Blender Video Editor

Blender is primarily known for 3D modeling, but for years I’ve also been using its Video Sequencer to make trailer videos, promotional videos, YouTube videos, etc. I think it works pretty great. And it’s free!

I thought I’d write a short primer on how to get started in Blender’s video editor.

(Note: this writeup uses Blender v4.0. However, I believe these steps apply to any version 2.8 and above.)

Setup

Setting up the editing environment.

1. Click the Editor Type button on the top-left corner:

2. Select Video Sequencer:

3. Click the Sequencer View button:

4. Select Sequencer & Preview:

Your layout should now look like this:

Setup done. Time to start editing…

Time to start editing

Adding clips

1. In Windows, open the folder that your video clip file is in.
2. Drag the video clip file into Blender’s timeline.

Done. You should now have a video clip in the timeline: Note: the blue rectangle is the video clip. The teal rectangle is the audio.

Note: you can drag in more than video clips. Try dragging in MP3 music, WAV sounds, PNGs with transparent backgrounds, etc – there’s a lot of things can plunk into the timeline.

Moving clips

1. In the timeline, left-click the center of the video clip.
2. Press G
3. You can now move the clip around.
4. Left-click to confirm the movement.
   • Or press ESC to cancel.

Resizing clips

1. In the timeline, left-click the head or tail of the video clip. This is the lighter-colored start and end points of clips:
   
2. Similar to above, press G to move the head and tail.

Rendering

Time to watch your masterpiece…

Set video duration

You need to set the start and end point of your video. Click these numbers to set when your video starts and ends:

Render it

Rendering to an MP4 video file:

1. Click the Output button:
2. Change the File Format to: FFmpeg Video
3. Change the Container to: MPEG-4
4. Change the Audio Codec to: MP3
5. Click on Render > Render Animation :

The render will now start, and the output file will appear in folder: c:\tmp

Notes

• To select multiple items, hold shift and left-click multiple items.
• When moving anything (a clip, a head, a tail, etc), you can instead type in a number. This is helpful if there’s a precise value you need. Example:
  1. Select clip in timeline.
  2. Press G
  3. Type in: 120
  4. The clip will be moved 120 frames forward. Note: for the reverse direction, add a negative -
• When moving anything, you can instead press and hold left mouse button to drag it around (instead of pressing G).
• To change a clip’s properties:
  1. Select clip in timeline.
  2. Press N
  3. A properties panel will appear, with settings to change the clip’s saturation, brightness, cropping, position, and more.

Et al

There is a world of further Blender video editing functionality not covered here – this writeup is just to get you up and running. The rest is up to you. Good luck!