I have been making videos for about 4 years now and I have learned a number of things throughout the years which I’d like to share. First of all, open up Final Cut Pro’s user manual (47mb PDF) and read pages 15-20: “Before you start editing, it’s helpful to consider how post-production fits into the overall moviemaking workflow.” Don’t worry, it’s not specifically about FCP. Done? Good. Now you know what you’re getting yourself into, let’s read on for some key features that make a good (diabolo) video.
Planning and organizing
It’s a good idea to do some thinking beforehand. What do you want to show your viewers; what tricks do you want to record; and where and how do you want to do that? What music are you going to use? Make notes and bring them along with you. A well-thought out video plan is half the work!
Proper filming
You should have thought of some interesting locations to film your tricks in the first step, so when you go out to film, choose your camera distance and angle carefully and see what works best. Tune your clothes and props to the background to make sure you and your props are visible.
Use a tripod, unless you want to deliberately create shaky camera movements to achieve a certain mood. Most of the time, this won’t be necessary for a diabolo video.
Turn off the auto-focus on your camera. Since you will be filming moving objects, the camera won’t be able to focus properly at all times. It’s better to manually focus your camera.
Make sure the colours look real by setting a proper white-balance. Holding a piece of white paper in front of your camera to calibrate the white-balance might be the best idea. If you don’t know how to do these things, have a look in your camera’s user manual.
Last, but not least: check the exposure of your camera (not to be confused with the brightness of the LCD screen). It can often use a nudge up or down.
Execution of content
The beautiful thing is that you can film your shots over and over again, until you’re satisfied. So make sure everything looks just like you want it. I recommend getting yourself a cameraman who understands how you want to film your planned shots. Setting up your camera on a tripod could work, but it’s a lot easier to have a helping hand around that can adjust the zoom and angle of the camera for you (while firmly secured to a tripod, that is).
Supporting music
A good soundtrack can greatly improve your video project. I’m convinced that the audio matters just as much as the video, so spend as much time on the audio as you do on the video. Choose your music carefully before you start the editing and perhaps even before you start filming.
The choices I discussed in my previous Music in live performance article can also be applied to the audiovisual design field. A few extra features the post-production stage offers are cuts, transitions, filters, and effects, which you can synch with the audio, to give your video an extra dimension. An awesome mixture of music and video is what makes the difference between a good watch and an amazing experience.
Post-production
The editing of your footage is where the other half of the magic lays. Now that you have carefully chosen your music and filmed your shots, it’s time to piece it together and create your work of art.
First of all, remember the rule of thumb: crap in = crap out. Although you can clean up some of your shots with the color correction, brightness/contrast, and smoothing/sharpening tools in your NLE system, you have to realize you can’t perform miracles. So make sure you paid attention to the steps above.
Secondly, take the time to master your editing software – it’s worth it. I didn’t bother and discovered all the key features of Sony Vegas throughout the years. I could have benefited immensely from some of these features earlier on. For example: enable snapping and learn how to use markers.
That being said… let’s start with the montage. The music to be more specific. Listen to it endlessly and think about what you could do with certain parts. Open up your editing software and place the music on the timeline. Try to isolate your environment by putting some good headphones on and closing your eyes. Listen to the track carefully, tap along with the beat and hit the marker key when the music changes. That should give you a framework to build your cuts around. Don’t worry about adding too many markers, you probably won’t be able to use all of them anyways. Start off with placing a few “key” clips on the timeline you know will fit perfectly. Then build the rest of your clips around those.
Lay-out
You probably want to use an opening title and perhaps thank some people at the end of your video. Choose a font and colour scheme that suits the style of the video. There are loads of websites where you can download all sorts of crazy fonts for free. Look for the more elegant, stylish, and subtle fonts (except if you’re really looking for the bold look).
Try to keep the credit titles as short as possible — while it can be a nice way to implement some of the bloopers and shots that didn’t make it, people will start discussing what they just saw or close down the video altogether when they see it has finished and all that’s left are the credit titles. Especially when there’s still 2 minutes remaining! When you go to the movies, do you sit through the final credits?
Last pieces of advice
People tend to remember the beginning and end of the video better than the middle. So make sure to put some of the better stuff near the beginning and end, but also build-up to the good stuff. Finish on a high!
Try to keep the fancy effects and cheesy transitions to a minimum. Simple cuts and crossfades will suffice. Flying titles and other over the top effects are probably good to avoid. Focus on quality content. Your editing software is merely a tool to assemble your video — a tool to create a whole out of the many parts — a tool to let the content shine. Worry about the initial steps and let the editing follow a natural path.
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