I Had to Let Go of My Editing Ego – Why Filmora Surprised a Premiere Pro Editor

10/11/2026

I've been producing adult content since 2002, and for most of my producing life Adobe Premiere Pro has been at the centre of my editing workflow. I consider myself a professional editor. I've spent years learning editing, colour correction, audio, graphics, effects and all the little tricks that eventually become second nature when you've been doing this long enough. So why the hell have I found myself increasingly drawn towards Wondershare Filmora?

That's something I've been asking myself recently, because Filmora wasn't originally software I seriously considered replacing Premiere with. In fact, I originally recommended it to other people. Over the years I've worked with plenty of models and creators who shoot and edit their own content, and many of them aren't interested in becoming professional video editors. They just want to shoot something, make it look good, get it edited and start selling it. That's exactly why I started recommending Filmora.

From around Filmora 14 onwards, I thought Wondershare had created something particularly good for independent content creators. It looked friendly, the interface wasn't intimidating, and you could understand what things did without having to watch hours of tutorials first. There were loads of effects, transitions, titles and templates already there. You could drag something onto the timeline, change a few settings and suddenly your video looked considerably more polished. Perfect for beginners, I thought.

Then came Filmora 15 and now Filmora 16, and somewhere along the way something unexpected happened: I started using it myself.

Initially, I wasn't trying to replace Premiere. I just wanted some of the things Filmora could create quickly. Scene intros were a big one, along with animated and 3D titles. Filmora had things available that either weren't sitting there waiting for me inside Premiere or would require me to build them myself, download additional assets or start involving After Effects. In Filmora, I could find something I liked, drop it in, customise it and get on with the rest of the edit.

That's when a slightly uncomfortable question entered my head: Why am I making things the difficult way just because I know how to?

This is something I think Adobe could seriously think about. Premiere Pro is professional editing software and I understand that professional editors are expected to know how to create things themselves. But why should that mean we have to create everything ourselves? If I can spend 30 minutes creating an animated title from scratch or get an equally good result from a professionally designed template in five minutes, which one actually makes more business sense?

Being capable of doing something doesn't mean doing it manually every single time is the best use of your time. That's particularly important for independent content producers because we're not sitting in an editing suite doing one job all week. We're producing, filming, editing, creating promotional clips, making thumbnails, uploading, updating websites, posting to social media, dealing with performers and planning the next production. Every hour I can save editing is an hour I can use somewhere else.

The more I used Filmora, the more I realised I'd underestimated it. I'd been recommending it to people because it was easy. What I hadn't properly appreciated was what happens when you put that easy software into the hands of somebody who already understands editing.

I already understand timelines, keyframes, compositing, masking, colour, audio, pacing and how effects should actually be used. Instead of Filmora's simplicity limiting me, I found myself using that simplicity to work faster. Some of the results genuinely surprised me. There were things I was producing inside Filmora that looked more like something I'd previously expect to create using a combination of Premiere Pro and After Effects, except I was getting there considerably faster.

That's when I realised I probably had something else getting in the way: my editing ego.

I think professional editors can sometimes develop a bit of software snobbery, and I'll admit that I probably had some myself. There's this idea that because you've spent years learning professional software, moving to something that's easier somehow means you're stepping backwards. Premiere is professional. After Effects is professional. Filmora is for beginners.

But what if the finished video looks just as good?

Your audience doesn't know what editing software you used, and more importantly, they don't care. They don't know whether an animation took you three hours to build from scratch or whether you started with a template and customised it in ten minutes. They see the finished product. If it looks professional, sounds professional and entertains them, that's what matters.

So I had to let go of my editing ego. I don't have to use something simply because it's considered the more "professional" application. I need to use whatever gives me the result I want.

My thinking around templates has changed as well. If somebody else has already designed an excellent title, transition, animation or effect, why shouldn't I use it? Obviously, I don't want every Dusk Films production looking exactly like somebody else's video, and that's where experience still matters. I can change things, combine elements, alter timings and customise fonts, graphics, colours and animation. I can take the starting point and make it fit the production I'm working on.

The difference is that I don't always have to start with an empty canvas.

Filmora gives you hundreds of things to start with, and I no longer see using them as cheating. I see it as efficiency.

I think this is where Wondershare has got something right. A beginner can open Filmora and start editing without immediately feeling overwhelmed, but an experienced editor can go much deeper. That's how I think software should work: make the basics easy and make the advanced controls available when people need them.

Adobe could actually take a leaf out of Wondershare's book here. If Adobe wants somebody who's never edited before to download Premiere Pro, open it and start creating, why does it need to look so intimidating? Why couldn't Premiere have a huge library of modern, high-quality, customisable titles, intros, social graphics, effects and animations built directly into the experience?

Professional editors wouldn't suddenly forget how to edit because presets existed. We'd probably just finish our work faster. At the same time, beginners might find the software much more approachable and stick around long enough to become experienced editors themselves.

I'm not suddenly saying Premiere Pro is bad. Far from it. I've used it for most of my producing career for a reason, and there are still areas where a traditional professional NLE gives me things I want. There are also parts of Filmora's workflow that I think could still be improved for heavier professional use.

What has changed is that I've stopped thinking about editing software as some kind of status symbol. The question shouldn't be, "What do professional editors use?" It should be, "What gets me the result I want in the least amount of time?"

Because time matters, especially when you're running your own production business. If one piece of software lets me produce the same quality video in three hours instead of six, I've gained three hours. That's three hours with my family, three hours away from a computer, three hours working on another part of Dusk Films or three hours where I can start editing the next production. Multiply those savings across dozens of videos over a year and suddenly the difference becomes enormous.

Maybe that's the biggest lesson Filmora has taught me. For years, I associated professional editing software with complexity: lots of panels, lots of controls and lots of things you need to learn. There's absolutely a place for that level of control, but maybe genuinely good software is software that makes the common things easy while still giving experienced users the tools they need when they want to go further.

Filmora 14 got my attention. Filmora 15 made me start using it more seriously. Now, with Filmora 16, I'm looking at it very differently from when I first recommended it to creators.

I originally recommended Filmora because I thought it was good software for people who weren't editors. Ironically, the more I've used it, the more I've realised how useful it can be when you already are one.

After nearly 25 years of producing content and most of my professional editing life spent with Adobe Premiere Pro, Filmora managed to make me question something I thought I'd settled years ago: Why make editing harder than it needs to be?

If the finished product looks great, your audience is happy and you've spent less of your life sitting in front of an editing timeline, does it really matter which software got you there?

I don't think it does anymore.