When pandemic cancelled all my travel and Gymnastics coaching gigs, I took the time to improve my video editing. It’s become my main hobby.
Three phases (so far):
- Learning the technology. Experimenting with different cameras. And acce$$ories.
- Story. Story. Story.
- My personal style.
After posting my French Creek tribute, I declared I was GOOD ENOUGH at video editing technology for my purposes. I could sit down at a table with a professional video editor and understand 75% of what they were talking about. 😀
Far more difficult is to decide on what story to tell. And to tell it effectively. Many super skillful editors struggle finding their next story.
I threw this short video together quickly as a teaser for my How to Survive the West Coast Trail videos. But in some weird way, it’s evocative of that wild and challenging hike. It tells the story well
I’m particularly happy with the audio.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Putting these together is incredibly time consuming.
I kept trying to find ways to improve my efficiency. And that ended up evolving into my personal style of video — as of October 2022, at least. Who knows what’s next? 😀
I posted Valencia, Spain in January 2022. My edits today are all similar. But I’m adding more personal drone footage rather than drone stock video.
What is my style?
- Music driven
- Landscape, not vertical (portrait)
- Cuts are mostly on the beats
- Mostly hard cuts
- Use transitions sparingly
- Use gimmickry sparingly … though I do love speed ramps 😀
- Lots of drone footage
- Normally no voice over
- No ads
- Social media pestering only at the end.
Challenging for me is finding the right music for each story.
One of my best edits was Norway Highlights. I credit the song — Odesza Higher Ground — as once I decided on the soundtrack, it was easy to decide where to put each clip. In the example, below, the colours are music blocks to be filled with scenes I decide upon later.
Increasingly I’m picking music first, shooting the video later.
Odesza is my favourite band right now. Very popular for YouTube edits.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
What’s next?
I’ve been studying Colour Grading through a course called … Color Grading Academy.
It’s a very complicated process.
Some of the best video editors online send out their final product for Colour experts to finish. An art, not a science.
Things I’ve decided NOT to use:
- Tracking
- Hue / Saturation curves
- … more to be added
P.S.
I posted the Englishman River Falls hike in November 2020 and again in October 2022. I’ve definitely improved.
Click PLAY or watch the Nov 2020 edit on YouTube. I was quite happy with it. But NOW I’m wondering what weird colour grade I was experimenting with at that time. 😀
Click PLAY or watch the Oct 2022 edit on YouTube.
Rick McCharles 