If you're looking for a 360 video editing and reframing tool that's both fast and easy to learn, then the Insta360 mobile app is the ultimate solution with its wide range of features and simple touch interface. However, in the past, Insta360 software has had a big limitation of being able to only edit one clip at a time. This meant that you needed separate stitching and reframing software and video editing software in
order to edit videos with multiple clips. Today, that changes. In this video, I'll show you how to unlock the best and most feature-rich hidden editing mode of the Insta360 app, which will
allow you to edit and reframe as many video clips as you like into the same edit, add music, text effects, and more. At the end, I'll also share a bonus tip for how to create cool shots like this and add them into your multi-clip edits. Big thanks to Insta360 for sponsoring this video; however, as usual, all opinions within the video are 100% my own. Now, grab your phone, and let's edit. Start by downloading or updating to the latest Insta360 app. To connect to your camera, make sure it's on and within range of your phone. Then, tap the yellow button and follow the prompts to connect the camera. Once connected, you'll find the clips
from your SD card in the album tab at the bottom. You can also use the Insta360 Quick Reader if you want to keep your camera off and edit your shots directly from the SD card without having to drain access phone battery or camera battery, that would happen when editing wirelessly for a long time. Now, you can edit directly from the SD card without downloading your clips first, which will make the editing process a little bit slower but will save a fair bit of space on your
phone's memory. For faster performance, though, I'd recommend downloading the clips, which you can
always remove at the end of the editing process. To do that, tap the box at the top right and
go through your SD card storage, tapping all the clips you want to download. Once you're done, tap "download," and it will give you the option to download the full clips or trim them by
removing the top and tail to reduce file sizes. Now, the first way to edit
your shots is individually, which isn't what this video is about, but if
you do want to do it, simply tap on a clip, and you can edit here by adding keyframes and
so on and exporting the shot individually using the same workflow I'll show you in this video. Now, to get started with your multi-clip edit, head over to the Stories Tab, and the first and definitely simplest way to do this is by tapping Auto Edit. Now, choose the clips that you
want to include in the video, tap next, and then it will suggest a few different lengths that the
final video could end up as, so choose whichever one you prefer. Now, AI will work its magic to
edit your video using the shots you selected, and the result will be fairly basic, not anything amazing or cinematic, just the most basic edit and reframe of your clips. Interestingly though, they
do have multiple templates of these preset edits, so if you don't like the first one, try
another style. It might be a bit better; it might be a bit worse. There's only one way to find out. Another similar template-based editing process that's a bit better is the Flash Cut menu, which is a small library of shorter preset edits that are definitely more stylish. To preview
a template, tap on it, and if you like it, choose "use this theme." Now, down at the
bottom, it will tell you how many clips it needs to complete the edit, as well as roughly how
long each clip will play for, so do your best to choose clips that fit. Now, it will automatically
try to figure out how to best edit your video, and the results are decent, probably a bit better
than before but still nowhere near the level of what you'd get from editing manually yourself. So, I'd recommend these Flash Cut templates only for really fast edits where you don't need super
high production value and you just want to share something quick with friends and family. What I would recommend, however, is doing a fully customized edit where you
have complete creative control. To do that, from the Stories tab, tap "create a video." Just like before, it will prompt you to choose the shots you want to use in your edit, so tap on
all the clips you want to use, then tap "next" to go to the editor. And don't worry, you can always
add more clips in later by tapping this button.
Now, here's where the magic happens. In the middle, you'll find some key controls starting with play, pause, undo, and redo. So if you do
something in the editor like add a clip or an effect, you can easily undo it or redo it. Then there's the full-screen button for full-screen playback. Up at the top, if you tap "HD," you'll
find two different playback settings. One is HD, aka high definition, the other is "quick," and quick will be the better choice for slower phones in order to get faster playback, and HD
will be the better choice for faster and newer phones in order to get higher quality playback. At the bottom, you'll find the video timeline. To scroll across it, simply swipe left or right and pinch to zoom in or out. Doing this will be very, very helpful when editing lots of clips. If you want to delete a clip, just tap it to select, then tap the trash can. At the bottom, you'll find a few more options that will help you edit and rearrange your clips on the timeline. Firstly, there's "split clip" if you want to slice one of your clips in two to edit and reframe the two different sides of the clip in different ways. There's "volume," and this refers
to clip volume, not playback volume, meaning that any changes you make here will be reflected on the loudness of your final exported video. Next, if you go across to "ratio," this will set the aspect ratio of the entire timeline, and make sure you set this before you start reframing, since you want your shots to fit perfectly within the frame size you set. So, pick 16:9 for YouTube, 1:1 for a square, 9:16 for a vertical video, and 2.35:1 if you're pretentious. Just kidding, kind of. The final two options are "copy" and "replace." What "copy" does is it duplicates your clip
if you want to reframe the same clip in two different ways, and "replace" will replace any
clip on the timeline with a different clip. The order of the bottom menu is a bit disorganized; I
do think some of them should go up here; however, you'll still get used to it pretty quickly. Now, let's talk about how to keyframe. If you haven't touched a clip yet, you'll notice "reframe 360 clip" will appear. You can either tap that or the "reframe" option down at the bottom. Now, in the reframing menu, there are multiple ways you'll now be able to reframe your clips. The first is "viewfinder," where it uses your phone's gyroscope to allow you to reframe as you swivel the phone around. While swiping the record button left and right will affect zoom. Personally, though, I'm not a fan of this. The next option is "deep track," where you long-press the screen to activate it, then draw a box around the subject. Then the app will go ahead and track
the subject throughout the clip, and once done, it will keep you in the dead center of the frame. Once you've deep-tracked a part of your clip, you can also customize the field of view. So let's say you want narrow, linear, wide, ultra-wide, or tiny planet. This will apply these field of views to your tracked clip. To delete it, tap the yellow portion, then delete. The next keyframing option is "Auto," and what Auto does is it gives you four
different viewpoints that you can choose from. "Forward view" shows your point of view,
aka what's in front of you. "Selfie view," well, you can guess. Then there's what they call
"out" and "in direction," and this refers to the front lens and the back lens. So, you don't
always have the lenses facing you perfectly; sometimes they're on the side, or sometimes you're
not in the shot at all. So, these two perspectives stay perfectly fixed in the direction of either lens, whereas "selfie view" will always point toward you, no matter where you are in relation to the camera. These modes are okay, but I personally wouldn't use them unless you're short on time.
I've saved the best for last. The final keyframing option is "keyframe," where you simply set
your field of view, tap the yellow plus to add a keyframe, move the timeline forward, and
repeat the process. Reframing the perspective is as simple as pinching to zoom and swiping to move
the perspective left or right. If you're not happy with the placement of your keyframes, for example,
this movement here takes a bit too long, swipe the timeline across so it hovers over the keyframe
you want to delete, then the X will show up, which you can tap to delete. Now, simply move to
the new position and add the new keyframe there. Another way of adjusting a keyframe, as opposed
to deleting it completely, assuming you want to keep it in the same place, is hovering over it
on the timeline and adjusting the perspective, then tapping "update keyframe." Now, you can
keep keyframing to your heart's content, always remembering to tap the plus icon every time you
change the perspective to save that perspective in place on the timeline. So, that's how you
do basic keyframing. It really is very easy, and you'll pick it up in no time. Personally,
I've been reframing in many different ways over the years, but this is the method I keep
coming back to due to it being the fastest and having the most amount of flexibility.
The final keyframing option is "combination," which essentially gives you a combination of
viewfinder, deep track, and field of view, all of which can be used on the same clip. So,
if you want to track one part, then keyframe the next, placing manual keyframes as we did before,
you've got the option to do that. Here, you'll find "rotate," which gives you the ability to
flip your horizon up to 360 degrees to create a cool rotating effect. Just make sure you do
this on the second keyframe and not the first.
If you ever want to start your reframing on a clip
from scratch, tap the paintbrush icon on the left, and here you'll have the option to clear
either the keyframe data or all reframing techniques you used on that clip.
Next, let's talk about speed effects. If you want to add either a hyperlapse or slow
motion to your shot, tap "speed" at the bottom, then choose whether you want it to be for the
entire clip or just a segment of it. Now, drag the slider across to choose how fast or slow you
want your clip to be. Also, keep in mind that it won't apply the motion blur effect until after you
export. Now, the hyperlapse will be automatically saved, as you can see with the yellow line on
the timeline. This will save as a reference later on that this is a hyperlapse clip.
Another effect down here is multi-view. If you want to create a picture-in-picture
effect or display two different viewpoints simultaneously, you can do so using
the various modes of multi-view.
Now, let's talk about transitions. In between
each of your clips, you'll notice a white box. These are the transitions. Something else worth
noting is when you move the timeline around, your keyframes will reduce to small yellow dots
to make accessing the transitions much easier. If you tap on a transition, you can customize
both the style and length. At the bottom, you'll find a bunch of stylish presets, so
choose whichever ones you like and drag the slider to change the length of that transition.
Now, going back down to the bottom menu, and there are a few effects that can add that finishing
touch to your video. The first one is "Filters." If you don't really feel like color grading
manually, there are a bunch of color presets you can add with one tap. There's a face filter if
you want to add filters to your face, which kind of seems weird to me, but whatever, it's there
if you want it. And then there's "adjust," which is manual color correction. So, if you do want
to manually change the brightness, contrast, saturation, shadows, highlights, and all the usual
stuff, you can do that here in this menu. There's also an "apply to all" option if you want to add
your color grade to every shot on your timeline.
So, you'll notice that the timeline has multiple
layers. Let's go through them one by one, starting with "music." If you tap on it, up will
come a bunch of different themes. Tap on one, and here you'll find a library of royalty-free
tracks you can use with your edits. You'll now see your chosen track appear on the music
layer, where you can drag it left or right to place it anywhere in your edit. You can
adjust the volume of the music here, as well as splitting a track in two and deleting one part
if you only want to use a portion of the track. The next layer is "text," where you can add
basic text or an animated text template. So, you can choose from a library of different kinds
of text animations. There's definitely some decent ones here that are worth checking out, all of
which can be resized within your video with your custom text of choice. You can get a decent amount
of customization over these graphics as well, so you can choose from different fonts, as well
as colors and transparency. Just like the other layers, you can adjust the length of your text
layer by simply dragging the edges across. Then from here, you can either add more, split
it, copy it, replace it, or just delete it.
The third layer is "stickers." If you want
to add an animated sticker to your video, go for it. Then, the fourth and final layer is
"effects," again, fun but kind of silly effects that may make your video more engaging. One
cool thing I like about the adjusting layers process is when you're moving clips around on
the timeline or changing lengths, your phone will give you haptic feedback and vibrate when
you're perfectly in line with the layers above.
So there we go; we've just done a multi-clip,
multi-layer video edit, which isn't that much less than what you could achieve with a desktop-based
editing software with a lot more time and workflow steps. Finally, to export, tap the export button
up at the top right, choose custom settings, and drag the sliders all the way to the
right. Currently, with multi-clip edits, the resolution maxes out at 1440p. However, a
new feature I noticed with single-clip edits is you can now export those one shot at a time
at 4K. However, 1440p is still pretty good. I'd recommend a bit rate of 25 to 50 if you're
short on phone storage, but if you've got plenty, make it 100. Finally, don't tap "color
plus" or "remove grain," and hit export.
By the way, if you ever want to come back
to one of your previous edits in the future, tap "drafts," and here you'll find all of your
previous edits with all the editing data that was there before. Now, you may be familiar with
the various shot lab effects and wondering if you can integrate these into your multi-clip edits.
The short answer is no, but it seems that one or two (I've only found one so far) can, in fact,
be added, and that effect is Sky Swap. To do it, open up the Sky Swap effect, apply the effect
as you normally would, then when exporting the effect, instead of "export," choose "create a
story." This will create a brand new timeline just like the one we were using before with
the Sky Swap effect as the first clip on the timeline. So from here, you can reframe your
skies for perfect using the same methods from earlier or add more clips to the timeline to
combine with the Sky Swap shot. Unfortunately though, it seems that you can only use one Sky Swap effect per video right now. I am, though, expecting this to change in the future. Insta360
has improved the mobile app and desktop software a fair bit over the years, and I don't see this
stopping. So you can definitely expect some more cool and updated features coming over the next
few years. That said, something I'm expecting, and I know many are hoping to see, is that the
desktop and mobile experiences become one, and all the features from the mobile app can be done
on desktop and vice versa. I'll make an updated version of this video when that happens, so be
sure to subscribe if you want to see that video.
If you're a new content creator making 360
videos for either personal or professional use, the editing process is really only a small part
of the overall workflow you'll need to master in order to create the viral-worthy reframed
360 videos you are hoping for. There are many other important steps that will ultimately
determine the success or failure of your content, which is why I made my new 360 video 101 course
to fill in all the knowledge gaps and take you from a complete beginner to a 360 video pro
in just seven days. So if that's something you'd find valuable, then follow the link
below to learn more about 360 video 101.
Next, if you also want to master
the Insta360 desktop software, which is also completely free for Insta360
users, then check out this video here to get my full breakdown of how to use Insta360 Studio
to edit and reframe your 360 videos like a pro.
