Speaker 1: and welcome back my flying filmmaker friends so there's five essential editing steps that will transform your drone footage to be more engaging and to hopefully generate emotions in the viewer to demonstrate this oh yeah this is gonna be fun today a drone footage editing challenge I chose these two video editors on Fiverr and I'm the third editor. All three of us are getting the same drone footage to edit into an engaging video. Then I'll play all three videos and you have to choose who edited which one. Most important, we're going to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each to show you those five essential drone editing steps I mentioned. Alright, let's get started. I just sent the raw footage to our two Fiverr editors waiting for their finished videos. Now this will be fun. Let's open my editing program here and I'll walk you through my entire editing process as we create my video for the competition so you can see what I do and why I do it when editing. Here's my editing outline I follow. You can take a screenshot if you want to reference it later. So I love this term, constructing a scene. I always have that phrase in my mind. Remember, a scene is constructed with different shots. Shot number one is to open the scene with a wide establishing shot to give the viewer context of where the scene is taking place. It's the overall setting for the subject. Then shot number two is generally a mid shot, which reveals the subject of the scene and gives a little more details of the immediate environment the subject is in. Then shot number three is generally a closeup of the subject to reveal some strong details which can be very useful for generating strong emotions for the scene. Then shot four is back to more mid shots and closeups. So this general rule in editing is to construct a scene with these building blocks in this order. There's always exceptions and poetic license, but this format is foundational. So here's all our footage for this video we're constructing. Let's scrub through it and find a nice big landscape shot to open our video with. Guys, I changed my mind. This episode is no longer an editing competition. That was my original intent for this episode, But when I went into Fiverr to look for editors, I changed my mind completely. I noticed several women editors from countries that are radically different than where I'm from. I was immediately overcome by curiosity. These two women are from India and Pakistan. They have completely different reference points for art, inspiration, life, culture, creativity. Editing is art. I want to see their art. I'm more excited than ever to see these three videos as a celebration of the variety of art. Hurrah. Let's get back to our editing. So here's our nine clips to choose from. They are a masterclass in mediocrity. Tragically average footage. I shot it in the harsh midday Sun. So remembering our general guideline here for the opening shots. So let's find a nice wide shot. Let's drop that on our timeline to start the rough cut. Now a mid shot. I like that. You know I like this mid shot also. Even though these are not introducing our character yet, I just get the feeling like they're playing a strong role in setting up a mood. Now here's a few mid shots introducing our goofy-ass subject. Let's drop those on the timeline. This top-down shot is also considered a mid shot. Just kind of adds some nice variety so we'll try it out. When I was filming this paraglider was just taking off right as I was launching my drone so I followed him. I like this last part of the footage here where the drone is kind of looking down on him slightly. I caught this boat drifting by right before I launched the drone so this is a handheld shot with the Mini 3 Pro. Oh wow I just had an idea for a storyline now that there's a few clips here in front of me. I'm gonna move all of the clips of the summer activities towards the beginning and put the clips of me towards the end. This is the clip that gave me the idea for this little storyline about everyone else enjoying their summer with the ones they love while I'm alone and I was in love once. And I have an idea for a very funny ending. So let's arrange the clips so it ends with this little quick shots clip that I took. Now we have a rough cut with the clips and an idea for a storyline. So what I typically do next when I have an idea is to start writing. I use the basic notes app that comes with all Apple products. I just start writing down my thoughts and I found that this micro-task of writing allows me to explore creative ideas a little deeper. I usually put the headphones on with some music that really helps me kind of stay in that creative zone while I explore this new direction. I'll put some links below to the music that I find kind of keeps me in that creative zone. Looking at our outline here, cropping is next. Oh man, cropping is so much more important than beginners realize. It falls under the compositional rule of simplicity. You want to remove distracting elements in the scene that detract from the main subject. Cropping our first clip. Oh, I wish the horizon line here were lower. is bad composition by me when filming. So I'm thinking of cropping in slightly so the people are a little larger in the frame. That's enough. Next is our surfer bro here absolutely shredding on these little 8-inch waves. Let's punch in a little bit on him so it gives the viewer a little more details about him. Or maybe it's her or she him. I don't know. Next shot. This is our first shot with our subject. It's a really important one. It's what triggered the story idea because you can see all the people here enjoying their pathetic lives over there while our lonely protagonist here is walking away from them. This composition just evokes kind of a feeling of separation. Then I reposition the drone for this next composition. I want to highlight something here that I do pretty frequently. I lowered the drone and pointed the camera up so that the subject interrupts the skyline. This introduces leading lines pointing to the subject and really enhances its silhouette. Oh, so right now the drone is only about five feet above the water and there's boats going by. Oh, it was pretty hard to walk and not look at the drone. Next is this top-down shot. I just want to crop in to center it a little bit. This shot really kind of adds to that sense of isolation and being alone which caters to the story arc that we're telling. And our final shot of the scene is this quick shots clip. This is the perfect ending and you'll see why shortly. Now the next step is an initial quick color grade and I want to share something here that works really great for me. It's super important at this stage in the editing sequence that I do not get slowed down by tons of minor tweaks in the coloring. I find that my best videos come when I keep a momentum during the editing process, creating the rough cut, then finalizing the storyline, then the quick color grade, then the music. It's these things that generate emotions as you're starting to assemble the footage and the music and you really start to kind of sense of what emotions that the footage and that the scene wants to bring forth and I found that if I you know spend and burn two three hours in color grading and every getting everything just right then I kind of lose that editing momentum of you know storytelling and staying in tune with those feelings that are starting to surface in the creative process. So that's why I say that in this rough cut stage I only spend like a minute or two on color grading and then really kind of keep moving on with the music and that kind of thing. Here's a little tip during the quick color grade step. This is what I always start with. Find the two clips and you've seen that are the most different in terms of exposure and color. Now you can massage the exposure and the coloring of each to find a happy medium and also fits the emotions and the tone that you're looking for overall in the scene. Then you apply that color grade to the other clips. Music is so foundational for me. It's even more important than visuals for me as an editor. I could take crappy footage and I could find the right beat, match the color grade and some graphics and end up with a really strong video. And by strong I mean get the viewer to feel something. I heard, I guess it was a producer or director in Hollywood say that Hollywood is in the emotional transportation business oh man when I heard that I was like oh that as an editor I was like man I get that if you can get better at editing and through some of these steps that we're talking about here get the viewer to feel something that is just so much more meaningful in the end than just having a a beautiful color grade and for me music is the start of it all. I'll watch a few frames of a clip and then I'll immediately get an idea for what kind of music it'll be and then I'll pull in a few sample tracks and I'm off to the races. For me it's all about the music and that's where the emotions start. If I'm working on an important video I'll always walk away for a day or two at this point and pretty much every time when I return there's a few important key little things that I just didn't notice earlier. Now here's something interesting to keep in mind from a guy that I'm a huge fan of Rick Rubin. He's a renowned music producer and now he's kind of considered one of this kind of like an old sage on creativity. He always says never assume that more time on a project means that it's getting better. He says that there's kind of a tipping point where the essence of the piece of art has been uncovered and surfaced, and a few refinements can definitely help, but generally much beyond that, he said it's only detracting. More time doesn't mean that it's getting better. So you gotta know when to stop and put a bow on it. All right, our video is finished and we received the two videos from our Fiverr editors from India and Pakistan. So let's watch our video first. Summer is groovy as a mother. of that warm sun on your skin. Everyone wearing flip-flops and enjoying the fun outdoor sports. Except for all those stupid drones buzzing all around everywhere. They just want to spy on people, you know. Yeah, but summer is about being with those you love. I used to be madly in love once. We were the perfect couple. You were sexy as all hell. I miss you baby doll. Oh man, having fun. So now let's watch the two Fiverr videos. Now just know the only instructions that I gave to our two editors was that it should be about one minute long. It was footage from a recent vacation and that they can be as creative as they want. I don't want them to create a video that they think that I want. I want them to create something that they think is artistic and fun and interesting. So let's see what we got. Hey.

Speaker 2: Oh, I am restricted, fixed upon the web I need to keep the habit that my mind is breathing in Break out, I've got to see Spent all my life holding all of it closely I've played it innocent, a feel of discontent I'm finally facing it all, fearless

Speaker 1: So obviously these two fiber editors are highly constrained by this kind of paying client relationship. They can't get wildly creative and experimental. You You know, they certainly were restricted with their creativity. So the point of this isn't to show that one is better than the other. It turned out that, you know, I really want to highlight storytelling as what I think is the key to creativity in editing and making drone footage more interesting because, you know, color grading and LUTs is one thing. I think most people are, beginners are, they chase that cinematic, traditional, rich look. But I think storytelling's where it's at, man. That is just so much more fun and playful and limitless possibilities. It certainly is not easy, and I'm just learning it. I'm just a beginner here at this as well, but I'm having fun, and I'm kind of showing you guys what I learn as I learn it and it's all trial and error. So thank you so much for watching my flying filmmaker friends. Please let me know down in the comments if you have any questions, ideas for next episodes. Thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one.