Edit videos with a $20 game controller to save time and have more fun

By Anthony Thurston May 16, 2016

Use A Game Controller As An Editing Surface! - Adobe Premiere Tutorial

If you have ever tried editing videos you would know that shortcuts, hot keys, and other time-saving tricks can be a godsend when working on projects that never seem to end. So, what if we told you that you could edit your videos faster than ever, while at the same time practicing your gaming muscle memory – and for just $20 or so? This is what video editor Casey Faris demonstrates in his latest YouTube video.

In the video, Faris pairs a $20 Logitech Gamepad F310 (though virtually any PC compatible controller should work) with his PC and a copy of Adobe’s Premiere Pro CC to demonstrate how he accomplished this task. It’s pretty crazy to see Faris doing almost an entire video edit with just his controller, everything from ripple edits to deleting clips, play/pause, zoom in/out, and the list goes on and on.

XboxOne_WirelessController_remote There are some fun tricks and hacks like this for photo editors to make processing your images in programs like Adobe Lightroom a little more fun and fluid. But this is the first time we have seen this utilized for a video editing workflow. It’s great, too, because not only is it faster than a mouse and keyboard, but if you are also a gamer it can help you with that critical muscle memory to improve your skills. So not only are you finishing up your work, but you are training for that gaming session with your buddy at the same time.

This writer doesn’t do a ton of video editing, but has dabbled in it from time to time, and can only imagine how much time this could save an editor once they got the hang of it. This appears to be a fun alternative to the usual host of tools that a video editor may utilize to save some time on a project.

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Anthony Thurston

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Anthony is an internationally published photographer based in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Specializing primarily in…

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