How I Edit IGTV Videos

I am so excited to see more people making IGTV videos these days. There’s no doubt, this form of content is here to stay for now. And while they can be super casual and short snippets, there is a surprising amount of work that can go into the editing process. So I’m here to walk you through what I do to edit and create my IGTV videos and hopefully give you a few pointers.

Filming

I always film my IGTV videos on my digital camera, the Canon Powershot G7X Mark ii. You certainly don’t need a digital camera to do so. If you don’t own one already, I would recommend using your smart phone camera and maybe getting a phone tripod mount if you’re planning to film a lot on your own or just want it to be less shaky. Sometimes while I’m traveling, I like to get a combination of vertical and horizontal video and sort of piece them together afterwards between YouTube, my Instagram Stories and IGTV. I’ve also included video taken on my iPhone to go in vlogs and it’s surprisingly high quality video.

Editing

I edit my video on my laptop using iMovie. If you have an iPhone, you can also edit it on the iMovie app. If you’re editing on the computer, don’t flip your video clips to be vertical just yet. You can do this once the finished video is on your phone. In iMovie (on my laptop) I like to edit the clips for length, add the speeding effect (for styling videos) and add music. Because the video is still horizontal while I’m editing, I usually wait to add any titles until it’s on my phone and I can work in a vertical format.

Now is when Airdrop really comes in handy for sharing video files between your computer and phone. If you don’t have this capability, you can upload your finished video file into Google Drive and then open it on your phone or other device. Once I have my partially edited video on iMovie on my phone, I just flip it by literally turning the clip itself. Then it should automatically play vertically without cropping the clip or adding black borders on the sides. Once you’re done editing, export the video to your phone and upload it directly on IGTV.

You can also edit the video on your computer and upload it directly to IGTV via your web browser. I haven’t tried this way yet so I’m not sure how it would work with flipping the video vertically. I assume you would just flip it in iMovie and then save it and upload it. There are lots of tutorials available on this if you’d rather do it this way.

Customizing

If you like using filters on your feed, you might also like adding them to your videos as well. Some apps allow you to add filters to your video like VSCO, Ffilm (for vintagey effects) and A Color Story (only 1 min. max). You can check out the full list of apps I use here. And there are probably many others, just do a quick Google search for best video filter apps.

IGTV, similarly to YouTube, allows you to add a custom thumbnail. These are the photo you see before you decide to press play so they are pretty important. I like to design my IGTV thumbnails the same way I would an Insta Story, using some sort of editing/layout app like Storyluxe or Unfold. You can check out the full list of apps I use here. When creating a thumbnail use a photo or still taken from the video that gives a good sense of the purpose of the video and add a title if you want too.

Don’t forget to add a great title to draw people in and a description too. If you’re doing styling or clothing-related videos you can use the description to link items that you feature. If it’s easier for you to do this on your computer, then you can still make edits to the title and description box there. People do read those so don’t forget about it!

And now you have an awesome and professional looking bit of IGTV content! Congratulations! I hope you find this brief guide helpful. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below. I will try to add to this guide if I learn about any new tips or apps to use. Have fun creating and thanks for reading. xx Jessica