Learning how to do videos

The first Sharka in-car video.

The first Sharka in-car video.

My lack of video editing skills has bothered me for a while. Years, in fact. But I’ve really not had the time to learn this skill between my various jobs and keeping up with gauge orders.

Until now?

I decided it was time. I’m gonna teach myself to edit videos if it kills me. So here’s my first attempt.

This was shot with my (now apparently ancient) Gopro 3+. I’ve owned this camera for a couple years and have never really done anything with it. I have a full selection of Gopro attachemnts and accessories. I’ve got batteries and a backpack screen. I’ve got the app on my phone.

It was time.

I suction-cup’d the camera various places on Sharka while I ran errands for a half hour. Then I managed to get the files off the Gopro and into an editor. I decided to start with the free Gopro Studio software on this one and see how it was.

All total, the minute and a half video took roughly 6 hours of working time to complete. It was pretty rough. I’m hoping that the next one will be somewhat easier.

Also, this is apparently the very first in-car footage of Sharka EVER. 16 years of ownership and finally there’s a few seconds of in-car video. I should be ashamed that it took this long.

Anyone got any suggestions? A dummys book or a helpful website? Complements or criticism? I’d love to hear it all. Anything would help me on the development of this new skill.

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  • Brad says:

    Six hours for a minute and a half worth of result? Sounds a lot like dating! =P

    From all my experience editing stuff with a VCR and old school bookshelf audio system, back in the 90’s, as a kid wanting to make his own AMV’s, I must say well done. Wish I could contribute to your efforts, but you’ve gone beyond what I ever did.

    Personally, I like shots that last longer than the average modern attention span. I have trouble watching just about any modern action movie because you get about 2-3 seconds of a shot, then it cuts to something else. Frankly, movies like that are so hard to follow that it bothers me. I fortunately don’t have ADD, so why do so many movies think I do?

    Point of correction though, the song is called “Ashes to Ashes” on the album Harmony of a Hunter. Knew I recognized that title from somewhere… fellow OCR fan here. 😉

    • revlimiter says:

      Short cuts were honestly the absolute most hardest part of this. All of the cuts were easily 3x the length originally. Forcing myself to chop things down to a “modern” video cut length was tough. And it’s not even good enough. I was reading that 2-3 seconds is a pretty long segment for a vid like this. Many of mine are like 10-15 seconds.

      And THANKS for the song info!!! The title was badly done on the MP3 I used and I couldn’t tell what was a title, artist, or album. I guessed. ha!

      And thanks for the kind words of encouragement.

      • GT-Alex says:

        Agreed on the short cuts part, I hate it when there’s only that for the whole video. It’s okay when it takes a small part of the video and / or flows with the music, if any.

        As for your editing skills, you’ve already done a very nice job there ! Although you may want a better software to work faster, don’t know the GoPro editor but I also know nobody using it.

        Also, Sharka has a lovely voice !

        • revlimiter says:

          The Gopro software was a test. My next vid (probably today’s work) will be done in Windows Movie Maker. And after that, I’ll step up to Adobe Premier and see how that one goes. Just trying to get a flavor for all of them. I did some Flash videos back in the day so a vid timeline isn’t totally foreign to me, but… yeah. Editing actual video and trying to work it into the music and stuff feels a bit different.

          So did you think the cuts were too short? Out of curiosity.

          And thanks!

        • GT-Alex says:

          I wasn’t annoyed by this video here. As a teaser, that’s perfectly okay, a few even shorter would have been good since you mixed some longer cuts in that. Just don’t make a whole scene with them (yes, I’m looking at you, Hollywood !)

      • Brad says:

        Sorry if I wasn’t clear Adam. I liked this video, the shots were not overly short by any means. Call me crazy, but I love older movies, simply because they would let you focus on the environment of the shot, and it helps to establish atmosphere.

        Meanwhile in Hollywood, very little is actual scene anymore, with the advent of CGI. You’re working in the real world, let us see it. Sure, some shots may seem boring, but if it allows the audience to take in a whole scene, great.

        Compare old Star Wars trilogy with the modern films. Notice how much longer each shot was between cuts in the old ones? I actually remember those movies. The new ones? Bits and pieces, at best, because that is all the audience is shown, is bits and pieces… all… the… time. No thanks.

  • Max says:

    If you do the editing on your normal computer, get a large external hard drive.
    I don’t know why, but I noticed that editing-software can “cope” with large amounts of data better the more “space” there is on the computer’s hard drive.

  • Dave says:

    I think you did a nice job, especially with one camera. I’ve had some experience (though it’s been several years since I’ve done any real editing). My experience with the GoPro editing software isn’t much better than Apple’s iMovie. Good for cutting excess footage and maybe a few transitions here and there. It doesn’t compare to Final Cut Pro, which was easy to use but expensive if you weren’t a student. But even with great software, any editing just takes a TON of time unfortunately.

    I too have an “ancient” GoPro 3+ that I only use for AutoX anymore. It’s hard to get exciting “movies” with one camera/one mounting location. The only advice I can give you is to keep playing around, and move the camera to as many different places as you can think of while you’re out getting footage. 2 cameras makes things a lot easier, since you can match them (time-wise) and have continuity from cut to cut. Just avoid mounting them 180 degrees from each other, creating directional confusion for the viewer. You have an eye for photography. If you want to spend the time and practice, you’ll come up with some great videos. Time spent doing it will turn into talent.

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