Editing Trick: Clipping
I tend to use a bunch of editing tricks on my videos. Sometimes it’s to make the videos look better, and sometimes (a lot of times) it’s to fix bad footages. In puppet shows, we use the edge of the screen a lot. Sometimes we accidentally include something on the edge that we really shouldn’t have (like puppeteer’s hands) but didn’t notice it while we are filming, for one reason or another. Here’s a technique to help you get rid of those unwanted things on the edges.
I use Adobe Premiere Pro
Let’s start with this video. Noticed the yellow/white-ish thing on the upper left hand corner that’s not covered by the green backdrop? Yep, that’s the thing we are trying to get rid of:
What we now want to do is open the Effect window. Under video effects => Transform, find “Clip”:
Next step would be to drag it into the Effect Controls Window. You will then see “Clip” under “Video Effects”. Since we are trying to cut out a few pixels at the top to create a letter box effect, change the value of “Clip Top” from 0 to 3 (or whatever value necessary to cover up what you want).
And then last, adjust the “Clip Bottom” property to match “Clip Top” so the letterboxing looks balanced.
So that’s how you do clipping. Notice that this works for Episode 1: Making a Podcast because that episode just has one shot throughout. This technique will not work if you have multiple shots that need to work together, which is why in Episode 2: iBottle I used a technique called cropping instead of clipping. We’ll talk about that one soon. 
PS. By the way, Episode 3 will be released this Wednesday. Check back soon. 
