Once you’ve finished recording all your scenes and dialogue, you’ll need to put everything together. Using editing software, such as OpenShot, iMovie, Adobe Premier Rush, and so on, you’ll be able to trim footage, arrange and order your scenes, overlay music or other audio elements, add visuals from external sources, and create animations. This will help you polish and finalize your video for publishing.   

OpenShot Editing: OpenShot is a straightforward, open-source editing software, that allows users to carry out most standard editing tasks. OpenShot can be downloaded to Mac, Windows, and Linux formats, and allows its users to edit their videos quickly thanks to its simple user-interface. OpenShot is not a particularly advanced editing tool, but its open-source nature and easy to use functionality makes it a great tool for beginners. 

iMovie: iMovie is a non-linear, casual and easy to use editing software that comes preinstalled on every Apple computer. iMovie is free and makes use of easy-to-understand user-interfaces that makes editing your videos quick and fun to do if you’re still a beginner to video editing.  

Adobe Premiere Rush: Adobe Premiere Rush is a user-friendly, free, edition of the Adobe Premiere Pro editing program, which allows newcomers and beginners to create well edited videos. Premiere Rush boasts a bigger library of features than Apple’s iMovie software, with a slightly more advanced suite of colour grading tools and audio editing capabilities. 

Adobe Premiere Pro: Adobe Premiere Pro is a professional grade editing software. Building from Premiere Rush’s user-friendly interface, this software subscription costs around $40.00 a month, and provides an expansive suite of video and audio editing tools. Premiere Pro allows you to automatically generate text-captions for your audio, reformat your videos, and colour grade your footage, among many other features. This software has a higher barrier to entry than other, free editing tools, but comes with extensive professional level tools. 

Closed captioning is an important part of video production and can be a crucial step to creating material that gets viewed by as many people as possible! Captions allow you to create a full transcript of all audible elements within your video, meaning viewers can watch your film without having to rely on hearing alone. Creating more accessible videos can help more audiences reach your work, and have many benefits; 

• Closed Captioning can help overcome language barriers 

• Can be used to overcome poor audio quality  

• Can allow viewers to watch your video even while in noisy environments or on the go 

• Can allow viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing to access your video 

The Described and Captioned Media Program website includes several helpful resources on accessibility standards which can be reviewed during the post-production phase!

World Wide Web Consortium’s WebVTT Web Video Text Tracks Format guide also provides important instructions on how to create accessible and effective video captioning. In addition, Harvard University’s Multimedia Accessibility resources are a great guide on including captioning and transcription options in your video.

If you have the budget, you might want to outsource this process entirely to a company that specializes in captioning video projects! This may be costly, but could mean you get to devote more time to other facets of your production while also receiving high quality captioning services. 

Other Free Captioning Resources  

• https://amara.org/  

• http://ncamftp.wgbh.org/cadet/  

• https://subtitle-horse.com/  

• https://aegisub.en.uptodown.com/windows  

Accessibility is incredibly important to consider when creating a video or film, but doesn’t always get highlighted within laws or regulations. As video-makers, it’s important to strive for more accessible media wherever possible. This section will outline a few important steps you can take to make your video a more accessible resource for your viewers! 

The Web Accessibility Initiative’s (WAI) Web Content Accessibility Guide (WCAG) contains a helpful guideline to meeting general accessibility standards. WCAG outlines three levels of compliance; A, AA, and AAA. Triple A is the highest accessibility standard to achieve, and is always something creators should strive to meet. Double A is a far more common level of accessibility standard, and are generally considered acceptable best practices that creators should try to exceed. A is of course the lowest rating, and should be a benchmark for the lowest standard of access.  The WCAG webpage allows users to search various types of media to determine how a given piece of content can be tailored to meet WAI’s standards.  

You may also want to reach out to the University of Toronto Scarborough’s AccessAbility Services for more specific information on further incorporating accessibility standards into your projects. 

Here are some general points of accessibility to keep in mind when creating your video and reviewing it during the post production stage for accessibility standards; 

• Include Captions 

• Include Descriptive text 

• Maintain Proper Colour Contrast 

• All Text is Legible 

• Proper Narration Speed 

• Include Pauses for Comprehension  

• Content Warnings for distressing scenes, topics, flashing lights, etc. 

Described video, or audio descriptions are an important tool for making videos more accessible to those who are blind or otherwise visually impaired. Like a commentary track on a DVD, described audio is a separate audio track that is attached to your video, in which the visual elements of your video are described during pauses or periods of silence in your primary audio track, unlike closed captions, in which audio is presented as text to be read by viewers as the video progresses.

Audio descriptions make note of settings, action, graphics, scene changes, and other important elements that may otherwise rely on your viewers’ ability to effectively see your scenes, all without interfering with character dialogue. At times, Extended Audio Description may be required, in which case some scenes may be temporarily paused to make room for the description. 

Unfortunately, many video players (like YouTube) don’t support separate audio tracks, as needed in Closed Audio Descriptions, in which the descriptive track can be turned on or off at the viewer’s discretion.

This means that Open Audio Description (OAD) is more often used online; viewers cannot turn Open Audio Description tracks off while watching your video, as they are embedded in your film alongside your normal audio track. As such, creators often create two versions of their video, one with OAD, and another that only features their primary audio tracks.