How Much is a Video Editing Course?

When exploring your options for video editing training, you’ll likely want to consider how much a given class is going to cost and whether or not enrolling in that class will be worth it. While enrolling in a professional development class is a good way to build your long-term earning potential, you might not want to (or be able to) pay any price to further your video editing skills, and many students are likely to find that they won’t actually benefit from enrolling in the most expensive training option possible.

Overall, the cost of a video editing class will vary depending on the depth of study and the course time, with the most immersive courses being the most expensive. For example, a college film program will likely cost tens of thousands of dollars, while a professional bootcamp may only cost a few thousand dollars. Less expensive options do exist, but the less you pay, the more additional training you are likely to need.

College Film Programs: The Most Expensive Option

If time and money are no object, your best bet to learn film editing is to apply for and get accepted into a college-level film program, often an MFA. However, even if we discount the cost of the undergraduate degree associated with getting an MFA in film, these programs can cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the school and the program, meaning that this is not a decision to make lightly. At the same time, if the money isn’t an issue, this is probably the best way to become truly well-versed in video editing. Not only will you learn how to use film editing applications, you’ll learn a significant amount of film theory and the history of cinematic editing. This is also the kind of program you should only enroll in if you are sure that you want to commit your professional life to the highest levels of film editing. If you dream of winning an Academy Award, this is the easiest way to start, but if you are just hoping to land a good paying editing job, the cost is likely too high to be worth it.

Professional Development Programs: Immersive Career-Focused Classes

Students looking for professional development training that doesn’t take multiple years and incur over $100,000 in debt will want to look towards certificate-granting programs like those offered through Noble Desktop. These career-focused classes, which range in price from a few thousands dollars to nearly $20,000, are designed to help aspiring editors learn all of the technical and professional skills they need to start looking for work in the field. These courses provide a significantly scaled down version of the training you’d receive in a college film editing program and they are ideal places for even beginner video editors to learn the skills they need to find long-term success in a new professional field. These programs are on the pricier side, so you’ll want to be committed to the professional development aspect of the program but they are a great compromise for students looking to learn the skills they need to start a new career without spending the time and money required to get an MFA.

Live Training Classes: Ideal for Beginners and Unsure Students

There are a lot of prospective professional video editors who aren’t entirely sure yet whether or not a career change is right for them. Those students won’t benefit from a professional development program if they discover that they dislike the technical aspects of video editing and they aren’t as committed to a career change as they thought. For far less money, students can enroll in a short introductory course to get a better grasp on the basics of video editing and the kinds of projects that video editors work on. These classes will help students learn the basics of programs like Premiere Pro and they can be completed in as little as a few afternoons or a single day of full-time study. They often cost only a few hundred dollars (often less than a hundred), so they aren’t a huge commitment monetarily. However, students who complete these courses and discover that they are interested in professional video editing training will need to spend more money to develop the professional skills required to easily find work in the field.

On-Demand Classes: Excellent Supplements at Reasonable Prices

On-demand classes (classes composed of recorded lectures and modules that you purchase and can access at your leisure) offer students a time and cost efficient way to supplement their training and to get access to lessons focusing on specific skills and theories of editing at a moment’s notice. These classes provide short lessons that can cover beginner topics or more specific subjects taught by experts (for example, Masterclass has a series of courses on filmmaking, including film editing, taught by Martin Scorsese). These classes can range in price fairly significantly, mostly because some platforms allow you to purchase classes a la carte, some require you to buy bundles of classes and some require subscription services (with potentially additional fees). If you are a hobbyist film editor, want to introduce yourself to specific techniques or you just want to get a feel for editing video in a low stakes, low-cost environment, these classes are a good option. On the other hand, if you are looking to start editing in a professional capacity, you are likely to benefit from personal instruction and support in a live learning environment, even though those will be more expensive and time consuming.

Free Resources: What are They Good For?

You may want to know if there are free learning options for prospective video editors and whether or not they are worth your time. There are actually a lot of different free resources, ranging from tutorials offered by companies that produce film editing software, like Adobe or Apple, introductory tutorials and sample classes offered by platforms like Noble Desktop or Coursera and free, independent video content produced for YouTube or other platforms. These tools are great resources for learning how to navigate editing applications and become comfortable with using the software before enrolling a course (so as to not fall behind early on) and they are excellent supplements for immediate concerns if you can’t figure out something very specific (like troubleshooting a problem in Premiere Pro or adding a specific kind of effect to a sound mixing board). These platforms are also great places to learn the theories behind video editing, as it is, unsurprisingly, a very popular topic amongst video essayists and film theorists who make a living producing content for YouTube. These tools can only ever supplement other training (it almost certainly isn’t worth the time spent trying to save money learning to edit professionally for free), but those tools are great for helping students address specific, small needs in line with other training, without spending any money on them.

Learn Video Editing Skills with Noble Desktop

Regardless of how much money you want to spend learning video editing, Noble Desktop has a course that is built to fit your needs. Students looking for a detailed, professional training program can spend 126 classroom hours learning video editing skills in the Video Editing and Motion Graphics Certificate program. In this course, students with no background in video editing can prepare themselves for a career in the industry in full-time or part-time sessions. Students will learn how to edit complex video content using Premiere Pro, After Effects and Audition, and since this is a career-focused course, students will build an application-quality demo reel to demonstrate their skills as aspiring Video Editors.

Students seeking a more accelerated training program should consider enrolling in a course like the Premiere Pro Bootcamp. Over three days, students will get hands-on experience working with Premiere Pro, and they will learn everything from basic to advanced skills and get a handle on working with Premiere Pro at a professional level. Students will learn how to navigate the user interface and make simple cuts in one or more video files. They will also learn the basics of maintaining continuity, aligning audio and keeping their video project moving smoothly. Then, students will learn how to work with multiple video files, multi-step edits and adding, removing and cleaning audio files.

Finally, students looking for a quick introduction to video editing can enroll in the Premiere Pro in a Day course. This course will give students six hours of hands-on Premiere Pro training to help them become familiar with the interface and the basic process of uploading video files and working with them in the Premiere Pro interface. Students will learn how to clip and merge video files, and they will learn the basic philosophies that go into creating edited video content. This course is a quick introduction to the application for students looking to learn more about the tools and begin experimenting with Premiere Pro.