5 Editing Tips for Wearable Action Cameras
In this article, I will be sharing 5 tips to help you edit awesome videos you shot with those wearable action cameras like GoPro HD Hero and Contour.
Due to emerging technology, action cameras have become small, highly durable, and relatively cheap. What used to cost three grand only ten years ago and was far to bulky to take to the mountain, let alone ski with is now 200 bucks, and can be attached to your helmet or ski poles. On top of it all you can get even higher video quality than the $3000 camera ten years ago.
With this development, it is now easier than ever to shoot yourself or your buddies doing amazing things. The problem comes with editing. Mediocre editing is easy enough to come by using your basic Windows or Mac editing program. But high quality editing is worth investing some time into. You could be an average Joe that posts a few videos of the ski weekend on YouTube, or you could make epic videos that blow away your friends, family, and maybe even get enough hits on YouTube for you to make a little extra cash.
1. Get an external hard rive
With the amount of disk space high quality video takes, you'll definitely want to drop $60 - $80 for a 500gb or 1tb external hard drive, instead of limiting your video quality.
2. Think about the editing process before and as your filming
In Hollywood, there's a whole third of the filming process called pre-production. You don't necessarily need to do a whole storyboard where you sketch each shot €" who knows what will happen when you get out there. But it will be worthwhile to think about an introduction, the cool tricks that you want to feature yourself and friends doing, and then how you will end it. Take out a pencil and paper and get started right now.
3. Get an awesome soundtrack
This might seem obvious, but I would invest as much as 1/3 of your editing time finding exactly the right soundtrack. When you have videos that feature music as the only sound, its worthwhile to find the right music.
4. Edit your video to the music
This is where the art of editing really comes in. Start with your music and begin laying your clips down over the footage. The trick is to find the balance between matching your video to the footage and being so matched that the final product is hokey. You want to find a place where the music track seems to just make sense that it goes there, but not so much that its contrived. Don't cut every clip on every fourth beat. Check out some GoPro advertisements to see what I'm talking about. The music should just seem to blend in with the video seamlessly where you don't realize that somebody spent a lot of time editing it.
5. Chill out on the slow-MOs
Okay, we get it. You did a really cool trick and you want to show everyone how awesome you are by taking 20 seconds to do your flip on camera. I'm not saying you should never do slow-MOs, but amateur editors tend to add way too many slow-motion clips. At most do one or two clips in slow motion throughout your movie. And for god's sake don't show the clip like 4 times. The key to a good slow motion clip is to have it seem to integrate smoothly with the music and rest of the video.
Overall, if you use your intuition about what looks good, you will probably have a pretty sweet project to show your friends. I hope this was useful. Happy editing!
Due to emerging technology, action cameras have become small, highly durable, and relatively cheap. What used to cost three grand only ten years ago and was far to bulky to take to the mountain, let alone ski with is now 200 bucks, and can be attached to your helmet or ski poles. On top of it all you can get even higher video quality than the $3000 camera ten years ago.
With this development, it is now easier than ever to shoot yourself or your buddies doing amazing things. The problem comes with editing. Mediocre editing is easy enough to come by using your basic Windows or Mac editing program. But high quality editing is worth investing some time into. You could be an average Joe that posts a few videos of the ski weekend on YouTube, or you could make epic videos that blow away your friends, family, and maybe even get enough hits on YouTube for you to make a little extra cash.
1. Get an external hard rive
With the amount of disk space high quality video takes, you'll definitely want to drop $60 - $80 for a 500gb or 1tb external hard drive, instead of limiting your video quality.
2. Think about the editing process before and as your filming
In Hollywood, there's a whole third of the filming process called pre-production. You don't necessarily need to do a whole storyboard where you sketch each shot €" who knows what will happen when you get out there. But it will be worthwhile to think about an introduction, the cool tricks that you want to feature yourself and friends doing, and then how you will end it. Take out a pencil and paper and get started right now.
3. Get an awesome soundtrack
This might seem obvious, but I would invest as much as 1/3 of your editing time finding exactly the right soundtrack. When you have videos that feature music as the only sound, its worthwhile to find the right music.
4. Edit your video to the music
This is where the art of editing really comes in. Start with your music and begin laying your clips down over the footage. The trick is to find the balance between matching your video to the footage and being so matched that the final product is hokey. You want to find a place where the music track seems to just make sense that it goes there, but not so much that its contrived. Don't cut every clip on every fourth beat. Check out some GoPro advertisements to see what I'm talking about. The music should just seem to blend in with the video seamlessly where you don't realize that somebody spent a lot of time editing it.
5. Chill out on the slow-MOs
Okay, we get it. You did a really cool trick and you want to show everyone how awesome you are by taking 20 seconds to do your flip on camera. I'm not saying you should never do slow-MOs, but amateur editors tend to add way too many slow-motion clips. At most do one or two clips in slow motion throughout your movie. And for god's sake don't show the clip like 4 times. The key to a good slow motion clip is to have it seem to integrate smoothly with the music and rest of the video.
Overall, if you use your intuition about what looks good, you will probably have a pretty sweet project to show your friends. I hope this was useful. Happy editing!
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