Editing through hours of footage

[scooterwuf]

It’s a talent developed from years of practiced. Phone texters got nothing on me.

But seriously, I’m obviously doing it when off my bike and watching footage on my laptop.

Wolf

 

[Meifesto]

I’m pretty old school, especially since I shoot with 2-3 cameras sometime. I log my main helmet cam since it’s wired with my mic, and clap slate the rest to it. I keep a written time log of everything that happens.

EX.

0:00 -2:14

Put on gloves, started up bike, eased down lane to main road. 0:34 - almost hit a squirrel while turning onto road.

Wolf: Damn, that was close. Stupid little bugger!

————-

In the margins I use a series of astrisks ( *) to designate if something interesting happens, or if I should cut to a different camera for better or coordinated coverage, use of transitions, cue points for music, etc. ...

When done I’ll use highlighters to mark the shots and moments I want to use. The log then becomes a script for how I’ll how edit and structure the motovlog. Once I’m in Premiere it’s faster and more efficient to assemble the footage based on my logging notes. After that it’s a matter of seeing if it all works, and then to trim, polish or re-edit specific moments and events.

The logging takes time but it’s a way to become ultimately familiar with the footage I shot, then have the best way to make decisions on how I want to use the material. It makes the editing easier because I don’t have to guess about what’s in the footage I shot.

- Wolf

Don't know if i am impressed or astonished...

Feels like i would have to stop every minute or so in most video's xD

 

[scooterwuf]

It's a lot of hard work upfront, but it really streamlines the editing process. One of the tough parts of editing your work is deciding what to keep and what to cut. I call that killing your children, as your footage tends to be precious and something we're reluctant to get rid of. Logging helps me see the big picture so I know what's important over other parts of my raw motovlog footage. If I edit on paper by crossing out time log sections, I can connect the dots of the parts that strongly relate to one another, especially across different takes, or days of filming.

It does take patience, but I learned to shoot and edit on actually film which was waaaaay slower than the digital methods used today, so maybe I'm fine with the logging process.

- Wolf

 

[gravyboat]

Alright I want to follow up on this and what I've learned this summer. It's about to start snowing on Saturday, so this is the end for now. I'll figure something out. Anyway, I found it MUCH easier to edit when I had the topic in mind. If I was just out riding randomly with no topic in mind, it was much harder to decide to use certain clips in post. When you're addressing a topic you can say oh ya this is perfect or this won't work. Not maybe this will work. Otherwise everyone's tips are awesome! Thanks.

 

[HippoDrone]

Thanks for updating. I hope your winter isn't too harsh and you can get out on 2 wheels again.

 

[HeyItsRick]

I'm not sure if its been said already here but I recently updated my Premiere and my computer can barely take it..here's what I've learned from my workflow.
Every clip you drag into your timeline has to be pre-rendered by Premiere. You'll wanna take all your files and drop them into the Project Panel, Premiere will "conform" all your clips so just step away and let it work. Once its done you should be able to drop things into the timeline and scrub through easily.
If your computer is still lagging when playing your video, Proxies are a godsend. You'll need Adobe Media Encoder and yes it will take some time for the proxies to be created but its much better than trying to edit blindly or risking the program crashing during edits.
Once you've got proxies generated you simply enable them during your edit and disable them when complete.
Having proxies enabled, even if your computer can handle the footage fine, will also allow you to play through the video at a faster speed without it skipping or getting choppy. To play your footage faster you can use the "L" key, "K" key is to stop and "J" key is to play in reverse.
My iMac is from 2011, I've been able to edit down 4k footage or hours of 1080p. The only time proxies dont seem to work is when it comes to warp stabilization, fixing shakey footage takes forever on my machine but still doable.
I know youre taking a break but hopefully this is helpful if you've got some footage laying around you decide to edit

 

[scooterwuf]

I have a feeling you may be doing this, but drop your resolution quality in the Program panel to 1/4. Turn off any background programs you may be running as it will steal badly needed RAM from Premiere. Also dump your media cache whenever things start to get laggy.

I generally play 1080p footage at 60 fps, and some 5k footage from 360 cam, and it still runs well. If possible, upgrade your RAM on your computer, but given how old it is that may not be an option. I'm glad to hear you can still edit high level HD footage.

- Wolf

 

[HeyItsRick]

I have a feeling you may be doing this, but drop your resolution quality in the Program panel to 1/4. Turn off any background programs you may be running as it will steal badly needed RAM from Premiere. Also dump your media cache whenever things start to get laggy.

I generally play 1080p footage at 60 fps, and some 5k footage from 360 cam, and it still runs well. If possible, upgrade your RAM on your computer, but given how old it is that may not be an option. I'm glad to hear you can still edit high level HD footage.

- Wolf

I follow those guidelines as well, also adobe has this feature where you can allocate percentage of RAM towards each program, I set mine to the max available for Premiere.
I wish it was feasible to upgrade my RAM though, I'm running an iMac and you gotta remove the glass and take a bunch apart to get to the RAM and even then the most I can upgrade it to is 16gb

 

[HRMV]

I'm not sure if its been said already here but I recently updated my Premiere and my computer can barely take it..here's what I've learned from my workflow.
Every clip you drag into your timeline has to be pre-rendered by Premiere. You'll wanna take all your files and drop them into the Project Panel, Premiere will "conform" all your clips so just step away and let it work. Once its done you should be able to drop things into the timeline and scrub through easily.
If your computer is still lagging when playing your video, Proxies are a godsend. You'll need Adobe Media Encoder and yes it will take some time for the proxies to be created but its much better than trying to edit blindly or risking the program crashing during edits.
Once you've got proxies generated you simply enable them during your edit and disable them when complete.
Having proxies enabled, even if your computer can handle the footage fine, will also allow you to play through the video at a faster speed without it skipping or getting choppy. To play your footage faster you can use the "L" key, "K" key is to stop and "J" key is to play in reverse.
My iMac is from 2011, I've been able to edit down 4k footage or hours of 1080p. The only time proxies dont seem to work is when it comes to warp stabilization, fixing shakey footage takes forever on my machine but still doable.
I know youre taking a break but hopefully this is helpful if you've got some footage laying around you decide to edit

It took me a while to realise the points above regarding Adobe's processes but once you have let it do its thing, I would also advocate rendering every half hour or so especially if using a lot of post capture transitions, effects or many clips.

 

[HippoDrone]

Damn, those professional editing programs are a lotta hard work. With Filmora Wondershare, I throw the footage on the timeline and edit it without any of that faffery. The only thing I can't do with it is tracking and masking so can't blurr speedos or numberplates.

 

[HRMV]

Damn, those professional editing programs are a lotta hard work. With Filmora Wondershare, I throw the footage on the timeline and edit it without any of that faffery. The only thing I can't do with it is tracking and masking so can't blurr speedos or numberplates.

Is Filmora Wonders hare free or paid for?

 

[HippoDrone]

I think it cost me around £30

 

[HippoDrone]

Looks like it is $60 now for the lifetime version

 

[HeyItsRick]

So I started editing with my iPad Pro using a program called LumaFusion. Its crazy how good it is, scrubs through 4k footage flawlessly and in full resolution. Though similar to filmora, kinda limited on what I can do.

 

[Stank]

So I started editing with my iPad Pro using a program called LumaFusion. Its crazy how good it is, scrubs through 4k footage flawlessly and in full resolution. Though similar to filmora, kinda limited on what I can do.

I recently heard about this from another motovlogger, how do you import the footage to your iPad?

 

[HeyItsRick]

I recently heard about this from another motovlogger, how do you import the footage to your iPad?

I'm sure there's a few ways to do it. I have two ways of doing it myself but theyre both basically the same...loading the files into the Photos app and then pulling the files from there into Lumafusion.
I've got a little adapter that allows me to plug a SD or MicroSD into the lightning port, that has its own app that can transfer data, files, etc over to the ipad. My second way of doing it is using the RAVPower FileHub, that has its own app as well and allows me to wirelessly transfer my files.
The wireless way is pretty sweet because since the filehub is powered, you can straight up plug an external HD to it and drop your video files into the External HD all from the app on the iPad. It works as a wireless router of sorts and even has the ability to turn a wired connection into wireless via its own network.
LumaFusion has an option to pull files directly from a WDPassport Wireless Drive, I imagine I could find a way to get the Filehub in there as a source so I wouldnt have to load everything onto the ipad first. I've only got 64gb on the ipad so I have to work on one video at a time before dumping the clips I wanna keep and the completed project into my external HD.
The loading/unloading of files is a bit tedious but the editing software is smooth as hell.

 

[Stank]

I'm sure there's a few ways to do it. I have two ways of doing it myself but theyre both basically the same...loading the files into the Photos app and then pulling the files from there into Lumafusion.
I've got a little adapter that allows me to plug a SD or MicroSD into the lightning port, that has its own app that can transfer data, files, etc over to the ipad. My second way of doing it is using the RAVPower FileHub, that has its own app as well and allows me to wirelessly transfer my files.
The wireless way is pretty sweet because since the filehub is powered, you can straight up plug an external HD to it and drop your video files into the External HD all from the app on the iPad. It works as a wireless router of sorts and even has the ability to turn a wired connection into wireless via its own network.
LumaFusion has an option to pull files directly from a WDPassport Wireless Drive, I imagine I could find a way to get the Filehub in there as a source so I wouldnt have to load everything onto the ipad first. I've only got 64gb on the ipad so I have to work on one video at a time before dumping the clips I wanna keep and the completed project into my external HD.
The loading/unloading of files is a bit tedious but the editing software is smooth as hell.

Great info, thanks for the insight. This sounds amazing, I'm moving next year in August so I may just have to go this route to continue making videos/editing. Just have to check my iPad to see how big the storage is like you mentioned. Thanks again!