdom and whip-cracking—they have been quite beneficial to me.

I am grateful to all of my students in the various organizations where I have taught. Many of them taught me things about computer graphics that I didn’t know before.

Everyone at Wondershare [https://www.wondershare.net].

Finally, thank you for picking up the book.

About the Author

I’ll keep this short, I am a digital artist, teacher, consultant, and the founder of Neurons Factory [https://neuronsfactory.com]. I am self-taught in computer graphics, and the Internet has been the best source of training for me (thanks to those amazing artists, who share the knowledge for free on YouTube). I enjoy assisting young aspiring 3D artists in their quest to become professional 3D artists. I assisted my students in obtaining satisfying professions in the 3D animation and visual effects industries.

I have over twelve years of CGI experience. I have a strong interest in computer graphics, which has helped me build skills in particle, fluid, cloth, RBD, pyrotechnics simulations, and post-production techniques. Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Photoshop, Nuke, After Effects, Filmora, and Fusion are the main software applications I utilize. Aside from computer graphics, I am passionate about web design/development, digital marketing, and search engine optimization.

You can contact me by sending an e-mail to [e-mail].

Introduction

Wondershare Filmora is an excellent video editing program for beginners who wish to make videos for social media, personal usage, vlogging, or simply for fun. Filmora comes with all the tools and capabilities needed to make aesthetically beautiful videos. Filmora makes it simple to handle multi-track editing, audio editing, color correction, color grading, and other tasks. Tiles, lower thirds, elements, and split screens are all easily customizable. Motion tracking and keyframe animation are additional sophisticated features of Filmora. It is simple to use, and the results are quick and easy to obtain.

The Up and Running with Filmora X book is ideal for both new and experienced Filmora users, as well as those transitioning from other editing software packages. This excellent guide walks you through the whole video editing process step by step. You will learn fundamental video editing principles and techniques that you can use in your own video editing projects.

This book takes a logical and pragmatic approach, starting with the interface and project settings and on to practical examples to help you improve your editing abilities. Each chapter builds on the information obtained in the previous chapters, demonstrating all of Filmora’s basics. As you progress through the chapters, you’ll build a strong arsenal of skills that, when combined, will constitute a full end-to-end process for creating high-quality edits in Filmora.

Throughout the book, you will find tips, techniques, notes, and cautions that will help you become a better video editing artist and speed up your workflow. This book is intended to be a reliable teaching resource for Filmora. It eliminates jargon and discusses topics and procedures in a straightforward manner. Every chapter’s introductory page describes the subjects that will be discussed in the chapter. The tutorials in this book show users how to perform things in Filmora step by step.

If you purchase this book, you will also have access to all Filmora files, links to stock footage, and any other resources mentioned in the book. You are allowed to use these materials in your own personal or commercial projects. These working files allow you to follow along with the author as he progresses through the modules.

What are the key features of the book?

Covers all features of Filmora X.

There are 27 tutorials–complete with before and after files.

Tips, comments, and cautions are provided as additional guidance.

Important phrases are highlighted in boldface so you don’t miss them.

The text under the "What just happened?" heading describes how the instructions function.

The text under the What next? heading informs you of the steps you will take after finishing a step (s).

Tech support from the author.

Access to each tutorial’s initial and final states along with the resources used in tutorials and examples.

A PDF file containing color pictures of the screenshots/illustrations used in the textbook is included. These color images will help you in the learning process. This PDF file is included with the resources.

Who this book is for?

Beginners and intermediate users of Filmora

Digital artists

Video Editors

YouTubers and Vloggers

And anybody interested in learning video editing

Prerequisites

No prior video editing experience is required, beginners friendly

Computer or laptop with Filmora X installed

Desire to learn and grow

Desire to be an awesome video editor

What you will learn?

Understand linear editing workflow

Edit audio and video clips

Create text, tiles, lower-thirds, transitions, split screens, and effects

Color correct and color grade videos

Motion track elements in the footage

Animate elements and create effects

Create attractive videos for social media platforms

Render video in various resolutions and frame rates

How this book is structured?

This book is divided into the following chapters:

Chapter 1: Introducing Filmora, introduces Filmora interface. You’ll also learn about Filmora’s project settings and different ways to import media.

Chapter 2: Editing Basics, explores the fundamentals of using Filmora’s video and audio editing features.

Chapter 3: Applying Color Correction and Grading, starts with some fundamental color correction skills before diving into more sophisticated color correction features.

Chapter 4: Advanced Editing, delves deeper into advanced editing features.

Chapter 5: AI Editing, looks at artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities of Filmora.

Chapter 6: Tutorials - Effects, includes tutorials on effects.

Chapter 7: Tutorials - Transitions, includes tutorials on creating various transition effects.

Chapter 8: Tutorials - Lower Thirds, includes tutorials on creating lower-third titles for your projects.

Chapter 9: Tutorials - Tiles, includes tutorials on creating titles. You’ll also learn about using titles for creating motion graphics.

Chapter 10: Tutorials - Openers, includes tutorials on creating opener for your videos.

Conventions

Icons Used in This Book

Given below are some examples with these icons:

Tip: Trimming the start and end points

Keyboard shortcuts can also be used to trim the start and end points to the playhead’s location. To trim points, move the playhead to the desired location and then press Alt+[ or Alt+] to trim the start or end point at the playhead’s location. As an example, consider step 12 above. Place the playhead at the 8 seconds 3 frames mark and then press Alt+] to trim the end point.

Note: Project settings

Before you begin importing media, you should first decide on the project settings and the output you want.

Caution: Green clothes

If you’re going to shoot green screen footage, make sure you don’t wear green clothes or you’ll get unexpected results (refer to PE-9489382 and Figure 35). You can use the blue screen for your project if you want to wear your favorite green clothes or if the object you’re shooting is green (refer to grass and Figure 36).

What just happened?

When you enable the Alpha Channel checkbox, you can gauge how visible the backdrop is. The black regions in the Preview window represent transparency. Notice in Figure 7, there is a lot of gray where there should be blacks.

What next?

The White layer is overlapping the Deep Blue layer due to the fact that you utilized identical values for both layers. Next, you will offset the animation.

Important Words

Important words such as menu name, tools’ name, name of the dialog boxes/windows, button names, and so on are in boldface. For example:

At the bottom-right of the Preview window, the Playhead Position field (F3B) shows the current position of the playhead or timecode in hours, minutes, seconds, and frames. For example, 01:10:07:05 represents 1 hour, 10 minutes, 7 seconds, and 5 frames.

Figure Numbers

Figure numbers in this book are in the following order: Figure 1, Figure 2, and so on. They are presented in the following sequence in tutorials: Figure T1, Figure T2, and so on. After each tutorial, the numbering is reset to 1. In many figures, alphabets are used to identify various components such as buttons, sliders, areas, icons, and so on. These components are denoted by letters such as FnA, FnB, and so on. Here’s an example:

Playback controls are located at the bottom-left corner of the window: Backward (F1A), Forward (F1B), Play (F1C), and Stop (F1D). You can manually jump to any frame in your video by dragging the playhead on the timeline slider (F1E).

The Mark In (F1G) and Mark Out (F1H) buttons are used to quickly mark a clip in the Preview window. We already covered them in the Setting the In and Out Points in the Preview window section of this chapter.

There are several Filmora components that do not have a name or a tooltip. In such cases, the labels are used to name the components. In the figure below, for example, because the slider labeled A lacks a name, it is referred to as the F2A slider:

The F2A slider will let you change the scale of the clip. The clip’s position can be changed by clicking and dragging the clip in the Preview window.

Video/Audio Tracks

The video and audio tracks in Filmora are labeled with numbers (see Figure 3). In this book, video tracks are referred to as V1, V2, and so on. A1, A2, and so on are the names of audio tracks. For example:

Navigate to the Elements tab > Fun category. Then, drag the Energy Orb element at the beginning of the V2 track. Resize the orb in the Preview window.

Video/Audio Tracks

This book makes extensive use of free stock video and picture resources. These files may be downloaded and used for free from websites such as pixabay.com and pexels.com. When you acquire resources from Neurons Factory, you will have access to the footage-download-links.txt file.

This file contains links to all of the stock footage used in this book. Each video on these websites is given a unique ID. Videos in this book are given names depending on their IDs. If you don’t have access to a certain video, you may acquire it by following a link in the text file and saving it with the name specified in the Save As field. These videos should be saved in the /resources/media folder.

For example, if the URL is https://pixabay.com/videos/boy-jump-dance-man-person-dancing-21827, then save it as PE-21827.MP4 in the \resources\media folder. In PE-21827.MP4, PE stands for Pexels, for Pixabay, PI is used. Here’s an example how these names are used:

Double-click on the PE-5584372 clip in the timeline. Then, in the Video tab, enable the Chroma Key checkbox. By simply enabling this checkbox; Filmora removes the green color from the clip and PI-1408221 is visible in the Preview window. This happens because in the Video tab > Chroma Key section, green color is set by default.

Naming Terminology

Checkbox

A small box (labeled A in Figure 4) that, when selected by the user, indicates that a certain feature has been enabled or a specific choice has been selected.

Button

The term button (also known as a command button or push button) refers to any graphical control element (labeled B in Figure 4, labeled A, B, C, D, and so on in Figure 5) that allows the user to easily trigger an event, such as searching for a query, or interact with dialog boxes, such as confirming an action.

Flyout

A flyout is a menu that appears when you click on a button or icon. Figure 6 displays a flyout that appears when the Advanced Color Tools button on the toolbar is clicked.

Dialog Box or Dialog

A section of the screen where the user is requested to enter information or choose commands. The Save as dialog box is shown in Figure 7.

Drop-down Menu

A drop-down menu [abbreviated drop-down list; also known as a drop-down, drop menu, pull-down list, picklist] is a graphical control element, similar to a list box, that allows the user to select one value from a list. Figure 8 shows the Blending Mode drop-down menu in the Compositing section of the Video tab.

Window

A window is a distinct viewing area on a computer display screen in a system that supports numerous viewing areas as part of a graphical user interface (GUI). The Advanced Color Correction window is shown in Figure 4.

Shortcut Menu

Shortcut menus are the menus that are displayed when you press the right mouse button. Figure 9 shows a shortcut menu when you right-click on a clip in the Media Library.

Field

A field, sometimes known as an edit box, is a form of text control that allows a user to enter text. In Figure 1, the Playhead Position field is denoted by the letter K.

Toolbar

A toolbar is a section of a window, usually a bar across the top, that