Editing Blog: Finding New Software

     My trial period of the editing software I was using, Movavi, has ended. This isn't such a big problem because my re-edits have already been done. However, if I need to edit something after my re-shoots, I won't be able to. Additionally, because of the coronavirus pandemic, my school has been closed until April 15th. Therefore, I don't have access to the school's editing program, Pinnacle Studios. I am left without access to any editing programs that I am familiar with. I decided that I have to look online for a new one. I looked up "free editing program no watermark" and went through multiple editing programs. While all of them were free, most of them had limits, such as not being able to export, that I wouldn't be able to work around. Eventually, I found VSDC.

   VSDC's UI, at first glance, is very cluttered and overwhelming. There are a lot of different tools and icons without labels. Additionally, the preview screen is in the middle of the work space instead of in the top right corner. However, VSDC has a lot of features that weren't in Pinnacle or Movavi. For example, on the right there is a list of sliders that allow me to adjust not only the brightness and contrast, but the temperature, blurriness, and saturation of the shot. There's also a rotate tool, which I don't remember being in Movavi. There are some other features I won't need, such as a tool that creates shapes, but are interesting to have nonetheless.

   The text feature is very hard to use. Because of how many things are on the screen at once, it's difficult to figure out how to edit the font, size, and color of the text, let alone how to add animations to it. Eventually, after closing multiple unnecessary windows, I found the text editor was at the top of the screen. I added text to the intro that would help give a little more context and mystery to my film. Overall, VSDC has a steep learning curve because of the sheer amount of features it has, but once I figured out how to access what I needed, it's a very helpful program.