Get Your FIRST JOB as a Video Editor!

1. START HERE! Get Your First Job as a Video Editor!: I haven't met yet, but I'm going to make some assumptions of you. You love video editing. You're still developing your video editing skills. You know that video editing can be a great side hustle or even a full-time job. You also are feeling a little bit stuck. You're not sure if you have what it takes to start getting paid for your video editing skills. Well, I've made it my goal in this class to teach you the necessary skills that you need when working as a professional video editor. I'll be breaking down the equipment needed to get started, how to sell yourself properly, and exactly how to go about applying for your very first video editing job. If we haven't met yet. I'm Colleen. I have been video editing professionally for over 10 years. Years ago. I struggled with both my video editing confidence as well as how to go about starting my freelance video editing career. I'm here to share my experiences as well as my lessons learned to help you start applying to jobs faster and more confidently, by the end of this class, you will have all the tools and knowledge you need to start applying to video editing positions right away as part of our class project, you'll also be creating a sample cover letter, as well as figuring out exactly how much to charge on your very first video editing job. For more tips on video editing, creativity and freelance lifestyle, you can always check out my content on my YouTube channel that I will link below. And you can visit my Skillshare profile to view all of my available classes. In the meantime, let's get into our first lesson. 2. Tools You Need as a Video Editor: Tools you need as a video editor. It's no secret that being a video editor will require you to have some costly equipment. But do you really need to drop hundreds or thousands of dollars to get started? Let's break it down. Computer, whether you go the PC or the Mac route, your computer is probably going to be your biggest purchase. Personally, I waited until I graduated from college where I used the school computers as much as possible before purchasing a refurbished Mac mini and a monitor that lasted me for a few years before taking the leap and purchasing my 2500 dollar MacBook Pro, that laptop carried me through five-years of client video editing as well as editing a four K feature film. So what's the point of this story? Well, if you can avoid jumping the gun and investing a ton of money upfront into your computer without the clients to back it up, you can avoid a lot of future stress for yourself. Look into refurbished desktops or laptops. Avoid buying the newest fancy as computers until you are fully committed to video editing as a career, when you do look into a computer, the main factors that you should consider are the RAM, the internal storage, and the processor. Circling back to my trusty laptop, it has 16 gigabytes of RAM, 250 gigabytes of storage, and in I7 processor, while there have been many technological advances since then, you can use this as a reference when you're looking for a long-term option that can handle bigger projects, software. While there are tons of different video editing platforms out there, some of them even free. The standard software options for professional video editing include Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, and avid. While premiers pricing model is subscription-based, Final Cut Pro is the most long-term, affordable options at a flat rate of $300. Surprisingly affordable options as well compared to Adobe with monthly and yearly options for their paid version of media composer, even though the Adobe Creative Suite is the most expensive option, I currently pay $56 a month. I'm still a sucker for it because of all of the apps and perks that go along with being an Adobe Creative Suite member at time of recording, all of these different platforms offer discount rates for students, which you should definitely take advantage of if that applies to you. When I had a student discount for Premiere Pro, I paid significantly less per month and all I needed to verify that was a school email and that school e-mail didn't expire until a year after I graduated. So I actually was able to keep that discount going until a year after I graduated. Accessories as a professional video editor, you'll want to invest in at least one external hard drive to store all of your projects because they will fill up your computer storage incredibly fast. Personally, I would look for high-quality brands like Seagate or G Drive. And you can expect to pay around $80 to a $120 for a one terabyte hard drive. This is of course optional, but you may want to invest in some good-quality headphones to add to your equipment lists. I myself have a pair of old Skull Candy headphones and of course I have my classic Apple earbuds and those were fine for me for the work that I'm doing. So if you're trying to save a little bit of money, I would skip the headphones for now. Now that you've got all the right tools you need for video editing, Let's jump into the right skills that you need to perfect in order to succeed as a professional video editor. 3. Soft Skills You Need as a Video Editor: Soft skills you need as a video editor. Now I could have spent this lesson going through tutorials and teaching you how exactly to edit video. And there are hundreds of wonderful Skillshare tutorials out there to help answer those questions. But you can and watch all the tutorials in the world and still not be able to hold down a video editing position. Why? Because it's the non-technical skills that ultimately make you a better worker and a better team member, which is music to the client's ears. There's a lot more that goes into video editing, then just video editing tutorials. So in this chapter, I'm going over 10 soft skills that you need to perfect in order to succeed in video editing and also to get your clients to love working with you. And for this lesson, I'd like part of your class project to be to grab a little notebook or maybe even just a notepad and writing down all of these skills with a little square next to it. And as we go through each one, it can be so easy to just put a checkmark next to each one. But what I'd like you to do is to fill in each square to the level at which you think that you're at for each skill. Because of course you have each of these skills within you to some degree. But what skills can you start improving upon to fill up these squares completely? So keep that in mind as we're going through each one. Now let's dive in organization. Do you have a file organization program in both your editing platform as well as in your hard drive where you store your projects. Now file organization does need to be taken seriously, but it doesn't need to be complex. For example, on my hard drive, all of my clients have their own separate folder. And within each client folder is each of their projects. And within each client project there are exactly three folders projects, this can include a premier project, a Photoshop project, and After Effects project. All of my projects can go in there. There's a Materials folder that can include any footage that I have, graphics, stills, music, anything like that. And then there's exports were all of my final exports or outgoing files can live. Now for much larger projects, you may want to get a little bit more specific or maybe include a numbering system with your folders. But I say it's better to have less folders and make it an ingrained habit rather than wanting to have a lot of different folders and end up just feeling scattered every time you need to make a new project. Flexibility and understanding can receive feedback without getting defensive or needing to constantly explain why you did something and can you communicate it in a professional manner without letting emotions take over? Can you work well with others and adapt to new workflows and systems if you're having difficulty working with others or just the thought of working with others makes you cringe a little bit. I want you to take a step back and look inward. You who's actually difficult to work with adaptability, open-mindedness, and understanding our soft skills that are indispensable, develop them. Everyone want to work with you, but they'll want to work with you. Again. Storytelling. Now this skill may come to you easily or you may need to practice it by working on a lot of different projects. Storytelling is one of the most important soft skills in video editing because that's exactly what you're doing as a video editor. Whether you're editing for narratives or for commercials or sports broadcasting, the element of storytelling will always play a part in engaging the viewer and keeping them interested through the entirety of the video. Communication and clarity. While this directly affect your video editing skills, communication and clarity directly impact your relationship with your clients. Asking the right questions to your client, asking for help via examples or for more clarification from the client when needed. Most importantly, being clear about expectations and deadlines ahead of time, these skills are crucial to perfect if you want to succeed in the video editing space, especially as a freelancer. Creative foresight, when you receive a project at the very beginning, can you foresee what that project is going to look like before you've even started anything. Are you planning your next move as you're making an edit when looking for music or for B roll, do you already have something in your mind as you're looking for it? Well, I call this creative foresight. I believe it's a skill that stems from being very creative. And it really can only be perfected by exposure to many different kinds of projects with a lot of different clients. From this experience, you gain a level of visual inspiration that can come to you a lot more easily with every project that you do. And so of course, you may be a beginner who doesn't have any projects yet, but I would encourage you to keep this visual inspiration in the back of your mind as you're progressing through your video editing career. It's a skill that can really help you out at the beginning of a project when you're looking at essentially a blank slate. And with every future project that you do, try to become more conscientious about why you are editing the project this way. Why does this editing work so well? What's an innovative way that you can send this message in the video? How can you best use the brands visuals to best sell their product or their message? I would also recommend that even just through your day to day life, you try and become more conscientious when visual creativity or inspiration comes to you. Be very aware when interesting images or ideas come to you and even write them down in a little notebook to help with that, again, consistent, constant practice of welcoming the creativity in problem-solving. Video editors are problem-solvers, along with telling stories and making really cool visuals. So much of video editing is how exactly to piece the story together. Maybe there's missing shots or lines or other problems that need to be worked around. On the other hand, maybe there's too many shots or lines and you need to determine what can be cut out to make the story flow better. Being an expert problem-solver is a huge skill that will separate you from amateur video editors. Attention to detail. Now I will admit it. My attention to detail skill was a late bloomer in my video editing journey, but I have come to be very skilled at it after again, consistent, constant practice. Now this can include double-checking your frames and making sure that an adjustment layer isn't just one frame too far off of a clip. Or maybe acknowledging when a keyframe has stopped just short of the end of the clip, a big enemy of attention to detail is rushing through the edit. And so I encourage you to take the time to review your edits as you're moving through the edit, double-check your work. It pays off tenfold when the client doesn't need to keep giving you notes about things that you should have caught from the beginning and rhythm. If you enjoyed video editing, you probably already have a sense of this. Understanding the pace of a scene or a story, having great comedic timing and even going beyond cutting to the basic downbeat of music. Maybe you're moving around a little bit more creatively knowing that it's so important to keep the viewer on their toes. And just like any great motivational speaker or storyteller, having great rhythm is key to keeping the viewer engaged throughout the video. Efficiency, whether you're working with an hourly or a flat rate, time is money as a video editor. So being efficient can help you move faster through your projects to get more done in a day. Now this of course, can include increasing your video editing speed, but it also can include prioritizing your tasks and taking advantage of your peak working hours whenever they may be personally, I do best between 10:00 AM, 02:00 PM. After two PM, I start dwindling down a little bit before it picks back up for some reason around APM, discipline and time management. For some editors sitting at a desk for hours on end, trudging through a cut is no problem for me. It's a different story. I get distracted and bored very easily. I have poor blood circulation, constantly running out of water, so I have to stand up at least every hour to reset myself for the next hour. Now, whatever you need to do to create a system that works for you and is also healthy for your body. That's great. As long as you understand that discipline is an essential tool of being a video editor and you should be improving upon it every day. Now if you're struggling with discipline as a video editor, there are some tools that can help you. For me, the 54321 roll, taking more breaks like I do every hour, as well as journaling all helped me to become more self-motivated and better myself disciplines skills. Now, how's your checklist coming? You didn't do it then I'm so curious to know what you would have evaluated your discipline skills as if you didn't do it here all the skills, again for you to check out and write down in your journal or Notepad or whatever piece of paper. Write your square next to it and evaluate where you are with each one of these skills, which ones can you best be improving upon? But hey, now that you know the skills needed to become a successful video editor, next we're gonna go into how to sell yourself to the client and what exactly you need to make that happen. 4. How to Sell Yourself Right!: How to sell yourself, right? In this chapter, we are going through everything that you need to improve upon or create in order to sell yourself properly to the client. The resume. Now more than likely you already have some semblance of a resume with your past projects or maybe your school info. And of course, a top-notch looking resume mainly comes from doing a lot of different projects. So you have a ton of experience to put on that resume. In the meantime, here are a couple of quick tips that I like to use for my resume. Color is okay. We are creatives after all. And as long as it's subtle, color is a great way to stand out amongst the competition. Utilize bigger fonts and negative space, especially if you're still working towards filling out your resume, making the font bigger and increasing the spacing can make your resume look a lot fuller. Less is more. If you do have a lot of different projects that you'd like to show off. Consider making multiple different versions of your resume instead, depending on the type of job that you're applying for. After all, the kind that you're sending this to really is only looking for relevant past projects that you've completed, not your whole list of all the work you've ever done. The cover letter. The worst thing that you can do is just copy and paste the same cover letter for every job that you apply to. The cover letter is your only chance to talk personally with the client about what you can do specifically to help them with their project, to help with the position. What you're going to do, how you're going to add to the team, how your specific skills or experience can relate to the position. Take the time to customize each one of these cover letters when you're applying to jobs and you will have a much more positive experience in your job application portfolio. Your portfolio is, of course, all the work that you have done in the past. You may have already made a demo reel to highlight some of your skills, or may be you're stressed because you don't have enough work experience to even create a whole demo reel. That is okay. I myself started a YouTube channel partially as a creative outlet, but also as a way to showcase my editing skills and get more eyes on my own content. Does this mean that you should start your own YouTube channel? Maybe? But more importantly, I just encourage you to make lots and lots of content. Make it on tiktok, make it on social media. Make it for your family. Make it with your friends, get it on your website, get it on YouTube, and it doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be out there, increasing your social media presence and making people more aware of your niche and your skill set and speaking out. Let's talk about online presence. You would be surprised at how many potential clients reach out to you just because you caught their eye from a post that you made or comment on a video. So consider your level of social media engagement. Linkedin, instagram, Facebook, clubhouse, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok. It doesn't need to be all of them, but consider becoming more engaged online, more helpful and informative, more positive. Also, treat your LinkedIn profile like a public resume. Fill out all of your experience and your qualifications, and keep it updated consistently. You'd be surprised at the amount of attention that it gets. And ultimately, the more potential clients. Now a big challenge that I have noticed with people applying to jobs is the cover letter and figuring out exactly what to say. So to wrap up this lesson, I am walking you through my thought process when writing a cover letter to apply for a video editing job. So my platform of choice is Upwork. So I am going to be using their platform in order to apply for a sample job. So you can see where my head is whenever I am typing out my proposal and more importantly, my cover letter, obviously I would upload my resume here. I would link any samples of my work in at the bottom of the cover letter. But let's just start off with how I would go about writing out this cover letter. Now, most jobs are not this descriptive on Upwork or really aren't a lot of job platforms, they can definitely vary. But the reason why I picked this one is because it is very detailed. And so there's going to be a lot that you can elaborate on. And honestly, this is part of the job application process as well. If you are trying to apply for a job and the client barely talks about the job in the job description. Don't feel like you need to be so desperate just to apply to any job out there. You need to be able to feel connected to the job and be able to respond and be interested in the work. It's on the client as well to be descriptive and be clear about what exactly the job entails. If this means that you are only applying to jobs that have a wealthy looking description that you can elaborate on. And that's what it means. And I think that that says a lot about the future of your relationship with the client because they are putting the time and effort into making sure they find the right people. And I personally respect that kind of effort. So I think that says a lot about them. Now, great thing about this description is that they talk about their company, they talk about the position, what they're looking for. They talk about specific qualifications. Even bonus, like a bonus skill that they would love to go back to the qualifications and start they're proficient in highly skilled and Premier Pro for years of experience. Positive, motivated, passionate about editing, attention to detail, communication skills. What did I just say? Look at all these things that I just talked about in the prior lesson, you'll learn to collaborate, understand the desired outcome of a project. Interests and passion for cooking is a must. I can't see that I have that, but let's pretend that I do. And this is why I say it's important to feel connected to the project. If I really was passionate about cooking, like I am, I don't know for other things. I would start off by saying that. I would say, hi, I'm Colleen and I'm a die-hard foodie by heart. You don't need to start off the beginning of every cover letter with the same professional sentence, just to wait until a paragraph down to get into the nitty-gritty. Of course, I'm a video editor as well, but I've always dreamed of combining video editing and cooking my two favorite things into one Awesome job. Be vulnerable, be expressive. Show your personality. Be funny if you want, and do that in the very first couple of sentences. Because again, they are dredging through all of these applications. It's hard to even imagine how refreshing it would feel to be looking at all of these emails. And then you come across one, feels like you're actually talking to a person and it's not just this boring standard letter. After you've caught their attention, then go into your experience of why exactly you will be perfect for their job. I've been a professional video editor for over 10 years, and my specialty is working with YouTubers and other small businesses to help highlight their brand and their message with video. If you don't have that much experience, just say your specialty is whatever you're really passionate about. And the cover letter is also a great place to address those things that you maybe are insecure about. Like if you don't have a ton of experience with Premier Pro, maybe you only have two years of experience and they want for you can elaborate on that. How about this? Well, I only have a few years of experience in Premiere Pro. I've been developing my video editing knowledge for years and feel confident that I have the skills you need to make your channel a success. This is a great vague way saying on paper I don't have what it takes, but I'm confident that I can figure it out. Now after you've hooked them and talk about your experience, look at the parts where they're talking about themselves. How can you apply your skills to help them get the best out of what they're looking for. With this position, the success of the channel deeply depends on the content that is cinematic and engaging. Dedication and passion to the edit is what separates pro home cooks from a standard cooking show. Your jobs and experienced editor will be to lead the editing process through bringing your own unique style dedication and create a vision. In addition, you will work closely with founder Mike Greenfield to creatively collaborate in the edit room to elevate each video to the highest level. They are looking for somebody who can lead the way and push their content, level it up and make it look way better. As an experienced editor, I spent years helping clients just like you, level up their videos and increase their engagement. Currently with my own channel, I lead my team by creating workflows and systems that streamline the video editing process and improve the channels quality day after day. Now, some semblance of that could work as a way to reassure this client because they're looking for a leader, they're looking for quality. It's so important to touch on that, make sure that they would feel confident putting their channel in your hands. Now you can feel free to go into more specifics. I think that it would be worth here looking up their channel and searching and on YouTube and just being very aware of the quality of what their videos currently are. I think that it would be nice to say something like I took a look at your channel and I really appreciate the care that you have put into the video quality. I really appreciate the kind of message that you're trying to put out, helping people improve their cooking ability. I find your channel hilarious and incredibly entertaining. It's definitely something that I can help with. Here's why I have great comedic timing. I'm, I'm very skilled in entertainment editing. The more that you can circle it back to them and make it about them, the easier it's going to be for them to visualize you working with them and being on their team. Versus needing to decipher your cover letter, talking all about your own experience. And then they're left guessing or deciphering. If you would be a good fit for their team, you need to tell them why and how you are a good fit their team. However you decide to elaborate it. Let's finish this up, see how I ended it. Below are my relevant work samples for you to check out and I look forward to discussing the position further. You could also say something like, I look forward to discussing how I can best help your team or how we can best improve the channel. The key here is, I look forward to dot-dot-dot. You're being positive and you're also being direct, inviting them to reach back out to you and discuss that position further, rather than saying, thank you for considering me, you could say that, but it kind of ends it ends the conversation versus wanting to invite them to reply back to you. But that's about it. It doesn't need to be super long. I think better to have it be very direct and simple rather than it being this huge letter full of all of your experiences and elaborate on that. I don't think it needs to be that I think it needs to be you selling the client on your self and your skills. And that's it. Now that we've covered exactly what you'll need to apply in the next lesson, we're going to go over exactly how to apply for your very first video editing job. 5. How to Apply to Your First Job!: Okay, you've got the skills, you've got the setup. Now, you just need to start applying. So let's walk through it. Know where to look. There is upwork, Fiverr, indeed, and so many other platforms for you to start applying to jobs. I recommend testing out each one. Each different platform holds different kinds of jobs. And so it's important to experiment a little bit to find the right platform that works for you. After a while, you might start to find one or two platforms that work best for you. But it's always nice to have multiple reputations on different platforms, just in case set the right tone. Whatever platform you choose, make sure to check it daily for new opportunities and when the right jobs do come in, do not hesitate. You are competing with possibly the entire world for your video editing job. So the faster that you can get your application in, the more likely your client will see it when you do apply. I know I already touched on this before, but just make sure you introduce yourself. Be friendly, show your personality. Imagine the client feels trudging through these boring applications and how refreshing it would feel to see somebody actually talking to them in a refreshing, funny, exciting way that gets them excited about the hiring process and about the position. Consider your niche. There are certain passions that I have or just things that I love that have nothing to do with video editing. They can range from animals to weddings, to Halloween, to coffee, to the environment. And I'm sure that you have your own list two. And wouldn't it be nice if you can combine your favorite things in the world with video editing to create the ultimate job experience while UK. Now, I'm not saying to only exclude yourself to projects that you're passionate about, but when you're looking for editing work, consider just searching the word coffee or animals. You might be surprised at what might come up in your search that has to do with video editing and your favorite things. And if you can connect on this level towards a project, you can express that to the client and maybe even have a better chance of getting that job. Now, let's discover your niche. Pull my notebook back out because I wanted and to do some self-reflecting here to discover what your ideal niche or niches would be. If you could help create a video advertising a local business in your area, what would that be? What store would that be? What kind of stories it what do they sell? What's a local business that you would love to help with your video editing. Or how about this? What are some of your passions outside of video editing? This can include hobbies or just things that you like. What's the reason that you decided to do video editing? Was it for the storytelling? Was a tomake, awesome graphics. Was it to edit a specific genre of movie? Think about the ultimate dream for you. What would you combine video editing with to make that happen? Now we've got you applying for the right kinds of jobs. In the next lesson we are going over your rate and how to best decide on it, as well as some other money complications. See you there. 6. How to Charge for your Video Editing: The first question, of course, to start off our rate discussion is, how do I know it's charge? When you're first starting out, it can be difficult to know what to charge until you start getting paid and you can start comparing other job offers. Now if you are looking for a local video editing job, you're gonna wanna do some research based off of your location to get some insight on the average rate for that area. But we are in a remote world now. So let's just assume you'll be working remotely. I would recommend going on Upwork or your platform of choice and looking at the rates offered on different jobs, find the ones that suit your skill level and see if there's a pattern of the rate of those clients and what they can afford. When you're starting out, you may need to play the game a little bit. You may need to take a job a little bit lower than what you think you deserve, just to be able to get your foot in the door and start gaining more experience. For example, my very first remote video editing job was a small Upwork job that I took for $10, not $10 an hour. $10. I wanted to get the experience. I wanted to make sure I would book the job. It required very little work and I got a five-star review out of it, what they asked for a flat rate. Now firing rates can be tricky if you're just starting out. It can be difficult to estimate how long a project is going to take you there by calculating what your hourly rate would kind of look like. It's easier to get ripped off with a flat rate if you don't know your hourly estimate or if you do know your hourly estimate. And because of extra client nodes, the work actually takes you longer than the amount of time that you've allotted. They're not always bad. If this is your first job and you don't have that insight yet, then a flat rate could actually work out as a benefit to you. Maybe your video editing speed isn't up to par yet, or maybe you're going to be taking longer looking at video editing tutorials, thereby just extending the whole process. Well, this is a flat rate, so the client has no idea how long this project is going to take you versus needing to account for all of your hours. If you're working in hourly rate with a flat rate, you don't need to stress about the amount of hours and you can just solely focus on doing the work as long as the work isn't taking days, weeks, months to do, and it's done and an amount of time that the client is comfortable with, then you don't need to stress about the nitty-gritty of getting it done in an hour faster than you think you estimated for them. Now let's say you decided on a beginning rate for yourself. How do you know when you can raise your rate? A previous version of me might have said to raise your rate every six months or maybe a year. But I think truly, you can start raising your rate with every project that you do. You could consider raising your rate $5 for every project that you do. The worst-case scenario is that the customer is going to say, That's too much. What can you do for cheaper, but that's exactly how all business operates. You have to test the market in order to progress in your career. So why don't you try raising your rate $5 for every different client that you work with and just see how far you can go until you start getting a no. Now let's find your rate. I'm going to walk you through what I would do if I were looking to figure out what my rates should be, like I mentioned before, a great way to figure out your way is to simply go on your platform of choice minus Upwork and looking for jobs that you think that you could do. Frankly, seeing what that client would offer as far as payment goes and seeing a pattern there. While of course you shouldn't allow yourself to only be priced by the client. And eventually you're going to want to put your own price on yourself. This is a great way to get yourself started to see what exactly the market going rate is for your skills. So let's go into it. I'm going to search video editor. And maybe if I'm just starting out, I'm going to hit entry level just to kind of break it down a little bit more. Here's one Facebook ad video editing, looking for a video editor with experience creating video ads for social media, there's a flat rate of a $100. So that could be kind of vague depending on how long you think it will take you. But remember what we said about flat rates, that they can be beneficial depending on if you are truly a beginner editing something like Facebook ads. And you might take a little bit longer than you think somebody with more intermediate experience would have, but that's something to consider. Do you have experience editing a Facebook ad? Well, if you do, you might be worth a $100. Here is a great one video editor for social media influencer videos. I'm in need of a video editor to subtitle and edit my short, less than three minute videos for social media, this work does not require creativity or artistic choices to be made, just following very clear directions made by me for each video. So this is. Very descriptive description of what this client is looking for. Do you think that you could do this kind of work? It doesn't require any artistic direction or creativity. It's just simply following directions, writing subtitles, editing down media. She even list examples for you to see what she's looking for. Sounds very cut and dry. What does she charging? 15 to 25 dollars an hour. This gives you a good idea of what an entry-level position could look like. 15 to 25 dollars an hour. Here we go. Video editor, entry level 20 to $38 an hour. Again, this is so broad. That's a that's a 20 dollar difference. You could go either way from there. I know they, you know, they put in a range. I'm sure that they're hoping that you select 20 dollar. Feel free to put in whatever you'd like. If you are just starting out, maybe you want to consider going on the lower end in order to just get the experience going to leave that one up to you. But as far as what this would entail, we'll splice raw footage together for a variety of sources, edit video and audio projects, and help with the collection of stock footage must have three years plus of video editing experience. It's sounding like when they want some experience, they are willing to offer 20 to $38 an hour. However, for an entry-level position, it's possible they're looking for something more in the 15 to 25 dollar range. Here's another job, quick video editing, entry level, $300 fixed price, need to have at least one, maybe two to three stock videos edited with specific brand wording and visual elements that represent our brand. We will provide the source files as well as the brand elements and copy the needs to be updated. Sounds like a relatively basic job that could be a great option for you. So this is a great thing to keep in mind. As far as flat rates go, $300 could be a good option for something like this. Again, it's gonna be hard to guesstimate exactly how long this will take you, especially because they are rather vague when it comes to the actual work entailed. And here's one more entry level job, $20 to $40 this client is offering, and they are pretty specific about what they're looking for. They are looking for someone who can be streamlined and budget conscious because it's probably a long-term gig. And then looking for short teaser type videos quick one topic videos and deep dive videos of 15 minutes or longer within topic areas. So it sounds like a lot of different videos, possibly long-term gig, even though they said less than one month for the project lane. But the video editing maybe rather basic depending on what they're looking for. So this could be a great option for you, again, $20 to $40, assuming that they want to stay budget conscious, I would lean towards the lower end if you were trying to determine what your rate is. Now that we figured out your rate, check out the next lesson for some very important tips to keep in mind on your journey as a professional video editor. 7. Final Tips for Going Pro: Final tips. Before you go out into the world with all of your new founded editing, confidence and knowledge. Keep these tips in mind. Always be improving. Don't feel like you need to know everything all at once. But what you do need to have constantly is an eagerness to learn as you go. If you're working on your video editing speed, then every day as you're progressing, you need to keep in the back of your head. Is there a faster way that I can be doing this if you're working on learning sound editing or After Effects, immerse yourself in the kinds of projects challenge you to improve yourself. And these areas apply to jobs that make you a little bit uncomfortable so that you have to look up these tutorials that you've been putting off, always having improvement in the back of your head is a great way to improve your video editing confidence by challenging yourself to grow every day. Utilize contexts clues when working with clients, I use context clues in my daily life to decipher what my client is looking for. Now this of course comes from being a very good listener, but also utilizing that creative for site that I mentioned earlier to let creativity spark images and ideas pertaining to what the client is looking for. So that when the client is awkwardly telling you what they think they might want for their project, but they don't really know how to describe it. You can listen to them. You can visualize what they are looking for and what they are talking about and essentially decipher their ideas for them. Now this can take a lot of practice, but it can help significantly when it comes to building a relationship with your client and becoming a really amazing person to work with. Have fixed skin. There may be times in your video editing journey when you may spend hours, days on a mock-up or a project or just an idea for a client under a certain assumption of what that idea might be only defined that the client has now changed their mind and thus throwing it out the window. And you have to pretend that that is okay. You have to pretend like you didn't just put your entire heart and soul into this work for them, you have to pretend like you're not offended. They looked at your awesome work and thought, No, actually, I wanted to do something else because at the end of the day, while you are working with the client, you are also working for the client and any decision-making when it comes to the creative, does fall into the client's hands. It's important to not only be able to pick yourself back up and start all over if need be. But also be able to create something that you don't necessarily like in the case that that's what the client is looking for. And the key here is to do it with a smile on your face with the same enthusiasm that you started the project with. It can be really tough, but it is important to keep that in mind in the case that you wanted to continue this relationship with the client, joined Facebook communities. A great way to improve your video editing confidence is to be around like-minded individuals. And there are a ton of different Facebook groups depending on what software you're using or what kind of video editing you're doing. And there are people that can help you with advice. And as you progress in your skills and your knowledge, there are people that you can help with your advice and skills and knowledge. Helping other video editors is a huge boost to the confidence. And hopefully it inspires you to keep growing in your craft so that you can work towards that professional video editing career. Create your own content. I know I touched on this a little earlier in the lesson, but ever since I started creating my own content, my video editing confidence has gone through the roof and the amount of potential client work and just other work opportunities has totally skyrocketed. And especially as video editors, it can be really tough to be able to take hold of our own creative content. Because normally we're editing for other people, were taking other people's content and turning it into something awesome. It's pretty rare that we're actually creating our own content. So anyway, that you can do this for yourself, whether it's starting a YouTube channel or just creating more graphics just for fun, not for paid work, but just because it's fun for you, the more fulfilled you'll feel as an editor. And also the more you'll be able to practice your skills. 8. Congratulations! What's Next?: And now, aren't you so happy that you spent this time growing as a professional video editor. I hope that by now you're feeling motivated and ready to start applying to these video editing jobs. But most importantly, I'd like to point out to you that you're already ahead in this journey. Many aspiring video editors just wait for the opportunities or the money to come to them. And here you are being intentional about learning the skills needed, actually make it happened. So congratulations. Now I challenge you to take the leap and actually apply for your first or your next job, whether it's on Upwork or fiber or a full website application, use these skills to sell yourself to the client and put your best foot forward on your job hunting journey. For more tips on video editing, creativity, and freelance lifestyle. Be sure to check out my YouTube channel that I will link below. And you can always check out my Skillshare profile to view all of my available classes. Again, I'm Colleen. Good luck to you, and I'll see you in the next class.