7.2 – Editing Your Movie Pt. 1 Lesson

Lesson Overview

Getting started on editing your movie means knowing your workspace and bringing in all your materials in a way that keeps your project smooth and manageable. In this lesson, you’ll get familiar with DaVinci Resolve’s interface, especially the workflow tabs along the bottom (Media, Edit, Fusion, Color, Fairlight, Deliver). This lesson focuses specifically on the Media and Edit tabs because these are where you’ll do most of your organizing and timeline work for a basic movie project.

You’ll see how to import all your generated videos, music, sound effects, and images (even if you don’t use them in the final cut). Organizing these assets from the start helps prevent confusion later. Setting your project’s resolution early on ensures your edit matches your planned output, which is especially useful when working with different media formats or aiming for a specific look (like widescreen or standard HD).

Whether you’re assembling your first AI-generated film or moving your project into post-production, these setup habits save time and keep your workflow clear. This foundational knowledge is useful in any video project—business tutorials, school assignments, marketing content, or personal films.

Who This Is For

This lesson will be most helpful if you want a straightforward, organized approach to starting your movie edit in DaVinci Resolve.

• New filmmakers using AI to generate movie content
• Content creators seeking to structure projects efficiently
• Educators guiding students in basic film editing
• Small business owners editing promotional videos
• Anyone unfamiliar with DaVinci Resolve’s core workspace and file management
• Hobbyist editors looking for best practices in project setup

Where This Fits in a Workflow

You’ll use these skills at the very start of your editing process, after generating your video and audio content. Properly importing and organizing files in DaVinci Resolve makes every edit faster and reduces the chance of confusion or missing assets later.

For example, if you’re preparing a short film, you’ll gather all your video clips, sound effects, and music, sort them into bins, and check the preview before dropping anything into the timeline. This approach also makes it easy to swap in placeholders, like images, if you want to keep your edit moving before all assets are ready.

If you’re working with a team, good file organization in the Media and Edit tabs lets others jump into your project without getting lost. Solid project setup supports both solo and collaborative film projects.

Technical & Workflow Benefits

Without organized importing and project setup, editing can quickly become frustrating—scrambling to find clips, mismatched resolutions, and time lost sorting files mid-edit. Using DaVinci Resolve’s Media tab for importing, previewing, and binning all your assets means you know exactly where everything is. Setting your timeline resolution up front prevents unexpected quality issues and keeps your edit looking consistent.

For instance, dragging whole folders of videos and music straight into bins takes far less time than importing files one-by-one. Designating standard resolutions (like 1920x1080 for HD) ensures you won’t have to re-edit or re-export your film just to fix the output size. These small steps add up to faster edits and better results, whether you’re producing social media clips, instructional materials, or full movies.

Practice Exercise

Open a new project in DaVinci Resolve using the media you generated earlier in this course.

1. Gather your video, music, and sound effects files—store them in clear folders on your computer.
2. In the Media tab, navigate to each folder and drag its contents into the Master bin. Create sub-bins if you want to separate video, audio, and images.
3. Set your timeline resolution in the Project Settings. Try both HD (1920x1080) and a wider aspect ratio. Note which suits your project needs.

**Reflection:**
How did having all your files organized in bins and the project resolution set up front change the way you felt about starting the edit?

Course Context Recap

This lesson marks the beginning of hands-on editing in your movie creation workflow. Previously, you finished generating and gathering your media outside DaVinci Resolve. Now, you’ve covered organization and workspace setup—the groundwork for editing. Next, you’ll move on to arranging and trimming your clips to start shaping your story. Continue with the course to build and polish your full AI-powered movie.