1 – Adobe Premiere

Professional-level non-linear editing software to put your video together. I’ve not tried the competition (Final Cut Pro etc) but I love it too much to even think about moving away. Plus, it offers fantastic levels of integration with After Effects, Photoshop and other Adobe programs to make life much easier.

If it’s good enough for Avatar, it’s good enough for me!

2 – Adobe After Effects

Special effects software, often used in commercial applications such as DVD menus, adverts and films – it’s like Photoshop for video. I made the ‘tired-eye’ credits entirely in After Effects using just two photos… the rain, animation and colouring was all generated in After Effects. It needs a bit of perseverance, but it’s quite intuitive if you use other Adobe programs.

It’s possible, but quite difficult and cumbersome to edit large numbers of clips together in After Effects, so use a video editor alongside it.

3 – Adobe Photoshop

Photo-editing software of choice, as used by virtually all professional graphic designers (in conjunction with Illustrator). What you can’t do with photos with this program isn’t worth doing. I use this to create track mattes, masks and other gradients to use in videos. I also create photo manipulations, such as the photos of Chloe and Bruce as seen in ‘The Gotham Trilogy’.

4 – Audacity

A free program for playing with audio – I use it most frequently to convert MP3 into WAV files to help my video editor work quicker with them. I’ve also used it to mix my own music tracks, such as the music that accompanies the Tired Eye credits – I also used it to double the length of the interlude in ‘All is Full of Love’ so that I could fit the ballroom scene in. It’s much more precise than trying to mix tracks in your video editing software.

It also allows you to apply a number of effects to audio, like warping, amplifier, tempo, cutting out background noise etc. It’s hard to beat for the price (free!).

5 – VirtualDub

A fantastic free program for cutting and transcoding video and audio. It opens just about anything, and is happy to work with VOB files which have been ripped from a DVD (see below). It gives me a bit of trouble when I try to do anything with audio though. I use this to cut clips out of episodes and convert them into something that Adobe Premiere will work with by changing the size and codec.

VirtualDub also has a large number of effects built in which you can apply to video, such as resizing, cropping, colouring, embossing, reversing and so on. It’s a good add-on if you have a basic video editor that can’t do these.

6 – VirtualDubMod

An official ‘hack’ of VirtualDub, it supports more file types. I tend to use VirtualDubMod if I’m preparing downloaded clips, as it renders them in a way which doesn’t need previewing in Adobe Premiere… for reasons that I’ve tried to fathom but am as yet unable to comprehend ;-p

7 -DVD Decrypter

Another free program. In a nutshell, DVD goes in, VOB files go onto your computer. VOB files go to VirtualDub, which then go to your video editor. Enough said!

8 – GSpot

Another free program which will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about a video file – size, frame rate, codecs, aspect ratio, everything. Very handy if, like me, you don’t want to change things too much in order to retain quality.

9 – Super

Free software for converting video and audio files – from anything to anything and fast. The presets are great, and do all the hard work for you too!

10 - MPEG Streamclip

Another free video and audio conversion program – I find it a little pickier than Super, which is why I’ve ranked it lower but it’s definitely worth the download. I always use it to create my final videos ready for YouTube.