Edit 1 - Resolve Fundamentals: Twelve Editing Tips, the Music-First Workflow, Sorting in Resolve, Export Numbers, Speed Ramps With Eased Keyframes, Fusion Motion Trails, the Stabiliser, Transitions, Titles and Reframing

1 Use only your best - 'most projects use only about 10 to 20 percent of the clips.' 2 Cut the flaws - starts, stops, jerks - before a clip touches the timeline. 3 Clips of 2-10 seconds; long feels calm, short feels intense; vary them. 4 Edit to the music - waveforms on, cut on peaks, build the sequence around drops. 5 Cut on action - the moment something enters, leaves, starts or ends. 6 Order logically - establish the place before the detail. 7 Variety - about seven similar shots is the ceiling before boredom. 8 Continuity of motion - 2-4 shots of the same movement before switching; reversing a clip can match direction, but not with people walking or water flowing. 9 Clean transitions - hard cuts mostly; speed ramps, dissolves and camera-move transitions sparingly. 10 Speed-ramp rather than jump-cut a long clip. 11 Speed up 1.5-4x - distant drone footage looks slow even in Sport. 12 Add ground footage for what a drone can't or may not shoot.

Edit page tour: timeline options (Stack Timelines, Subtitle Tracks, Audio Waveforms on; Film Strip view for thumbnails), Select/Trim/Blade modes, Snapping and Clip Linking toggles, Ctrl/Cmd+F full-screen viewer; Media Pool with bins; Effects Library (Video/Audio Transitions, Titles, Open FX such as blur, dehaze, keying, lens flares, dirt removal, sharpening; Audio FX); right-side Mixer, Metadata, Inspector; house icon = Project Manager, gear = Project Settings. Keys: I/O in and out; J/K/L scrub (repeat L for 2x/4x/8x); his backslash = add clip to media pool (only when focus is on the viewer via JKL); append = Shift+F12, his 0; E trims the selected edit to the playhead; comma/period step a frame; R = Change Clip Speed; Ctrl/Cmd+R = Retime Controls; N = snapping; Shift+D toggles grades and Fusion off. The 'Custom Keyboard Shortcuts' lesson is a download with no narration.

Ingest into dated folders (FastStone on Windows; Lightroom + Finder since the Mac switch), then sort inside Resolve. New Project from the house icon. Set the frame rate first - Project Settings > Master Settings > Timeline Frame Rate, or drop the first clip and click Change - and match the real footage rate: 29.97 for 30, 23.976 for 24. Music track first so clips are trimmed to it once. Open with the best shot. Double-click a clip, I and O, drag to the timeline. Trim: Selection drags edges, Ripple Trim pushes downstream clips, Blade splits at the playhead, Roll Edit (click the cut, both sides green) moves the cut without changing duration, comma/period for frame accuracy; Ripple Trim plus dragging the top edge retimes a clip to fit. Stabilise, reframe, dynamic zoom, retime, ramp and transition as you place each clip rather than in a later pass. Then a second audio track under the music for sound design matched to what is on screen (birds, cars, water; in-camera audio from ground footage) - his Sound Design Pack, YouTube Sound Library, Artlist. Colour last, in one pass, for consistency. Watch through, Deliver, name and location, Add to Render Queue, Render. He no longer uses the built-in YouTube presets - 'not very good quality.'

Method 1, Media page: browse or drag folders into Media Storage, double-click, JKL, drag keepers to the media pool (or backslash). With I/O set first, the dialog offers a rename and 'Use Full Clip Extents' - always check it. Method 2, selects timeline: everything into the pool, open each in the source viewer, I/O, append (Shift+F12 / his 0) - it never overwrites; Workspace > Single Viewer Mode and a short video track for room; colour-code the best (green, orange); enable Tab Timelines, stack the selects timeline under the main one, drag up. He prefers method 2 because it keeps chronological order, but it wants a 32-inch 4K screen.

Single Clip for a finished video. MP4 or QuickTime, H.264 - H.265 is more efficient but 'not as widely supported.' Hardware acceleration on (Windows Studio: software / Intel / NVIDIA). Audio default AAC, constant, 16-bit. 4K: 3840x2160 at the project rate, 40,000-45,000 kbps (YouTube recommends 35-45 Mbps). 1080p: 10-15 Mbps, up to 20 off-YouTube. Clients: the ProRes preset (422 HQ) on Mac, Avid DNxHR on Windows. Stock: 4K, source frame rate, ~100 Mbps (near the drone's own bitrate), Export Audio off, Render as Individual Clips, Render Timeline Effects on, File tab Custom Name + Use Unique Filenames + Suffix. Vertical: Custom 1080x1920 on a vertical timeline, ~10 Mbps. Three-dot menu > Save As New Preset (he has Reels and stock presets).

R (or right-click > Change Clip Speed): percentage; Ripple Sequence unchecked keeps the timeline length and repacks the source, checked keeps the retimed length and moves everything after; Reverse Speed; Freeze Frame; keyframes Stretch to Fit or Maintain Timing. Ctrl/Cmd+R shows Retime Controls - drag the end handle to fit a length. Non-integer speeds stutter: Inspector > Retime and Scaling > Retime Process > Optical Flow; Motion Estimation from Standard Faster up to Speed Warp (Studio only, ~1 fps on his machine), he sits between Standard Faster and Enhanced Better. Ramps: playhead where the change goes, the small arrow > Add Speed Point, change that section's speed by dropdown or by dragging the top handle; then Keyframes panel > Curves view > untick Cropping, tick Retime Speed (not Retime Frame) > click the point > Ease In and Out, drag the handles; Generate Optimized Media if it won't play. Three uses: one clip slow-to-fast; a two-clip transition - speed point 10-20 frames before each end, both eased, trim the full-speed excess, match the two speeds; and only the middle - two speed points bracketing the section so it starts and ends in real time.

Only on the raw ramped clip - not a compound clip, before grade. Playhead on it, open Fusion, select MediaIn, Shift+Space, search 'motion'. Motion Blur is too weak for extreme ramps; Motion Trails goes to 10 and hides the frame gaps. At 10 across the whole clip it wrecks the real-time parts, so keyframe Trail Length: 0 just before the ramp, 10 at full speed, 0 again as it ends - find the frames by scrubbing on the Edit page (Shift+D turns grades and Fusion off to see the plain edit). It is heavy: right-click > Render Cache > Color, Playback > Render Cache > User, wait.

Inspector > Video > Stabilization. Modes: Perspective (3D, can warp), Similarity (position, rotation, scale), Translation (pan/tilt only - his default for drones). Click Stabilize; change mode, click again. Camera Lock is for static shots, not drones. Zoom on (crops the black edges). Cropping Ratio 0.5 default. Smooth 0.250 default - he often raises it, sometimes to 1.0, trading crop. Strength rarely touched. If the clip's speed was changed: New Compound Clip first, then stabilise the compound. Identical on the Color page; he uses the Edit page for the UI.

Transitions: Effects Library > Toolbox > Video Transitions (Dissolves, Irises, Motion, Wipes, Shapes; Fusion Transitions further down). Hover to preview, drag onto a cut, or onto a clip end to fade to what is below. Ctrl/Cmd-click several cuts > right-click a transition > Add to Selected Edit Points and Clips; Set as Standard for a default. Default 1 s; needs handle frames - trim first if it refuses; about 30 frames at 30 fps, 15 on slower timelines; Inspector > Transition tab for ease and direction. Titles: Toolbox > Titles - Text+ over Text (shadow, outline, background); Fusion Titles favourites: Clean and Simple, Horizontal Line Reveal, Horizontal Slide, Long Title, Simple Box, Lower Third, Text Box, Text Box Swipe In. Drag above the footage; Title tab for text, font, size, tracking, spacing; Settings tab for position and Composite > Opacity; Open Sans Extra Bold via Text+. Reframe: Inspector > Transform - Zoom, Position X/Y, Rotation (not Pitch/Yaw, which skew); click a value for a slider or type it; reset icons per setting or all. Level a horizon: zoom slightly, rotate, zoom back to just before black edges; push a distraction out with Position; rebalance with X then Y at minimum zoom.