VN Video Editor was recently awarded ‘best all rounder’ in our guides on Best Video Editing Apps For Android AND Best Video Editing Apps For iPhone. It even got a solid mention in our Mac roundup as well!
Given that it’s such a great video editing software, we thought it deserved a full step-by-step tutorial to show you exactly how to use VN Video Editor.
Important: When available, we use affiliate links and may earn a commission!
We’ll teach you everything you need to know – all the key features and a ton of video editing tips to get you cutting videos like a pro.
Also known as Vlog Now, this video editor app is available on iOS, Android, Windows and Mac. We’ll be running through this tutorial using the VN Video Editing app on iPad.
But because the app is cross-platform and cross-device compatible, the process will be exactly the same for iPhone, Android and even on desktop. So feel free to follow along on your device of choice.
Here’s exactly what we’ll cover in this VN Video Editor tutorial:
- How To Import Footage On VN Video Editor
- VN Video Editor App Interface
- How To Edit In VN Video Editor
- How To Add B-Roll In VN Video Editor
- How To Add Text In VN Video Editor
- How To Add Effects In VN Video Editor
- How To Add Music In VN Video Editor
- How To Adjust Audio Levels In VN Video Editor
- How To Color Grade In VN Video Editor
- How To Adjust Speed In VN Video Editor
- How To Change The Video Format In VN Video Editor
- How To Export In VN Video Editor
Let’s get started.
How To Import Footage On VN Video Editor
Open the VN Video Editor app and press the + button at the bottom of the page. Then select New Project.
Once inside the VN Video Editor app you can create a new project
The next step is to import footage. You can import all of the clips you want in your edit at this point. But we recommend just selecting your primary footage now and adding in the B-roll clips later.
VN Video Editor will default to the Recents folder for importing files. You can find files in a different location by tapping Recents and selecting another folder.
Import your footage before diving into VN video editing – tap Import from File App if the files are on your device
If the files are saved onto your device, you can tap the More icon in the top right corner and select Import from File App.
Tap your primary footage file and then press the Next arrow. Your footage will now be imported to your project.
VN Video Editor App Interface
Now let’s run through the VN Video Editor app interface so you can get familiar with the tools and where they’re located.
The Original button in the top menu bar is where you can change the format of your video. If you leave it on Original, the frame ratio will default to the format of your footage.
You can change the frame ratio to suit YouTube videos, Instagram Reels, TikTok videos, or other custom sizes.
You can easily change the frame ratio to suit the platform you’ll be uploading to
The preview window is where you can playback your video project.
The editing timeline is where the editing happens. There are different tracks for music, titles, graphics, gootage, primary audio – all of the elements of your video.
The icons indicate what element goes on each of the layers (primary footage, B-roll, titles, etc.)
The media controls allow you to Play your video, Skip to the end of your project or Skip to the beginning of your project.
You can scroll through the timeline by swiping on your device. If you’re using a computer, you can click and drag or use the keyboard.
Features like volume, crop, filters and split can be found in the bottom menu bar
The bottom menu bar is where you can access all of the tools, filters and effects.
Now that your primary footage is uploaded and you’re familiar with the interface, it’s time to trim down your footage.
How To Edit In VN Video Editor
Just like in all video editing apps, there are a few different ways you can trim or edit footage.
Sometimes it might make more sense to use one over the other, or you might just find that one tool suits your editing style better. So we’ll run you through all of the options.
The playback indicator is the white line that goes from top to bottom on the editing timeline
If you go to the start of your video, you’ll see a white line going from top to bottom. This is the playback indicator.
Align the playback indicator where you want the video to start – after any preparations or mistakes you made before the good footage begins.
Once the playback indicator is aligned, tap the Split button
Then press the Split button in the bottom menu bar. You’ll now have two clips, one on the left with bad footage and one on the right with your remaining footage.
Select the first clip and press the Delete button to remove it. Now the video will start at the point you made that split.
Press the Skip button to jump to the end of your footage. Now you can remove any unnecessary footage at the end of your clip.
You can skip to the end of your footage by tapping the Skip button
Let’s try using the Drag method this time. Tap on the clip and yellow handles will appear on either side of the clip.
Click and drag the handle to where you want the video to end. Now the video will finish at that point. Then simply tap off the clip to deselect it.
Trim the footage by dragging the yellow handle to where you want the clip to end
You can use these tools to remove unnecessary footage throughout the entire project. Simply make a Split where the bad footage begins. Then either make a second Split where the bad footage ends and delete the middle clip. Or you can drag the handles to remove the footage you don’t want.
PRO TIP: Check the audio bar to see where there are any long pauses in your footage. This usually indicates footage you’ll want to remove – where you had a break or made a mistake and started again. This is a quick way to find footage that needs to be removed.
You can Split the footage at any point and then drag the handle to remove footage throughout the clip
Now go through and remove all of the bad takes, mistakes and any footage you don’t want in your finished video project.
Make sure you’re hitting Play and watching the footage as you go through this process. This will allow you to really tighten up the clips and leave you with a high quality edit.
VN Video Editor inserts a promotional clip at the end of every project
PRO TIP: Don’t forget to delete the VN Video Editor clip at the end of your video. Simply select the clip and press Delete.
How To Add B-Roll In VN Video Editor
Next up, we’re going to bring in the B-roll footage. To do this, press the B-roll footage icon above the primary footage track. Then select Stocks.
Tap the B-roll icon to import your B-roll footage
The clips that have already been added to the project are marked as Imported. So tap the B-roll clips that you want to add in.
When you import B-roll footage this way rather than with the primary footage, it will be on a different layer. This makes it super easy to edit. The B-roll clip will appear on top of the primary footage in the preview window. You can move this clip around, make it smaller or larger, and even rotate it.
The B-roll footage will appear in the preview window as a clip on top of the primary footage
Usually we will simply enlarge the clip so that it’s full screen. Then go to the editing timeline and trim the B-roll clip to just the footage you want to use.
You can Split this clip or drag the handles to edit it down. To change the placement of the clip, simply click and drag it across the timeline.
The magnetic timeline feature means B-roll clips are linked to the primary footage beneath them
A really cool feature inside VN Video Editor is the magnetic timeline. This means once you’ve placed a B-roll clip on the timeline, it will be linked to the primary footage clip beneath it. Then if you click and move the primary footage clip, that B-roll clip will come with it.
This is useful if you decide to change the order of your clips later but the B-roll footage is relevant to that clip.
So, add in all of your B-roll footage at this point.
Then it’s time to add titles and text to your video.
How To Add Text In VN Video Editor
Go to the start of the editing timeline and tap the Text icon above the B-roll footage track.
To insert text and titles, tap the Text icon
There are some great presets in here such as Name & Description, Frame and Video Title.
Tap the preset you want to include and it will be added as a clip on the timeline.
The title will appear as a clip on the timeline – you can adjust it just like any other clip
An editable text box will also appear in the preview window. To insert your text, simply tap the text box and type. You can also change the text box position and size by dragging it or tapping the Resize icon in the bottom right corner.
Simply tap the text box in the preview window to change the text
The bottom menu bar is where you can make further text customizations:
- The T icon: Change the preset of your text
- The Aa icon: Adjust font and font size
- Color icon: Choose text color, background color, letter spacing and insert things like drop shadow
There are heaps of text customization options such as border, shadow and background color
Once you’re happy with the title, tap the Tick icon in the bottom right corner.
Just like with every clip on the timeline, you can drag the handles to adjust the length. To move the text clip, tap and drag it to where you’d like it to play.
To view the text editing options again, select the text clip and press Edit
If at any time you want to go back and make changes to the text, select the text clip and press Edit.
Adding Text Animations
You can also add animations to the title. Tap the text clip and select Motion.
You can choose from heaps of animation options by selecting the text clip and going to Motion
Here you can add effects for:
- In Animation: How the text will appear on screen
- Out Animation: How the text will appear off screen
- Loop Animation: Repeating animation
You can choose from effects like fade, scale, slide, gradient, etc.
If you want your title to have a repeating animation, select Loop Animation
The slider bar at the bottom will allow you to determine the duration of the effect.
When you’re done, tap the Tick icon to apply those changes.
Now let’s add in transitions between clips.
How To Add Effects In VN Video Editor
On the editing timeline, select one clip and you’ll notice a + button between the selected clip and the one next to it.
To insert a transition between two clips, tap the + button
This will bring up the transitions panel. Under Base transitions, there are general transitions like Dip to Black, Dissolve and Zoom. Under Matte transitions, there are some more obscure options like Zebra, Swirl and Memory.
There are some weird and wondering transitions under the Matte category
However, we normally don’t add transitions like this between clips that look the same.
Instead, we recommend zooming in slightly on either the first or second clip. This will almost make it look like you’ve used a second camera angle. It’s a great way to break up your content rather than having a hard cut.
We recommend using a zoom transition – to do this select a clip and go to Crop
To do this, select the second clip and press Crop in the bottom menu bar. Then either pinch and zoom or drag the corners to zoom in. You don’t need to zoom in too much – this is a subtle effect.
Pinch to zoom in on the shot to create a zoom effect
Make sure you align the person’s eyes in both clips so that the transition isn’t jarring or confusing for the viewer.
If you want to add transitions to your B-roll footage, select the clip and press Motion. These are the same as the text animations we used before. Simply choose an effect and tap the Tick icon.
You can add transitions to the B-roll clips by selecting the clip and going to Motion
Now add in any transitions or zoom effects to your entire project.
Then let’s add music.
How To Add Music In VN Video Editor
Tap the Music icon above the Text track. Here you can select Music, Sound FX or Record.
To insert background music to your project, tap the Music icon
While a lot of apps have music and sound effects included, we strongly recommend using a platform with royalty free music that you know covers all of your licensing.
That’s why all of the music we use in our videos comes from Artlist or Epidemic Sound.
To upload your own music that’s been downloaded from a trusted site, go to My Music. Press More and select Import from File App. Tap your track and then press Use.
Once you’ve located the music track you want to use, tap the Use button
Before the music clip is added to your timeline, an Options panel will appear. Here you can adjust the length, volume, fade in time and fade out time of your music clip.
As a general rule, we set all background music to 30% as a starting point. You can then adjust the volume to the perfect setting later.
You can adjust the length of the music track by dragging the side handles
Another really cool feature in here is Beats. This is awesome if you’re creating videos where you want to cut your clips to the beat. The Beats feature allows you to mark the beat throughout the track.
The Beats feature is awesome if you want to cut your video to the beat of the music
To do this, press Beats and then press Play. As the music plays, tap the Flag icon to add a marker. Then when you’re editing, you can use these markers to make sure you’re cutting on the beat.
Hit the Tick icon and your music track will be imported as a clip on the timeline. Then you can line up the footage clips with the markers.
Tap the Flag icon to add a marker on the beat
You can adjust the length of the clip by dragging the handles. To make any changes simply tap the clip. To add more markers go to Beats, to adjust volume levels go to Volume and to change the original settings go to Options.
The markers will appear as lines on the music clip – you can align these with your footage
Now that your music track has been added, it’s time to adjust all the audio levels in your project.
How To Adjust Audio Levels In VN Video Editor
Usually when it comes to adjusting audio levels throughout an entire video project, you would need to mute the music audio separately and set the primary audio levels first.
Usually you would have to select the music clip and mute it this way
But VN Video Editor has a really cool feature that allows you to do both in the one window.
In the bottom menu bar press Volume to access the project volume. There are two sections here: Video Volume and BGM Volume (background music volume). Go to BGM Volume first and set this to zero.
You can access primary AND background audio at the Volume section in the bottom menu bar
Then go back to Video Volume and set this to the correct level. We’ve found that 100% is usually perfect but you might need to make it louder or quieter depending on how your audio was recorded.
Start by going to BGM Volume and putting the volume on zero so you can set the primary audio
Once your Video Volume is set correctly, go to BGM Volume and adjust this until it sounds right with the Video Volume.
As we mentioned earlier, around 30% is a good starting point but this will be different for different tracks.
You can usually set the primary audio volume to around 100%
When your audio levels are perfectly set, you can tap the Tick icon to apply this to just the one clip. Or you can tap Apply to all so that it is applied to all the clips on your timeline.
Next, if your B-roll or overlay footage has audio, you’ll most likely want to mute this. To do this, tap the clip and press Volume.
You need to set the B-roll clip volume individually – don’t select Apply to all
Drag the slider bar to zero and then press the Tick icon. Make sure you don’t tap Apply to all or you’ll mute your entire project! So you’ll need to adjust all the B-roll clips individually.
Now let’s take a look at the color effects and fix any colors in your video.
How To Color Grade In VN Video Editor
To color grad your project, select the first clip on your timeline and press Filter in the bottom menu. There’s a ton of filters and presets in here that you can apply to your video. Think of these like Instagram filters.
To color grade your video project, select a clip and press the Filter button
If you find one you like – feel free to run with that one. But you can also select a filter and customize it or you can start from scratch.
To start from scratch, make sure Original is selected under Filter. Then go to Adjust. There are heaps of options in here that you can play with to dial in the perfect look for your video.
You can choose a preset filter or go to Adjust to manually change the color settings
The main ones we adjust (in this order) are:
- Exposure
- Color temperature
- Vibrance
- Contrast
There are lots of elements you can change here such as contrast, temperature and hue
If at any point you want to see the original version (before any changes were made) simply tap and hold on the screen.
Once you’re finished customizing, tap Apply to all. This color effect will now be applied to all of your primary footage clips.
Once you’re happy with the color settings, press Apply to all
You can follow the same process to adjust the colors of your B-roll clips. Simply select the clip, go to Filters in the bottom menu bar and make any changes in there.
The color grade process is the same for B-roll footage as well
That’s the editing process done! But before we run through the exporting process, there are some other really cool features we want to share with you.
How To Adjust Speed In VN Video Editor
If you want to make any changes to speed, select a clip and then go to Speed in the bottom menu.
You can adjust the speed of a clip by selecting it and pressing Speed
Under Regular you have a slider bar that you can adjust to make the clip faster or slower. This is just your standard speed control setting.
But there’s a whole additional element of speed control in here!
There are the standard speed settings under Regular
If you go to Curve, you can really dial in your speed control. You’ve got the ability to change between ⅛ x speed and 8x speed.
By adjusting the curve, you could have the beginning of the clip playing at 8x speed, the middle playing at 36% speed and the end playing at 450% speed.
You have a crazy amount of control with speed customizations under the Curve section
So this gives you a massive amount of control and you can really customize the speed pattern.
There are even presets in here. Tap the Preset button and you can choose between options like Jump Cut, Montage and Hero Time.
There are even a number of speed presets you can apply to the clip
So you can use these adjustment abilities to really match your edit.
How To Change The Video Format In VN Video Editor
Another feature we love in VN Video Editor is how easy it is to change the format of your video.
To change the video format, tap Original in the top menu bar
Say you want to repurpose your YouTube video for use on another platform like TikTok. Tap Original in the top menu bar and then change the Frame Ratio to the TikTok preset.
You can choose between formats for YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and others
Then your entire video will be scaled to suit that format.
So if you went from a widescreen video to a TikTok format, you’ll see the widescreen will be scaled to fit in the portrait view and the rest of the screen will be blurred.
You have even more control over how this looks. Select a clip and press BG (background) in the bottom menu bar.
To adjust the background, select a clip and go to BG
Here you can adjust the amount of blur in the background, make the background a solid color or a gradient color.
You can even adjust the size of the clip. So if you pinch to zoom in, it can be scaled up to become a full screen video with no background.
Then tap Apply to all and your entire video will be ready for use on TikTok (or whichever platform ratio you selected).
Leave space at the top & bottom of your video for buttons, comments & features
PRO TIP: It’s a good idea to leave space above & below the video, then when you upload it buttons, comments and other features don’t block out anything important.
To get your video back to the original version, simply tap the Frame Ratio button in the top menu and select Original.
Now let’s export your video.
How To Export In VN Video Editor
Tap the Export button in the top right corner.
The default setting here is Auto. VN Video Editor has based those Auto settings to match the primary footage that you uploaded.
You can go with Auto or if you want to adjust the settings go to Manual
So the Auto setting is probably going to be perfect for most people.
If you want some specific settings, you can adjust these in Manual. You can adjust Resolution, FPS and Average Bitrate.
Adjustments can be made to the resolution, FPS and average bitrate
When you’re ready to save out your video, press Export. Make sure you don’t lock the screen or leave the app while the project is exporting.
Once your video has been saved, make sure you playback the entire video so that you can see how everything looks and sounds together.
Once it’s saved – playback through your video to really make sure you’re happy with it
PRO TIP: It’s a great idea to go through this playback process using headphones for a more accurate idea of how the volume sounds.
Now You Know How To Use VN Video Editor
That’s our complete walk-through VlogNow tutorial. We covered everything you need to know to create quality videos and speed up your video editing process using VN Editor.
VN Video Editor is one of our favorite video editing apps. It has an incredible amount of features and allows you to easily edit using pretty much any device!
If you found this complete guide on how to use VN Video Editor helpful, please share it on social media or with others who might like to learn more about this awesome video editing app.
FAQ
Is VN Video Editor free?
Yes, VN Video Editor is a completely free (& awesome!) video editing app.
Is VN Video Editor available on PC?
VN Video Editor is available on iPhone, Android, Mac and Windows PC.
Is VN Video Editor good?
VN Video Editor is a great video editing app for beginners or anyone wanting to do a quick & basic edit. It’s easy to use with an intuitive interface while still having some great intermediate editing tools.
Links
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Resources to Level Up your Videos:
- Complete Video Creation Roadmap
- Create Animated Titles & Intros
- Awesome Stock Music
- Stock Footage Library
Best Video Editing Software 2021:
Recommended Gear & Resources
Check out an up-to-date list of all the gear, software & tools we use and recommend right now at Primal Video on our resources page here!
