For a long time now, I’ve been asking myself, do I listen to too much music? Do I rely on it too much to dictate my mood? And if I’m feeling this way, are there loads of other people feeling the same?

So, I removed music from my life for an entire month – AKA NO music, NO podcasts, and NO headphones for 30 days.

The crazy thing is, making this video genuinely led to a life-changing event for me. And that’s not clickbait, it really did. Also, I did some really cool edits that I reckon you guys are going to love. Check it out below.

As mentioned in the video, I’ve launched a new Patreon where I’m doing live Q&As, answering all your editing questions.

I’ve already done two sessions where I talked about landing editing jobs, making showreels, and diving deep into the timelines for some of my videos. If you want to see how I made that cool transition of me putting my headphones on outside to suddenly being in the sunken place, then check out the new Q&A here.

I’m going to be doing another one in a couple of weeks, answering more of your questions – so if you want to hang out with me, be sure to subscribe to the Patreon here.

I really hope you like the new video; it really was the toughest challenge I’ve ever done, and I hope it inspires you to think about your relationship with music.

Now, get outta here! See you on Patreon! Happy editing!

Fin

Ever wanted to ask me your editing questions directly? Or wanted to get behind-the-scenes insights on my editing? Well, now you can!

I have started a new Patreon tier where I'll be hosting monthly live Q&As answering all your biggest questions about Premiere Pro, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, YouTube, the making of my most recent videos, and more. Nothing editing-related is off the cards!

Plus, by joining my Patreon, you will also get access to the jobs board on the Finisverse Discord. Here’s a video (featuring an annoying guest) explaining a bit more:

Click this link to join my Patreon.

If you do subscribe, here’s how it works: a week before each Q&A, I will post a message on Patreon announcing when the stream is going live. You can then post your questions under that thread, and I will answer those questions during the stream. I will then answer any questions posted during the stream itself!

Each stream will be roughly an hour in length, and don’t worry if you miss it – each one will be archived on Patreon, where you can watch and rewatch in the future. And if you decide to join my Patreon in the future, you will have access to all prior recordings from the start.

The current price of the Patreon Q&A tier – called Student Fin – is £7/$9 a month, and every subscription goes a long way to supporting my channel and keeps us making awesome videos.

So join me on Patreon, where I’ve just announced the start date of my first stream. Looking forward to answering all your editing questions!

Fin

This week, I launched what’s quickly become my most controversial video yet – even more controversial than the time I said Premiere Pro was better than DaVinci Resolve.

I made a video about how you can use A.I. in your video workflow whilst not making generic slop. I offered three key examples: creating decent transitions, masking, and background enhancement.

What I didn’t realise was that some people would completely misunderstand why I made this video and how it’s critical of generative A.I. It’s been a real learning journey for me posting this, but it’s something I feel really proud of and stand by as a video.

Before anything else, if you haven’t yet, watch the video below – it’s 12 minutes that I put a lot of work into, trying to make a tutorial that also tells a funny story that’s relevant to the topic. Check it out here:

First things first, I do not think the generative A.I. scenes in this video look good. In fact, they’re there to show how rubbish generative A.I. looks – and that’s why Teacher Fin is shooting them down, one by one. The cyborgs/robots are meant to represent the slop machines that are out there in the world, and I’m shooting them down. That’s also why I literally start the video saying, “I hate A.I. slop,” and why Teacher Fin says at the end, “Let’s never do that again” after becoming A.I. for a second.

Second, this video had every opportunity to be sponsored by multiple A.I. companies, but we decided to say hell NO to that. We wanted to focus on real-world use cases for A.I. and how annoying some of these “magic” A.I. tools can be. Which is why, after talking about Higgsfield being used for transitions, I criticise the company’s pricing and say that it’s not worthwhile. And I know some people will say almost the opposite: that Higgsfield can be used for more than just transitions. Sure, but that stuff looks rubbish to me, and this was the only good thing I could actually get out of it.

I almost cut that transition segment out of the video, but I didn’t because I wanted to show the reality of using Higgsfield. It’s annoying to use, overpriced and, at the end of the day, it’s slop. Do I recommend it? No. But the video shows what I think is the most interesting use case for it! Sometimes it looks fine, but most of the time, it doesn’t. I think most people watching will think, “Yeah… I’ll save my money”. Which I’ll be happy about.

To add to that, some people have criticised the video for using A.I. to fill in backgrounds of scenes or make transitions, and pointed out that you can do that stuff in real life. I totally agree with that – but so many of us YouTubers do not have the budget for set designers, or even a cameraman! We’re not Hollywood studios who can afford more people than just ourselves, so replacing backgrounds using A.I. is a simple and effective way of making a scene look better. I even say in the video, while talking about masking, that masking is good for solo videos where you’re the only actor, because, again, it’s a useful tool for YouTubers like us.

Of course, it’s not an ideal situation using A.I. to enhance backgrounds. If I had the budget, I would have loved to make my house look post-apocalyptic, but that’s just not realistic. Using Photoshop, I could at least make my house fit the theme of the video a little better, and still keep some soul in the scene. BUT it would have looked a million times better if I could have afforded to have real people design the set!

I’ve been thinking about this video for a long while now, and I stand by what’s in it. I also think it would be tricky to be in the editing space and not talk about A.I. because it’s coming for everyone, whether we like it or not. What I can at least try and do is point people in a direction that uses A.I. in a way that retains some soul, rather than making slop. And, in the process, I can hopefully put people off making slop by saying how awful it is!

Salesman Fin showing you he’s real…

Also, upon reflection, something I do wish I had done in the video was create an alternative transition manually which showed how you could do that for free. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen in the final video – but it’s something I can see retrospectively would have worked a lot better to enhance the point of not needing to use generative A.I.

Anyway, this has been a huge topic, and I really hope people will look beyond just dismissing this video because it talks about A.I. I’ve tried really hard to find that middle ground of being critical and finding real use cases for A.I. that can help editors – and tried to do it in a fun way. Because filming with Teacher Fin and Salesman Fin in one video… That’s like Avengers: Endgame for my channel! If only Detective Fin had been there to join in…

Thanks for reading this one and watching the video! If you like it, give it a like on YouTube and drop a comment. And then get outta here! Happy editing!

Fin

After the amazing reception to the last “How To” video, I’ve been working my socks off to make a new video that’s just as epic.

Well, I think I’ve done it: I spent a week making a game with no experience. And not just any game – I made the Editing Simulator, a WarioWare-inspired educational game that helps you learn Premiere Pro shortcuts!

Best of all, if you’re on Windows, you can play it right now for free!

Ok, before you get too excited, a disclaimer: the game is… ok. I mean, it was made in a week in Godot, a software I hadn’t even heard of before I started. But it’s free, and if you get enough coins, you can unlock some fun sprite art.

Here’s the video on exactly how I made the Editing Simulator:

If, after watching that, you want to have a go, you can download the game right here from my website. There’s information on that page on how to get it running.

This one was a really fun challenge, and one I started full of huge dreams for what the game could be. I didn’t accomplish anywhere near everything I wanted to, but I’m really happy with the result, and it was really interesting to see how much crossover there was between editing and game creation. However, the biggest lesson I learned was just how difficult it is to make any game. I have so much respect for any solo developers out there.

Also, in some news from Finzar HQ, I’m going to be rebooting my Patreon soon! There are going to be some significant changes to my offerings there, but I’ll have more on that later – and you’ll be the first to know through this newsletter.

Right, that’s it from me for now. If you download Editing Simulator, send me your high score! Don’t upset Teacher Fin! And as always, happy editing!

Fin

It’s been a week. I’m thrilled that so many people love the ultimate editing tutorial that I uploaded to the main YouTube channel last Tuesday!

It was a labour of love – making something unlike anything I’ve ever made before, mixing sketch comedy, tutorials, and cinematic scope. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it below.

How did I make it? This video was heavily scripted – in fact, it was probably the most I’ve ever worked on a script. I needed to land every line, as there were locations that I couldn’t easily return to. Everything was planned to a point where we actually ended up having two separate scripts – the main script, and the shooting script, with all the scenes in order of the shoot and with a list of all the shots we wanted filmed.

Of course, things ended up going off script. Like, just before we introduce Teacher Fin, there’s a nightmare happening where Fin sees the other Fins laughing at him. We filmed those laughs just for coverage, an idea we had on the day, and then that ended up in the final video.

Then there was the ending. I knew I wanted to do something big, and my imagination had been going wild while I was listening to the soundtrack to Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, which is where that song originates. We ended up filming a huge scene with an anamorphic lens, all so that we could go super wide. We also filmed by a different tree to the one I thought we were going to use. There were actually a couple of location changes, like where we first meet Peasant Fin and Knight Fin was going to be somewhere completely different, but we had forgotten to pack the sword we needed, so we had to pivot to somewhere closer to home. Luckily, it all worked out.

It felt risky doing something like this – an editing tutorial with the emphasis on the filmmaking and script, rather than showing off super fancy, rention-y edits, like I had in previous tutorials. I came away super happy with the results. Hopefully, whether you’re a beginner or pro, there’s something to learn from it – and a fun story to keep you hooked.

Thanks again to everyone who’s left supportive comments. I’ve got some big videos brewing over the next few months, and I can’t wait to get them to you. Until then, happy editing,

Fin

We’ve been busy working on a few things here at Finzar HQ – new videos, new courses, sound effects. In other words, a lot is going on!

But right now, we would love your feedback on our current products.

So, if you’ve made a purchase from Storezar and fancy helping us out, fill in this form and let us know what you think of our presets and our editing course. If you leave us a review, there’s a good chance you could end up on our website!

That’s this review form right here.

We appreciate your time, and your feedback will help shape the products we release in the future.

In other news, we’ve recently launched a video on our Storezar channel about how we made the best ever performing Finzar video.

And if you haven’t already, then check out our main-channel video on how much we’ve really made on YouTube over the last six years.

Thanks again for your feedback. Now get outta here, and happy editing!

Finzar & the Storezar team

I’ve just made it so anyone signing up for this newsletter now gets five FREE DaVinci Resolve presets!

But, of course, I don’t want you guys to miss out – so here’s a link to download the five presets right now.

I know most of you are Premiere users, but if you do make the leap over to DaVinci, you now have a starter set of presets to try out!

Here’s a demo video of how they work – a link to an article on how to import them.

These are the five presets included in the pack:

1. Basic 3D Pan. This gives your assets a moving, 3D feel.

2. Censor Bar. Blur out your unwanted words with a censor bar that appears on screen and can be easily moved around.

3. Slide In Right. Drag this onto your asset and watch it smoothly slide in from the left side of the screen.

4. Super Smooth Camera Shake. A simple, smooth programmed shake that adds a little movement to your assets.

5. Zoom In. Smoothly zoom into your videos – best added to an adjustment layer.

The five presets will appear on your Edit page, in a folder under Effects labelled “Finzar Free Presets”. All five are drag-and-drop, making them incredibly easy to use.

And if that’s not enough for you, be sure to check out our presets page for so, so many more DaVinci Resolve presets. Happy editing!

Many of you have probably made promises to yourselves to make this the year your YouTube channel takes off, and I’m here to say: do it! Keep going! Edit like you’ve never edited before!

This year, I’m trying out something new on the Storezar YouTube channel: uploading shorts. These videos are mini-tutorials, designed to offer a quick tip to help you on your editing journey. Here’s one on creating super smooth animations, and another on making bouncy animations, like the ones in my Bounce preset pack.

There’s going to be plenty more videos like those on the way, so make sure you’re subscribed to the Storezar channel – plus, you can find them on our new Storezar social pages: TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter.

I really hope you enjoy these short tutorials. Making them has been really fun – a nice change from the huge amount of work the main channel videos take (expect a new video in the coming days).

Now, just a few reflections on last year. 2025 was a big, weird year for Finzar and Storezar. We launched 12 main-channel videos in total, the most-watched being our video testing out the software Avid, which enraged one of Hollywood’s most powerful editors.

Our worst-performing video was the most recent one: what I wish I knew in my 20s. It’s a video that, with a New Year beginning, feels super relevant to my life, and I’m still really happy with the final product, even if it hasn’t done huge numbers on YouTube. Sometimes, you just have to make a video for yourself and hope one day it finds its audience.

Last year, we also launched our Advanced Presets line, including our Advanced Essentials and Bounce packs. These have gone down really well with my fellow editors, and I can’t wait to continue seeing you guys using them in your videos.

That launch came off the back of a huge website redesign for Storezar. Building the website required creating dozens of new assets for it, working with designers to make cool features like a software switch button for Premiere and DaVinci Resolve, and even writing a timeline of how Finzar and Storezar started, and how it’s going. It was a lot of work, and something we’re super happy with. If you’ve bought presets or taken our course, thanks for using our website, and thanks for supporting the channel.

So, what’s coming in 2026? Expect new videos across Finzar and Storezar, new products, and, hopefully in the next few days, crossing the 500K subscriber mark on YouTube. I couldn’t do it without all of you.

Until the next video, happy editing, and get outta here!

Fin + the Storezar team

A different sort of video from me this week.

Earlier this year, I went on a trip around Europe, hoping to make a more personal video that looked back on my 20s and gave advice on what I wish I had known back then.

What transpired was sort of that video, but also… not? When I sat down to edit the video, I realised while watching the footage how much I was struggling. I was double-thinking about everything I was saying. Did I want this to be an advice video? A retrospective on my YouTube career? On life? How personal did I want to go?

I was having a hard time knowing what I wanted the video to look like. So, I made the final video about that! It’s a look back on a weird, wonderful trip that gives you a real insight into how I make videos. You can watch it below.

A few behind-the-scenes things from our trip. We did four European cities in nine days, which was hectic! One night in Salzburg was barely enough, and two nights in Munich – spending the entire proper day at Oktoberfest – was a whirlwind, but a fun one.

All the interview segments were a lot longer than what’s shown in the video, most of them lasting around 20 minutes, some longer, and each from a variety of camera angles. We ended up going really long in places because we were figuring out what we wanted the video to be about as we went along, which led to a lot of talking rubbish! As I’ve said, this was a different kind of video for us, and an interesting one to (eventually) work out.

We also filmed some backup footage when we were in Berlin, focusing more on talking specifically about YouTube and editing. I had originally wanted the video to branch out beyond those subjects, but having that footage filmed as a backup video idea helped relax me, so I knew we wouldn’t waste the trip.

One day, I might upload that footage as a different video, but for now, I’m really proud of the video we made. It’s still nerve-wracking putting out videos like this – that aren’t tutorials or editing challenges – but the comments have been hugely positive, and I hope it helps a few people out.

To everyone who celebrates Christmas, have a great one, and thanks to anyone who has bought our presets or our course for someone this year! And before you get outta here, make sure to follow Storezar on socials – we’re now on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. We’ll be posting a few short videos there and on our YouTube channel, too.

Now, get outta here!

Fin

I’ve done a lot of editing challenges in the past about new software, and underneath each one, there’s always the same comment: “Fin, Fin, Fin, can you try Blender?”

Well, today, I’m finally doing it – I’m making a video using Blender’s video-editing functionality, and the results… speak for themselves. I’ll let you judge.

As said in the video, I have used Blender before, when making this sketch, which is somehow sitting on almost 740K views (hopefully the doughnut in the thumbnail works its magic this time, too).

With that one, all I did was create the 3D poop emoji in Blender for the finale, because at the time, Blender didn’t have a proper video editor. But now I’ve used Blender to edit an entire video, it leaves a lot to be desired – I won’t be giving up on Premiere anytime soon.

So, going into this challenge, I thought creating a new 3D animation in Blender would be pretty simple, because I had done it before. It was not.

Even though the scene I had filmed wasn’t hugely ambitious, I did want to create a 3D blob that could eat me, and I imagined creating this morphing 3D thing with my legs sticking out of it. However, when I got into the 3D side of Blender, it was just too damn hard to use.

I need to do a proper course to learn the basics again, but that wasn’t why I was using the software here: I was here to test the video-editing capabilities, so that’s what I did.

With that in mind, I’m putting the basic edit without any animation onto my second channel, so you guys with 3D knowledge can have a go at editing something into the scene. Have a go and send it my way, and I’ll post them on Twitter!

Behind the scenes, this video was a classic challenge where Jack filmed me struggling with Blender. It wasn’t as tough as Flame or Avid, which means the video is perhaps a bit more educational than pure challenge, like those videos.

In the edit, that meant spending a bit more time with the editing screen, and then trying to make that exciting using voice-over and a few memes (and there’s one part where it goes pretty meme-heavy). Let me know in the comments what you think of the vid!

Now, get outta here, and happy editing!

Fin

Some exciting news: I’ve just updated three of our most popular Premiere Pro preset packs – with the new versions available for FREE to anyone who previously purchased them.

The Essentials, Transitions, and Camera Shake packs have all been given a makeover with new presets that utilise Adobe’s Film Impact tools.

I’ve added 20 new transitions to the Transitions pack and three new shakes to the Camera Shake pack, plus I’ve updated the Essential pack’s transitions to keep them working with the latest version of Premiere. Watch the demo video below to see exactly how they work.

If you have previously purchased any of these packs, whether on their own or as part of a bundle, the updated versions of those presets are available to you – for free – right now on Storezar! And anyone who purchases the packs will get the new version immediately – check out all our presets for Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve on Storezar.

So, how do you download the new versions of the presets? That depends on when you purchased them.

If you were a customer from May 2025 onwards, simply head to the My Account page on Storezar and log in using the email you used to buy the presets. You can then re-download the presets from your account.

If you bought the presets before May 2025, then you will have made your purchase on an older version of our website using our previous preset provider, FastSpring.

The updated presets are still available to you – you just need to click on this link and follow the login instructions to access your account and download your presets.

Once downloaded, make sure you delete the old preset pack from Premiere by right-clicking the pack and pressing ‘Delete’. Then install the new pack – here’s how to install your presets, in case you have forgotten.

I really hope you enjoy using the updated versions of our Premiere Pro presets, and thanks again for supporting our business as we continue to help editors around the world.

Happy Editing!

Fin & The Storezar Team

Hollywood, Tinseltown, City of Angels, La-la-land, The Home of The Movies.

Us editors all dream of working on big-budget productions, and those who actually do it rarely engage with the YouTube editing community – and they absolutely never leave comments under my videos.

Well, that changed a few months ago when the Emmy-winning editor of the TV series Ted Lasso, A.J. Catoline, left a comment underneath my video about Avid Media Composer.

The idea of the original video was to ask whether Hollywood’s go-to software could be useful to us YouTube editors, and I ended up finding Avid pretty limited in what it could do, at least in terms of how it could benefit someone making a video on their own.

However, some people slightly misinterpreted what I was trying to accomplish in the video, leading to a whole load of comments, including one from Mr. Catoline.

So, I decided to address those comments and use them as a way of talking about Hollywood editing, how different it is to YouTube editing, and how YouTube is changing editing at large. Check out the video below.

That video went live last week, and as you can see in the comments to it, Mr. Catoline responded to the video, which was really great. He explained that some of his comment was meant in jest, but also partly about his worries that editors’ jobs are changing to become “do-everything” jobs, more in line with what I was talking about with YouTube-style editing.

That’s a bigger topic of discussion, and one that, considering some of the comments I’m getting, seems to be a huge issue in Hollywood – and maybe something to tackle in another video. But something else to talk about is the making-of this video!

First, the suit – that really was for a wedding and I just wanted an excuse to wear it again.

Second, this was my first YouTube video in a long time reading from a teleprompter. We had scripted the response, wanting to make sure we addressed the comments under our Avid video fairly and using facts, and then going deep while talking about YouTubers who have made the jump to Hollywood.

And third, as I say towards the end, all your Storezar purchases go a really long way to helping me, and the team here at Finzar HQ, able to keep going. So thank you!

We have some really exciting videos coming up, with the next one being one that’s been really in demand for some time now… Expect that in a few weeks time. Now get outta here, and happy editing,

Fin

Yesterday, I released a new video in which I named the best editing software of all time – and absolutely everyone agrees with me...

Well, maybe not! But this was a fun one to make, and marks my longest ever main-channel video at just over 25 minutes. So kick back, relax, and let’s talk about editing!

Now, if you’ve watched the video, a couple of things. First, the comments so far have all been about DaVinci being robbed, and I don't completely disagree. I love DaVinci – and I especially love that BlackMagic only asks for a one-off payment, rather than requiring a subscription, like Adobe – but, as I explain in the video, there are still some features lacking in DaVinci, mainly in the keyframes department.

Second, I really do think that DaVinci could be on the path to becoming the top software for YouTube video editors (and I'm talking about YouTube editing here, not high-end movies etc, which require different software for different needs). But right now, my major thoughts are in the video. So let me know what you think in the comments!

As for making the video, this one was a little different for me. Whereas my recent videos have been challenges, where everything's filmed and then I make something out of it, for this one, I just sat there and talked to the camera about editing software. It was a bit of a challenge working out how much music was required and how much editing was really needed, but I think I found a nice balance.

And as for what's next, the team and I have been working hard to get ourselves back on a regular release schedule after spending the last few months working extra hard on the website and the last batch of presets (check out the Advanced Bundle for Premiere Pro and DaVinci if you haven't).

In fact, we've already filmed the next video, and I'm in the weeds of editing it right now. Wish me luck! Now get outta here, and happy editing,

Fin

I’ve just released a new video in which I edit together a whole bunch of assets that I was sent by you, my fellow editors – and oh boy, is the result something…

Before I sent out a Tweet asking you all for assets to edit, I really did think that I would receive real clips with instructions on what to edit. But instead, I received everything from a dancing A.I. cat to a picture of the front cover of FIFA 14 – with no instructions. Just FIFA 14.

After some debate about what to actually do with the assets (I had been thinking I would create lots of little individual videos), I decided to put all the clips into one video to create the ultimate editors' shitpost. You can see exactly how I did it in my new video:

A few things went down behind the scenes while making this one. First, I was delayed making the video because the Storezar team and I were busy working super hard on getting our latest batch of advanced presets into your hands. They’re now available on Storezar for Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve, so go check them out!

Second, that shitpost took way longer than I expected to complete! I was at my computer for a week trying to work out how to weave all the assets together into one video that made some sort of sense. There came a point where the shitpost was some weird, lo-fi fever dream of images just put next to each other with some dreamy music playing underneath. It was creepy but also weirdly beautiful? I don’t know, I was going slightly crazy at the time.

Another thing you may notice about the video is that the editing (not of the shitpost, but the actual video itself) is pretty chill – at least compared to some of my other videos. I wanted to keep things a little more authentic and not over-edited, using just my presets for animations, zooms, and transitions. I really like the result, and hopefully you do too. I’m also going to do another of these in the future, so follow me on Twitter to send me your assets!

If all goes to plan, there should be less of a wait for the new video! I really appreciate everyone who has bought the advanced presets for Premiere and DaVinci Resolve – your purchase goes a long way to supporting the channel and allows us to keep putting these sorts of videos out there.

So go on, get out of here, and happy editing!

Fin

We’ve just launched a brand new line of presets, made with advanced editors in mind.

Introducing The Advanced Essentials Pack and The Bounce Pack, available now for both Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve on Storezar. Both packs are available as part of the all-new Advanced Bundle for Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve.

These two packs are not replacements for our other presets, but include dozens of new presets that will take your edits to the next level.

The Advanced Essentials Pack features over 60 presets split across multiple categories. They include everyday presets (including camera shake), video effects (such as censor bar and glitch overlay), new zooms, subtitles (including 3D animation), camera FX (like custom vignettes and distortion), and screen FX.

And for the first time, the DaVinci Resolve version of the pack features generators, which are drag-and-drop assets that create brand new clips on your timeline. Watch the DaVinci instructional video here.

Our Bounce Pack is an expansive selection of animation presets, featuring over 200 different effects. These are made specifically to make your animations bounce along super-smoothly and include multiple slides, pop-ins, and transitions.

If you’re a DaVinci user, you can check out the instructional video for the DaVinci Bounce pack right here.

You can purchase both of these preset packs for a discounted price as part of our Advanced Bundle for Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve.

Like all our presets, these have been hand-made by Finzar and our team. We’re incredibly proud of our advanced editing presets, and hope to see your awesome new edits on YouTube very soon. And send us an email with your thoughts – and what you want to see next.

These presets are also the reason we’ve been delayed with main channel postings. Unfortunately, being a small homegrown business, releasing new products and running a YouTube channel is pretty full-on. But our new video will be worth the wait, and will feature many of you…

Until then, happy editing, and get outta here,

Fin + The Storezar Team

We haven’t been posting a whole lot from Finzar HQ the past few weeks, and for good reason – we’ve been cooking up a few very, very exciting projects

First, we worked long and hard on our new YouTube Thumbnail tutorial, available on the main Finzar YouTube channel right now. In the video, I go over coming up with an idea, bringing together assets, and assembling them in Photoshop.

The video was a lot of fun to make, as we went around London, filming in front of some cool landmarks. I said in the last newsletter that we had bought a gimbal and, as you can see, we’re enjoying using it a lot. Check it out here:

Because I get a lot of people asking for in-depth tutorials, I’ve also posted a second video on the Storezar channel of me making the thumbnail in Photoshop.

It goes over my entire process in Photoshop, so hopefully you can pick up some tips and shortcuts for when you make your next thumbnail. You can watch that one here:

Second on the list of things we have been working on: in the near future, we’re starting a new Storezar series in which we go deep into how we make our main channel videos. The first video is an analysis of our video I Made This Much Editing Undercover Shorts in 24 Hours. So, make sure you subscribe to Storezar to watch that when it drops.

And thirdly, something you’ve all been waiting for… New presets are coming! And yes, you read that right, not just one preset pack, but two, and both will be available for Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve. What will be in the packs? Well, you’ll just have to guess.

Expect to find out more very, very soon. They will be available at Storezar, along with our other presets. Until then, get outta here, and happy editing!

Finzar

This month, I’ve done something a little different with my new video, mixing presentation and tutorial while taking you on a mini-adventure.

In the video, I go over what I’m calling the “secret” to good editing, specifically the type of YouTube editing that so many of you are doing.

But before you watch, for any gamers out there, just know that we wrote and filmed the introduction weeks before the Oblivion Remaster was released… the timing was just serendipitous.

I really believe smoothness is the key to good YouTube editing. Too often, I see videos out there with PNGs rigidly coming on to the screen, transitions that abruptly start, and harsh zooms that take you out of the video. It just looks unprofessional.

When creating effects from scratch, I always play with the velocity graphs in Premiere Pro. It’s a difficult art to master, as there are so many different ways to have your velocity spike – you need to play around and discover what looks good for you, but above all, make sure it’s smooth.

You can play with the speed of things in DaVinci Resolve. There’s been a new software update recently (DaVinci Resolve 20) that lets you play with keyframes on the main edit page, which is super useful and means spending a lot less time in the daunting Fusion tab.

(Of course, if you want smoothness like on my channel, you can buy my presets for both Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve, including pre-made smooth animations, zooms, and transitions.)

Now, a little on the making of the video. Those beginning, sweeping aerial shots were filmed with a DJI drone, which was fun to do, even if the battery life was not great. It’s always slightly nerve-wracking going out in public wearing a costume, but we got the shots we needed, and the intro feels pretty epic as a result.

Later on in the video, I do some presenting to camera that was filmed using a gimbal. Funnily enough, we’ve owned both the drone and our gimbal for ages, but never really used them for our YouTube content. However, we wanted this video to feel big, and we needed to use all the tools at our disposal to achieve that feeling. Plus, the gimbal is super-smooth, which was the entire point of the video. We’re really happy with how it all came out, so expect to see more cool gimbal shots in the future.

And if you want to know how we made the thumbnail, well… you’ll just have to wait until next month… Now, get out of here and get editing!

Finzar

Another month, another editing challenge. I went undercover to see how much money I could make in 24 hours – this time editing only shorts. What I wasn’t expecting when I started was just how awful the world of editing shorts really is.

I highly recommend watching the embedded video below (or follow this link) if you can, in which I go through my entire process of editing a showreel for shorts and finding a job, then into how exactly I got scammed (yes, really!).

To break it down a bit further, I spent two hours editing my showreel, and then about two-ish hours on each of the three shorts that I sent off to “clients”, with the rest of the 24 hours spent searching for jobs and negotiating pay.

Of those three jobs, the first – editing together an appearance of some Breaking Bad cast members on a late-night show – was the most “legit” as the client only ever asked for a sample with the idea of getting jobs down the line somewhere through his agency. Perhaps with more time, we could have established a relationship where, after seeing my skills, he could trust me with jobs. But the big caveat is that this was all for £2 a short, which is just wildly inappropriate for any skilled editor.

Next was the Fortnite short. I spent longer on this than any other short because I wanted to impress the client, but he ended up pulling the rug from under my feet. As you saw in the video, he literally edited an old message to make it look like I was doing it for free. It was genuinely shocking and shows just how desperate some of these people are. I’m glad that I was doing this for a challenge, rather than banking on being paid for my work to buy dinner…

Finally, the Katy Perry short. Although I didn’t finish the short, the whole situation was getting to a place which did not feel particularly kosher with the guy wanting to pay me in crypto currency – an immediate red flag. There was almost no chance that it wasn’t going to be a scam in some form, and even if it wasn’t, the payment was once again going to be so low that it would not have been realistically worth my time if it was.

At the end of the day, I didn’t find one legitimate person that I wanted to form any longform relationship with – which was completely different from my experience editing long-form videos (check out my weeklong video for what a good editing job looks like).

I would really recommend anyone looking to become a full-time editor focusses on long-form content. Which isn’t to say there aren’t legitimate shorts editor positions out there, but they are so few and far between, and the content is often so brain-rotting, that I’m just not sure it’s worth pursuing. There’s real money to be made in long-form content.

Also as pointed out in that video, and in my last newsletter, the new website is up, so go check that out and grab some presets if you’re looking to speed up your editing. Now, get outta here!

Finzar

Been a while. Over here at Finzar HQ, we’ve been working nonstop on relaunching our shop Storezar. We’ve built a whole new version of the site from the ground up to make it easier than ever for you to buy and access your courses and presets.

Now, finally, we have launched our site! Check out the brand new design here.

We’re super proud of how the site looks and have lots of new products we’re excited to release. Thanks to everyone who has previously supported us – without you, this next phase of Storezar would not have been possible.

We also want former customers to be aware that, moving forward, the way you download new presets has changed.

When you previously bought presets, you will have received a download link in an email from our former provider, FastSpring. This link is still valid, and you can log back in to FastSpring through this link to redownload your presets.

Future purchases will no longer happen through FastSpring, with downloads instead coming directly through Storezar. For new customers, once you have completed a purchase, you can access your account right here and download your presets. You can also see any other purchases you have made.

For our courses, nothing has changed except that the purchase experience has been brought into Storezar rather than being through Teachable (though Teachable still host our courses).

With that housekeeping out of the way, we hope you enjoy using our new website. We're really proud of it, and can't wait to continue providing you with our editing presets and courses. (And because this is a new launch, if you notice any bugs, feel free to reply to this email and we’ll try to fix anything right away.)

As for what’s coming next, well… Expect new vids to continue as usual – with our next one exposing an actual scam (!!). That will be out next Friday. Until then, happy editing and get outta here!

Team Finzar

It's nearly the New Year and I have some exciting developments that I want to share.

But first, I have a new main channel video about my journey from 0 to 400K subscribers, detailing exactly how I grew my following – and how you can too!

It was a long process making this video and it includes the advice I wish I had been given when I started out. So give it a watch and a thumbs up and let me know what you think!

Next, to some exciting developments happening over here at Finzar HQ. We're busily working on a NEW website.

It's going to have a totally different look and feel, but still have the same great presets and courses available to purchase on it. Implementing the new design is going to take a few weeks, but we're looking to launch early in the new year. In the meantime, you can keep shopping away on Storezar!

And if you're looking to introduce someone you love to editing this Christmas, you could do worse than getting them our beginner-to-pro course...

Right, I need to get back to filming a video I'm currently making about using a new (to me) editing software. This one's really testing me...

Keep editing and get outta here!

Team Finzar