The average edit...

[Roger Gunkel]

Good points Steve, but it is also true that if a newbie to camera work has no experience or knowledge of older techniques, then they will learn and follow examples of current ones. As a veteran camerman, I could stick with techniques I have used for 30 years and be an old codger, but I also have the advantage of cherry picking modern ideas that I like, and feel add value to my knowledge and productions, rather than being just stuck in the past.

Roger

[Steven Shea]

I have realized that for weddings, and other gigs, I really ought to start learning to edit in camera and be more selective with what I shoot. All capturing heaps of footage does is lengthen the edit time.

Just got a used Blackmagic pocket camera, which will somewhat force me into doing that.

[Roger Gunkel]

It's certainly worth experimenting with Steven,, it's all part of the tools to add to the box. I suppose editing on camera is a throw back to linear editing and the need to be economical with shots, a bit like photographers experienced in using film will often take less shots that digital only photographers.

Roger

[James Manford]

I spend the most time creating a highlight video.

Then I spend the most time "getting in to the main edit" I find it hard to decide on a opening song, picking the first 2 mins worth of scenes to ease the transition into the main feature.

Once i'm in to it it's pretty much just colour grading and picking clips as it happened on the day.

[Robert Benda]

James, I don't get why you'd do it in that order, short form first, then full length?

I tried that and really didn't like it. There were always clips I missed, or better ideas. Now, I do the full length so that by the time I do the highlights, I've seen how all the footage turned out, and can make my best possible highlights.

Do you find a real advantage to doing highlights first?

[Chris Harding]

Yeah, that would be back to front for me too! I like to do the complete long form edit so I know where all the juicy pieces are in the footage that will make up the high lights video. Of course if you are one of those editors that take their time and do the main edit over maybe 6 weeks or more I could see a quick trailer being done first so the bride has something to keep her happy in the meantime. We have our full edit and high light all out in a week or two at the most so a trailer isn't a necessity really and the high light video is only 8 or 9 minutes so that is our short contribution which also goes into our video albums.

[Vince Pachiano]

When filming sports for a compilation DVD, 90% of the footage is worthless.
So to save time in post, when I film a "scene" that I know is worthless, I immediately film 2 seconds of a black frame (my hand over the lens)
Then after ingestion, I delete the worthless scene (and black frame) before Import

Likewise, when I capture a scene that I know is excellent, I film 2 seconds of a white frame (increase gain)
During Import, it is easy to see the white frame, and assign the previous scene 5-stars

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

. Of course if you are one of those editors that take their time and do the main edit over maybe 6 weeks or more I could see a quick trailer being done first so the bride has something to keep her happy in the meantime. We have our full edit and high light all out in a week or two at the most so a trailer isn't a necessity really and the high light video is only 8 or 9 minutes so that is our short contribution which also goes into our video albums.

A highlight serves a completely different purpose then a trailer, a trailer gets viewed online and is by far the best free advertisement tool so there is a good reason to do that first, I have always charged extra for a trailer and even after doubling the price for a trailer the couple, especially the brides to be, still wanted and paid for it. I am one of "those editors" that can't finish a edit every week but I finish the trailer before I finish the rest and I don't loose any time doing so.

The way I do it is as follows:

- copy the contents from every card as is, so I don't change it's structure or rename anything, so if I"m copying the contents from my rx10 I just make a folder named "rx10" and copy everything straight from that card to the folder, I do the same for all my other camera's and audio recorders. So I end up with a bunch of folders which each have a corresponding name of the device they have been taken from.
- I then make 2 new folders named "video_raw" and "audio_raw" and sort everything video and audio folders accordingly.
- In edius I just import those entire folders.
- in edius I make a new folder named "video_edit" and I drag all my videocontent (which comes from 6 different camera's) into that folder, here I only take the videofiles and ignore the file structure, I sort it according to date recorded and drag everything to the timeline into a sequence called "master" and place it on the first videotrack so it's on there in chronological order.
- Then I start editing and that means delete what is not good and cut back what I can use so I end up with usable material only which is on the timeline in chronological order.
- While I do that I select parts that are usable for the trailer and lift those one track up.
- When it involves multicam edit, so long continuous files, I already sync those.
- Then I take my audio and check every single file to know what it is and rename it in the edius bin, so it gets names like "c24_groom", "h1_lectern", "dr05_altar", dr40_churchspeaker" and so on.
- I make a new folder called "audio_edit" and drag all my audio in there.
- Then I drag all audio to the parts where they belong and sync it all up
- I then do a rough cut of all my multicam recordings.

This finishes up the first preperationpart

- Then I make the trailer first, since I allready preselected the good parts that saves me a lot of time and from the ceremony I only need the keyparts, for speeches I also have preselected the interesting part and raised those one level up on the timeline.
I just duplicate the entire "master" sequence that contains all my footage and rename it to "trailer" and there I edit the trailer.
When the trailer is finished I export as a mp4 file and upload directly to vimeo.
- I duplicate the master sequence again and call it "highlights" and start editing from there, my "master" sequence is my base so if I mess anything up I can still take a new copy from the master sequence which contains all roughly cut files.
- Each time I reach a part that needs to be used completely and partially in the edit, like the ceremony or speeches I duplicate the "highlight" sequence again and name it accordingly, like "ceremony" and delete all non relevant stuff before and after the ceremony and finish the ceremony completely, do the colorcorrection, set the levels from my audio so all that's left is a sequence with the finished ceremony.
- That entire ceremony I copy and replace it with the ceremony I have in the highlight" sequence and I repeat that with the speeches, acts from friends and first dance.
- Then I only need to cut back the longer parts in the highlight sequence which are allready color- and audio corrected and just add music to the other parts from brideprep, ceremony and so on.
-Once the edit is finished I set up a batchexport for all sequences to hqavi and mp4. the mp4 is for the usb stick that the couple get and the hqavi is to make my dvd's in tmpgencauthoring works, I find hqavi is much easier to work with when I build the dvd.

It sound complicated but if you see it in action in Edius it's pretty straightforward and quick to handle.

[James Manford]

I work in a similar way with Vegas.

I guess everyone has their own way of working.

[Roger Gunkel]

Noa that's interesting to see how you work and isn't dissimilar to my own way of working in Magix.

I ingest the footage from each camera and audio recorder into separate folders named by camera or situation, so A Cam, B Cam, Church Audio, Speeches Audio Etc.. I click on the A Cam folder to open it in the Magix bin, then drag the entire contents onto the time line and colour grade it. As it is already in sequence and a lot is edited in camera, it is mainly top and tailing clips which is very quick.

Ceremony and speeches etc which have B and sometimes C cams plus Audio recorders are also dragged to the timeline on parallel tracks, then a quick click on the tracks to be synchronised,creates a wave form and lines them all up automatically I then colour grade and match the extra camera tracks, and double clicking on an audio track takes me into the audio cleaning and mastering, for any compression, EQ tweaking etc directly on the timeline. That is also only a couple of minutes to do, then it's just a matter of selecting which shot I want as it runs, and a final adjustment and adding transitions. Transitions are also ver quick by either clicking on the required clip join to open a transition selector, or dragging one clip over the next. Titling is also done straight from the time line as you probably do in Edius, a menu from one of my usual templates and DVD or USB also from the timeline.

On the odd occasion thaI do a short version, I would use the same timeline and delete all the bits I don't want, then add any slomo or extra effects.

Once you have a familiar pattern of working, it's pretty quick and straightforward.

Roger