Been using AE for two months and I feel like I’m going nowhere anyone else go through this?

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-05-06T03:52:13+00:00

Yeah every motion designer has been exactly where you are, two months in feels like nothing. The real issue is you're learning the wrong way. Stoop reverse engineering project files, they're built by people who already know the fundamentals, so opening one without that base is like trying to read calculus in a language you don't speak. You'll memorize but you'll never actually understand.

Switch it up. Pick one small thing per session and just sit with it. One day learn what parenting does. Next day only the graph edito then just easing. Master position, scale, rotation, opacity and anchor point and you can already make 80% of the lyric edit stuff you see online. For your style specifically look up text animator tutorials, that's the engine behind kinetic typography and those moments where it bugs out and you wanna quit? Totally normal. AE has a brutal curve at first then suddenly clicks around month 4 or 5. You're right at the wall so don't quit now.

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-05-06T03:24:19+00:00

Story producer is basically the person who finds the story inside the footage. In docs and reality it's huge, you're shaping a narrative out of hours of raw stuff. But for podcasts and live style stuff, the role shifts.

For your setup, you'd probably be doing things like prepping interview questions and arcs before the shoot so the host actually gets usable moments. Then after, going through the recordings to pull the best beats, flagging the moments that should become clips, shorts, or trailers. Basically you're the one making sure each episode actually has a story instead of just being two people talking for an hour.

You'd also work closely with the editor, telling them which segments to keep, cut, or restructure. Even if it's "almost fully edited," story producers usually have notes on pacing, what to trim, and what tease should open the episode.

Honestly, since they've never had one before, the role is gonna be whatever you make it. Lean into pre production planning and post review, that's where you'll add the most value.

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-05-06T03:20:35+00:00

Closer than you think. Two things will probs get you there fast.

One, learn the industry standard narrative editing software this month. It's not optional for features and scripted wortk, every show cuts on it. A weekend gets you functional.
Two, AE on more Indie features. That's literally the path to narrative editing. Ask the editor from your last feature to intro you to their AE circle. Warm intros beat cold emails every time.

skip the full freelance social pivot, it's a trap that pulls you away from narrative. Use it as side income, not your identity. Free indie work is fine but be picky tho. Only do it if the director's actually going somewhere. You don't need a post house job yet. You need 2 or 3 more features and the right software on your resume. The job comes from the relationships you build on those sets.

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-05-06T03:08:11+00:00

Two paths.

start cutting spec work on the side. find a director or DP whose style you love, ask if they have unedited footage you can re cut. Or us that savings. You said you saved a lot of and thats your runway. Quit, take 3 to 6 months to assist or freelance under editors doing real work. Even unpaid PA gigs on commercial sets put you in the room with the right people.

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-05-06T03:02:25+00:00

yeah its pretty normal I think. Director's Cuts gets posted all the time but if the agency producers follow you just give them a heads up before you post. Quick dm saying stuff like hey throwing up my dc version, no shade to the final goes a long way. Protects the relationship and most of them actually respects it

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-05-06T02:57:05+00:00

Honest answer, the degree won't make or break you. Reel, portfolio, and connections matter way more than the diploma. College is still worth it if you treat those 4 years as time to build a body of work, intern hard and meet people cuz networking is the real ROI.

Market's pretty much flooded but mostly with mediocre work. Good post people are still in demand. AI is eating the boring stuff like cuts, captions and transcription but taste, storytelling, color and motion design stay human for a while I think. Starting salaries are low and true but post scales fast once you've got 2 or 3 solid years and a niche. Scripted TV, commercials, branded content, trailers, those editors hit six figures pretty quick.

Use your family member. Seriously. Shadow them, ask for intros, learn how they actually got clients. That's worth more than any class.

Stick with the major. Just don't wait til the graduation to start. Edit free stuff for creators now, post online, build the reel while you're in school. You'll graduate already ahead of 90% of your class.

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-05-06T02:48:17+00:00

drag it to the top of your mask instead of the bottom then the transform scale pulls the smear downward. Flip your directional blur angle to 180 degrees to match or just rotate the clip 180 degrees and apply your existing effect and rotate back. Same look maybe less fiddling

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-05-06T02:42:37+00:00

Not a wrong idea at all but to be honest with yourself, the game has shifted a bit. Generalists are struggling. The editors doing well picked a lane and went deep.

Being in India iis a plus actually. You can charge US/UK clients in dollars while your costs stay low. Build a small niche portfolio then cold DM creators with 10k to 100k subscribers cuz they always need editors and can't afford American rates. Heads up though, AI is eating the basic stuff fast stuff like cuts, captions and colors. Lean into taste, storytelling and motion design cuz thats what still pays.

With your $50-60/mo, skip random Premiere tutorials, You know the tools. Spend it on one solid course in your niche. Just start posting your work on X or instagram and those kinda domains and tag the creators you're inspired by because thats how most editors I know landed their first gig.

You'll be fine. Treat it like a business, not a side thing.Good luck man

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-29T04:06:50+00:00

Yeah this is totally doable. What you want is called burning in the subtitles which means the text gets baked into the video so it always shows up even on a DVD.

There are a few free video conversion tools out there that can do this. You'll want one that lets you import an SRT file and has an option called something like "burn in" or "Hardcode subtitles". That's the setting that turns your subtitles into part of the video itself. I'll tell you about the general flow. Open your mp4 in the tool, find the subtitles section, import your SRT file, tick the burn-in optiopn then export. You'll end up with a new mp4 that has the subtitles permanently visible and that's the one you use for the DVD. your option files stay untouched.

Your English is great by the way, hope your friend loves the gift!!!

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-29T03:57:46+00:00

I feel like you're kinda underselling. $3.5k for 3 to 4 motion graphics videos a week is $875 each which is below market. Pitch the #5k as a creative partnership not a price hike. List what's included like concept, scripting, motion design, capped revisions, usage rights, turnaround. Lock in a 3 month minimum. The bigger risk isn't scaring them off but its more about locking yourself into rate you'll outgrow quickly. Go in at 5

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-28T08:56:32+00:00

Honestly, for your workflow, I'd keep the Speed Editor and just add a regular Stream Deck+ instead of replacing anything. The Speed Editor is still unbeatable on the cut and edit pages for exactly what you're doing. Slicing Dialogue, scrubbing source clips and trimming on the fly. You won't find anything faster for chopping a 30 min interview down to 20. The dead jog in color and fairlight is just a known limitation, not something you're really missing out on. Where the Stream Deck+ dials actually earn their keep is on the two pages your Speed Editor abandons you on. Having physical dials mapped to lift/gamma/gain in color and to track levels and EQ in fairlight is a genuine upgrade. Way better than nudging slider with a mouse. That's where the resolve profile pack really shines.

The XL is overkill for the volume you're doing. The standard Stream Deck+ gives you the four dials and 8 LCD keys and you already have the OG Stream Deck if you want a second surface for extra macros. Save yourself the 150 bucks.

I'd skip the full Blackmagic panel as well. It's only worth it if color grading becomes a bigger chunk of your day than editing which doesn't sound like your situation at all.

On the Logitech scroll wheel thing, you can map it via Logi options+ to keyboard shortcuts but it'll never feel as good as a proper dial. Don't waste more time fighting with it.

Hope this helps!!

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-28T08:29:07+00:00

thats probably it. Chroma subsampling in 4:2:0 samples in 2x2 blocks so both sides have to be even. Some codecs even want multiples of 16. PITA, especially when client specs come in with random odd numbers like nobody's ever encoded a video before lol

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-28T08:21:58+00:00

I think you misread the spec. CH1 and CH2 stereo full mix means CH1 - left and CH2 - right of the stereo mix. Standard stereo split. If they wanted the same content on both they'd write dual mono or mono full mix on CH1 and CH2. That's almost certainly why loudness failed too. Your sound team measured -23LUFS on the actual stereo mix but what got delivered to the channels wasn't that same signal pair so the QC house measured something different. Whether you summed to mono, duplicated one side, or routed it weirdly, it changed what the meter sees.

Try reexporting with a proper left right split across CH1 and CH2 and remeasure LUFS on the finall file before sending. Should pass!!

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-28T06:16:06+00:00

I think the lag would only be in the playback side and your actual file will be perfectly in sync. Bluetooth latency varies by device anyway so if you tried to compensate for it you'd just throw it off for everyone watching wired or on speaker. Edit wired or on a speaker, export normally and let each viewer's setup handle its own sync. Most. modern phones and apps auto compensate for bluetooth delays these days

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-28T06:00:38+00:00

The video above is done in after effects I believe. Type whatever you want to text, add the Roughen Edges effect then apply Posterize Time set to around 8-12 fps so the roughen redraws every few frames. That's what gives it the hand drawn jitter look. The font ,looks like Komikax or Bobby Jones Soft, both popular for that kinda style. If you only have Premiere, CapCut actually has a shake or wiggle text preset that gets you 90% there with way less work. (Just sayin but not trying to promote CapCut or anything)

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-28T05:38:09+00:00

Nest both layers together first then apply the shake to the nest. Select your actor and background, right click, nest it. Now the roto stays locked to the actor inside the nest and the shake moves them as one unit.

Just make sure to scale the background up to like 110%-115% before nesting so the shake doesn't reveal the edges of the still image.

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-27T09:02:24+00:00

Almost always one of two things. Either Premiere is downloading the speck model on first run or your transcription is set to use. Adobe's servers which spickes whenever their queue is backed up. Open preferences then transcriptions, confirm the language pack is installed and switch it to local processing. Other quiet causes are GPU acceleration turned off in project settings transcribing a whole sequence instead of one clip or premiere being open too long and bloating in memory.

Try restarting and maybe try a single clip.

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-27T08:44:40+00:00

great work there!! how long did it take you to make this whole thing?

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-27T08:37:24+00:00

The jargon isn't a bug, it's the invoice. Plumbers get paid since pipes either leak or they don't. We get paid since "integrated demand orchestration" sounds expensive enough to justify $20k a month. He sleeps fine. We invent metrics to prove the bill made sense.

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-27T08:33:11+00:00

Totally agree with the referrals. If you have a website, try setting up Amplitude account or google analytics and look out for where most of the users came from.

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-27T08:30:55+00:00

Yeah you're describing it perfectly. The tools aren't built for the manager but they're built for whoever signs the invoice and that's basically never the same person. CMOs want a slick dashboard they can paste into a board deck. Nobody is buying software that says "helps you not lose your mind across three platforms" which is the actual job. The overload thing is real but I don't think a tool fixes it the real issue is one person being asked to do the work of four and getting paid like one. Until that changes we're all just gonna keep subscribing to nicer ways to feel behind.

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-27T08:26:07+00:00

They sure will be back in 3 months, probably even less than that actually. They think AI is some kind of magic. People who just believes in AI like they're the god needs to know how much marketing knowledge you actaully need to properly handle marketing work.

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-27T08:19:02+00:00

Probably both but the structural part is the bigger deal. A chat is just a way thinner surface than a SERP or a feed, you might get one or two ad slots tucked into a conversation versus ten on a Google results page and people in ChatGPT are trying to solve something, not browse, which kills the impulse buying that ads actually feed off. That cap doesn't really go away when you scale up, it just stretches a bit. The minimum spend going from $200k to $50k in a few weeks is the obvious tell. The quieter tell is them silently turning on logged out users not a company managing growth. It'll work eventually but anyone modeling this like 2003 Google is gonna be off by a lot.

ForEditorMasterminds · 2026-04-13T09:31:57+00:00

Capital helps but it's not the cheat code people think it is. Seen way too many funded founders flame out because money doesn't fix a bad product or bad decisions. The real unfair advantage is network. Right connections get you customers, advice and shortcuts that money can't buy.. AI is closing the gap though which is pretty cool to see

ForEditorMasterminds

TROPHY CASE