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Lightworks 2023 is Here!

Edit Smarter, Not Harder with Lightworks 2023 Lightworks continues its mission to help you edit smarter, not harder, with the release of Lightworks 2023 — out now! This latest version includes many new features and improvements, including: The new Custom Layout Creation feature in Lightworks 2023 is a game-changer for users looking to tailor their […]
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5 of the Best Edited Horror Films, and What We Can Learn From Them

Editing matters in horror films. The building of dread, jump scares, and tension. They all rely on the editor's ability to create an atmosphere that feels alive. Editing tricks like jump-cuts, match cuts, fade-ins/fade-outs, etc., make viewers feel like they are inside the film, experiencing it for themselves. Editing can take a mediocre script or […]
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Blood Red to Morgue Blue: The Role of Color in Horror 

In filmmaking, color helps set the tone and emotions and can even define the genre. Color is as vital to setting the mood as the sound or the action on screen. Horror filmmakers use it to captivate the audience and create a flurry of emotions.  The filmmaker must appropriately apply hue, saturation, and brightness to […]
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5 Ways Horror Films Build Suspense and Tension (and How You Can Use Them for Content Creation)

Why are horror films scary? Let's use an example of a recent horror film to answer this. I randomly picked one from a Google search of recent horror films: The Conjuring 2. Let's oversimplify the plot: the ghost of a grumpy older man doesn't want a beautiful family in his former home. I can’t imagine […]
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The Many Faces of Horror: How Horror Films are Crafted

When you think about it, horror films are almost paradoxical. They're designed to scare, panic, or disgust us. These are all things we should actively avoid, yet it remains one of the most popular genres of filmmaking.  There are many reasons for this. It could be the adrenaline rush they provide. Or perhaps it's the […]
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The Future of QScan

Coming Soon QScan is an industry-leading automated quality control platform for video of all levels. You don’t become industry-leading by taking your position for granted. We have been working hard with our customers to define the future of QScan, and now we are pleased to announce new features coming soon in QScan version 2022! We […]
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The BFE Cut Above Awards 2022 - The Winners!

On the 29th of April, the BFE (British Film Editors) held the second-ever Cut Above awards, where they recognise excellence in editing in the only major UK awards solely for editing and post-production in film and TV. Lightworks was honoured to sponsor one of the headline awards: Best Edited Single Drama. You can read more […]
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VOD QC Requirements in A Nutshell

Today, companies have large teams of trained workforces to perform tasks such as finding where the end credits begin in an episode, finding ad spots, or breaking up videos into smaller clips for better indexing. These manual processes are expensive, slow, and cannot scale to keep up with the volume of content produced, licensed, and […]
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Thelma Schoonmaker, Triple Oscar-Winner on Film Editing

Thelma Schoonmaker Simply put, Thelma Schoonmaker is one of the most defining figures in film editing history and is considered by many to be one of the best editors of all time. Working as Martin Scorsese's go-to editor and key collaborator throughout well over 20 films and half a century, Thelma has won Oscars for […]
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Short Cuts #17: Fixing Media Offline Footage

No one can truly prepare for tragedy. One minute you're editing, the next you're faced with a media offline message. Luckily, it's a quick and easy fix!
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Why Oscar Nominee Jill Bilcock Won't Edit on Anything That Isn't Lightworks!

Jill Bilcock has come a long way since editing her first film on her kitchen table. She has worked with some of Hollywood's most revered directors: Sam Mendes, Baz Luhrmann, Shekhar Kapur and P.J. Hogan, to name a few and helped create some of the most celebrated films in, not just Australian cinematic history, but […]
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QScan's 10 Major Media AQC Improvements!

There’s a Lot to Love about QScan! I know we're biased, but it's true! To prove the point, we've pulled together a list of our top ten headline features available in QScan right now! Before we dive into the list, you can watch our ‘Meet QScan’ video to get a snapshot of what QScan is […]
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Short Cuts #16: DIY User Effects

DIY User Effects We've all been there. You've spent an hour crafting the perfect black white, soft focus, hard contrast flashback filter. The settings are just right, the look is perfect, and for one small, fleeting moment you know happiness. Then you remember that there are 47 other clips that need the exact same effects […]
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Tariq Anwar, Oscar-Winning Film Editor, on Lightworks

Tariq Anwar is no stranger to the cutting room. Over his 40-year career, he’s edited an assortment of films – from BBC documentaries to motion pictures among the likes of the Oscar-winning "American Beauty" (for which he also received a nomination), "The Good Shepherd", "Revolutionary Road", "One Night In Miami" and "Law Abiding Citizen". Anwar […]
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Short Cuts #15: Video inside text inside Lightworks!

Dark Video Editing Magic Some people said this episode couldn't be done. Some people even said it shouldn't be done. That it's unnatural to put video inside text. Man wasn't meant to wield such power, and yet I've wielded it anyway, and now you can too!  This week's Short Cuts is rapid and easy to do but […]
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Short Cuts #7: The Lost Episode — Speed Up your Edit with Ranged Markers

Ranged Markers - The Lost Episode of Short Cuts I can hear you shouting at your monitors. "What is this!? Episode 7? The last one you contacted me about was episode 14! I am calling shenanigans on this!" You can holster those shenanigans because I can explain. Essentially, I am just a giant child who […]
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Short Cuts #14: Time Travel Through your Edit with Milestones

Time Travel with Milestones Have you ever wished you could go back in time on an edit? Maybe you're not happy with the current direction, or perhaps you want to quickly and easily compare the old version against your current one. Well, you can sell off your TARDIS, put your Pym particles in the bin, […]
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Short Cuts #13: Restore Deleted Footage or Sequences

Restore Deleted Footage or Sequences Why you need to know this We have a number of official tutorials and guides when it comes to using Lightworks, and there's a sub-group of them I think of as our 'break in case of emergency' tutorials. This one falls into that category. Picture this: you're editing away on […]
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World Movie Day: Dave's Top Ten Films

Best Film Criteria Film taste is a funny thing. Do you consider YOUR best film to be THE best film? Personally, I don't. You can acknowledge better films exist. Ones with more technical mastery behind them. Ones that critically and commercially performed better. Ones with more awards. But despite all that you can still point […]
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Short Cuts #12: Get Creative with the Rolling Title Effect in Lightworks

A short time ago in a galaxy pretty close by... Short Cuts 12 ROLLING TITLE EFFECTS It is a dark time for the LIGHTWORKS community. Some users have edited their masterpiece, only to grow concerned that they have no title card for it. LIGHTWORKS Editor, DAVID WINTER, has heard these concerns, and decides to make a […]
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Why Media Quality Control is so Important and the Steps that will save you time and Money

With global delivery formats requested in different regions, you need to make sure that your media files are checked to meet the requirements for each specific distribution channel. Any defects can cause delays or even prevent your project from being released. Having one Quality Control platform in place ensures your project meets all the requirements […]
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Short Cuts #11: Editing Video for Social Media

Editing Video for Social Media in the Correct Aspect Ratio What is an Aspect Ratio? An Aspect ratio is the ratio of width to height for the footage that makes up your video. It is often expressed as two numbers with a colon between, such as 16:9 or 4:3. If we take 16:9 as an […]
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Short Cuts #10: Speed Up Editing with Proxies

Speed up a sluggish timeline: Editing with proxies In this weeks episode of Short Cuts, we're going to show you how to speed up your timeline, editing with proxies. There's a number of reasons why your timeline might slow down. Your computer CPU or GPU might not quite be up to the task as the […]
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Short Cuts #8 & 9 Save Time Rendering Video

Save Time Rendering Video Pt 1 In this 2 part series of Short Cuts, we’re going to teach you about rendering video and reconfiguring footage in Lightworks 2022. Rendering video is a fantastic way of speeding up your editing when working with VFX. As you add effects to your footage, you may notice the playback […]
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Lightworks 2022

Lightworks 2022. For all content creators. As the internet has developed and pro-grade technology is accessible to a wider audience, the amount of content creators has skyrocketed and also diversified. Where once before you needed an expensive camera to make content, now everyone can create amazing video with just their smartphones. Since content is no […]
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Short Cuts #6 The Key to Keyframes in Lightworks

The Key to Keyframes in Lightworks In this weeks episode of Short Cuts, we’re giving you the key to keyframes in Lightworks! Keyframes are an important tool for making the start, end, or middle of an effect, change, or transition. There are audio and video versions, but today we’re just covering the video version.  For […]
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Short Cuts #5: How to Backup and Restore Video Edits in Lightworks

How to Backup and Restore Video Edits in Lightworks In this weeks episode of Short Cuts, we’re going to teach you how to backup and restore video projects in Lightworks. One of the great things about Lightworks is that it saves your work automatically. You don’t have to worry about remembering to do it. This […]
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Short Cuts #4. How to use LUTs (and 5 free horror movie LUTs to download)

How to use LUTs (and 5 free horror movie LUTs to download) For this week’s episode of Short Cuts, it’s a Halloween special! Spookyyyyyyy. In this very spooktacular episode, we’re taking a look at how to use LUTs. LUT stands for colour lookup table. To get you started with LUTs, we’ve created some for you […]
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Short Cuts #3 . How to do Picture in picture in Lightworks

How to do Picture in picture in Lightworks In this weeks episode of Short Cuts, we’re going to talk about picture in picture. It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like. You take a video, shrink it down, and put it on top of another video. You’ll have seen this all over the place — […]
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Short Cuts #2 . Cloud Editing: Get Footage from Your Phone to Lightworks. Fast

Cloud Editing: Get Footage from Your Phone to Lightworks. Fast Hello and welcome to Short Cuts, the weekly show where we teach you how to do something cool or useful inside your Lightworks video editor in 2 minutes or less. For this weeks episode we have a big question for you - how do you […]
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What are Codecs? (or Codecs!WTH!?)

Have you ever had problems with downloading files from the Internet? We’ve all been there! A file might be in the wrong format, too big, uploaded poorly and on top of that, having a poor Internet connection doesn’t really help. Imagine how Netflix manages to stream their content to their viewers. To be able to […]
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Short Cuts #1. Making a Freeze Frame in Lightworks

Making a Freeze Frame in Lightworks Hello and welcome to Short Cuts, your weekly video from Lightworks where we throw a 2 minute timer up on the clock and show you how to do something cool inside your Lightworks video editing software. This week we’re going to show you how to do a…. Freeze frame […]
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How an editor controls the rhythm of a film

The rhythm of a film works like music. Beats per minute control the tempo of a song the same way as the number and length of scenes control the rhythm of a film. Every video, from YouTube product reviews to trending TikTok videos, have their own distinctive rhythm and the same applies to films. The […]
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10 Things I wish I’d known when I started editing

Video editing has never been more accessible. The majority of videos uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo have been edited by creators with little or no “traditional” training in editing. Whether you edit videos for social media, work, or your trip to Bali, the difference between an OK project and a good one often comes down […]
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Should you be shooting at 1080p or 4k for a 1080p edit?

With nearly four times more pixels in resolution compared to 1080p video, 4K is still causing concern when it comes to shooting. The extra resources that 4K uses up can put a lot of people off.  When you’re choosing the right resolution for shooting, make sure you know which resolution is more effective for the […]
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The 5 best ways to back up and store your video

Computers crash and accidents happen, but people still neglect to back up their data. Failing to make the effort to do so can come at a high price. With all the easy to access software out there, it is simpler than ever to secure your data. Here are our top 5 ways to easily back […]
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The power of color grading: A beginners guide

Not everything can be fixed in post-production, but some things can be, like the colour. To make sure your footage has the right feel and look to it, you need to know the necessary tricks and skills of color grading. Every piece of footage in a production goes through both colour grading and colour correction […]
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5 of the Best Movie Montages (That Aren’t from Rocky)

Why We Montage Show, don't tell. It’s one of the oldest rules of narratological theory. What better serves the story? An exposition dump of dialog, or imparting information through action. To put it another way, Anton Chekhov is reputed to have said "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light […]
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How to Smash These 6 Common Video Editing Issues

Whether you're using Lightworks Free Editor or you’re getting to grips with all the functionality in Lightworks Pro, we’re always happy to help with some top hacks to some of the most common video editing issues even the Hollywood pros need reminding about!   Before you start editing your footage, take a minute to think about what you want […]
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The Top 5 Advanced YouTube Hacks to Increase Your Video’s Views

You did it! You created a video masterpiece. I know you’re not asking but I’ll say it anyway... Yes. Yes, it does deserve an Oscar. But maybe, if you have to settle, maybe you might be happy with a massive bunch of views on YouTube? It’s better than no one seeing it, right? I also […]
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Our top 5 tips, hacks and best practices for when you edit your next video

So, you've written your script, set up your camera, your mic and you've successfully recorded your new video! Congrats!  Now it's time to edit, but becoming a great video editor isn't easy. Whether you're using Lightworks Free Editor or are getting to grips with all the functionality in Lightworks Pro, we've got your back! Here are a few top tips […]
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