It’s Time To Start Using Overlays In Your Videos

This blog will relate heavily to two most recent blog posts from 34 Motion Media including Why A Stock Footage Library Will Be Your New Best Friend and 5 Ways To Fix Your Amateur Looking Video in Post so if you haven’t had a chance to check those out yet, go ahead and click on those links before proceeding further.

There are an endless number of video editing techniques out there and the chances that you master them all is almost zero. You may think you’ll be able to reach the apex of video editing, but by the time you’re halfway there, new techniques, trends and capabilities are already making their way to YouTube and TikTok.

However, there is one simple and impactful approach to your videos that I think is trending upward, easy to implement, and will give your videos a sense of style and professionalism. That style is called overlays.

If you have no idea what overlays are when it comes to video editing, go over to your stock footage library (which you should already be subscribed to if you read our earlier blog posts) and do a simple search for “overlays”. As an example, when I search on my library, Envato Elements, I’m greeted with over 18,000 different examples of overlays I can use on my videos. And that’s just the start of it all.

Film grains, glitch effects, bokeh overlays, dust particles — and that’s just the first page. These libraries are full of licensed overlays that can give your footage the depth that it has been missing.

Personally, I find that these are adept at adding another layer to your edit that’s really unachievable via any other method, lest you spend hours recreating one. Since implementing these into my daily workflow, I’ve found uses for overlays on sports highlight montages, YouTube outros, nature documentaries, narrative productions, corporate explainers, product videos, and more. There really isn’t a definitive reason or way to use them.

Just recently, I was watching a TikTok that included a long, drawn out meme about Breaking Bad. The first thing I noticed was the overlays and that’s because it was very clear that the editor only had access to a few clips of footage. In order to make this video funny, engaging, and visually pleasing, overlays had to be used.

If you’re not a video editor, you may never notice overlays. Overlays can even start to leak into the realm of special effects. You can find rain, snow, and even fall leaves overlays. You can add artificial lens flares, light leaks and glitch effects as overlays. The possibilities really are endless. If you can imagine it, I’m sure there is an overlay for it.

So next time you’re browsing your stock image library for an extra piece of content, take a look at the overlays section or do a general search for overlays and consider using that as part of your edit. I think you’ll like the result.