ICYMI: Instagram Edits' New Tutorial Series: How to Level Up Your Content
plus director-creator Adrian Per shares his exclusive pro tips
Instagram just launched a new educational how-to series for Edits — its mobile video editing app — led by film director and creator Adrian Per (@omgadrian).
I’ve got details on the new series plus an exclusive interview with Adrian, who breaks down the tutorials and shares his creative advice for aspiring and emerging creators, including the single most important thing you should focus on.
EDITS SERIES 101
Launched in April, Edits has been rolling out updates every week since then — more than 80+, according to Meta. So, you might have missed some of its newer features.
The 20 episode-long tutorial series is designed to help you catch up and feel confident using the new’ish app.
It takes a step-by-step approach to understanding some of the most important features and aims to cover the different phases of the production process — so, you'll see a mix of core editing topics as well as tutorials around specific Edits’ features.
Episodes will roll out in a dedicated library available to everyone, starting with a focus on the following five:
Inspiration - A place to show content made with Edits or by creators, including trending audio
Ideas - A place to keep track of ideas and content you’re excited by until you're ready to create
Camera - Capture and publish in enhanced video quality, with quick access to some of our most used features: touch up, green screen, the music catalog, timer and countdown
Teleprompter - Easily read scripts while filming and focus on capturing the perfect take
Keyframes - One of the top requested features by creators, animate the position, rotation, and scale of your clips, by pinpointing exact moments on your timeline
“Our primary focus is on building a library that can live within and is optimized for the Edits app,” a Meta rep told me. “We want these tutorials to be accessible and informative for creators to be able to learn and make great content.”
ADRIAN PER’S CREATOR ADVICE
Adrian Per is an LA-based director who went from shooting traditional commercials and music videos — with Nike, Alo Yoga, Megan the Stallion and more — to becoming a celebrated content creator and one of Adam Mosseri’s creator spotlight favorites.
He partnered with Instagram to lead the Edits tutorial series and spoke with me about his creative process, what posting every day for a year taught him and his biggest advice for content creators.
On the tutorial series: “The first one is a huge overview. We start with inspiration, where to find inspiration, how to save your ideas, and then we get into how to execute them. And we've sequenced it in a way where you should be able to watch it from 1 to 20, and it feels like a curriculum.”
Why he makes educational content: “My whole content strategy, prior to making educational content, was showing the cool things that I've made throughout my career. And what I've noticed is people were actually less interested in that, and they were more interested in how I did it. People want to get better at making content for themselves. So, I've doubled down on that. I don't want to gatekeep any of the knowledge that I have. I want to give people as many tools and skills as I can to create great art, great content, great videos.”
The one thing to focus on: “Hooks are so important, and then the retention. It's fascinating and I think that's so much more important than thinking about angles, thinking about composition and cool transitions. Once you figure out how to tell your story and convey the message or feeling that you're trying to give your audience, you then start to add all these things on top of it. Then, you're an unstoppable machine.”
What makes content pop: “It's key frames. You’re emphasizing a moment or an emotion. We see it in movies. We see it in TV shows. The difference between a static shot versus something that slowly pushes in or slowly pushes out. That's something that you feel more than you see. If people started using key frames to emphasize telling a strong story point, very subtly, the people watching wouldn’t even realize that they're being drawn in to the shot.”
On taking chances: “I went from directing music videos and commercials, proper legacy media rollouts, to making content. That's the short story. The short story to the long story is a whole lot of transformational life things. You know, experiencing loss and grief and the industry changing. And I took a bet. January 1, 2023, I said I was going to post every single day for a year, and I stuck with it, and it ended up being really fruitful.”
His signature text-on-screen style: “I can't even take credit for it. That is a Martin Scorsese thing and Wes Anderson. They use red. They use big, bold, blocky fonts on a contrasted background. Yellow was my dad's favorite color. When I started making content, it was a month after he had passed. So I was like, ‘Yellow is going to be my thing. I'm gonna stick with it forever. I'm going to live and die with yellow.’ But, yeah, even prior to that, I really enjoyed using yellow, whether it was a gig with Nike or a gig with Megan the Stallion.”
His best advice: “Most people don't even last to 10 pieces of content. They set out. They're super inspired. They write things. They make a couple things. And then they get discouraged. The only time you really, truly fail is if you quit. It is going to take a long time to refine your skill, your taste, your talent, and the only thing that's stopping you from getting there is quitting too soon.
A lot of people tell me, ‘I made a thing, I didn't see results, I didn't see views.’ And it's like, ‘Yo, you've been doing this for seven months. You made four videos in those seven months. And like, congratulations. That's fantastic to make even one thing, but you're not going to learn anything doing that.’
I think the other facet of that is comparison. Don't compare yourself. Go on your own journey. Don't quit. Be resilient. Making art is about expression. It's not about gamifying it, I think a lot of people burn themselves out because they gamify it.”
“It is going to take a long time to refine your skill, your taste, your talent, and the only thing that's stopping you from getting there is quitting too soon.”
On posting daily: “The more free throws you put up, the better you'll get at making free throws. I see the same thing for content and just making videos in general. If you were to watch a year ago — at that point, I put out 600 videos — to where I am now, I'm even more comfortable. I don't think the method is posting every day, but maximizing your efforts in doing something. One, that's sustainable. And, two, that you understand not everything's going to be great, and that's OK.”
👀 ALL THE EDITS UPDATES I COULD TRACK
According to Meta, there have been 80+ Edits updates with more to come. I found at least 44 publicly visible feature announcements — if you are an Edits pro, let me know if you see anything I missed?!
Ideas tab
Inspiration tab
Camera
Clip preview
Teleprompter
Stickies on teleprompter
Safe zones guide
Green screen
Projects tab
Saved audio in Ideas
Notes in Ideas
Insights
Top 10 Insights
Swipe between Reels on Insights
Chaining in Reels
Timeline
Timeline frame rate
Fonts (up to 150)
Text Animations
Filters
Transitions
Captions
Video effects
Overlays
Restyle AI edits
Keyframes
Keyframe curves
Snap to Edge
Animate
Apply All
Music / Audio library
Royalty free music
Extract audio
Voice Effects
Voice Enhance
Extended track duration
Cut silences
Import audio from files
Increase volume to 150%
Beat markers
Save drafts to Instagram
Share drafts to DMs
Publishing (to Facebook or Instagram)
Detailed export progress
Thanks for reading!