How long does it take you to edit a video?

[Drakhen99]

I apologize if this was covered elsewhere, but I searched and didn't see a thread on it, but this question nags me quite a bit.

How long does it take you to edit a vlog? For apples-to-apples comparisons, let's take a 1.5 hour ride, 2 cameras, 2 stops. So, 3 multicam clips in a NLE. (I am using Davinci Resolve 17)

Background: I am a stats nerd, so I keep a spreadsheet with videos I'm planning, filmed, edited, and posted, and I track how many hours it took to do the editing and how many days from footage shot to video posted to YT. I am currently at a 5 hour average over all the videos on my channel, with a minimum of 1 hour and a max of 15 hours.

The video in the scenario above (1.5 hours of footage) resulted in a 19m video, and took me 8.5 hours to edit, including background music, syncing videos, adding overlays and transitions, the whole kit & caboodle. That seems excessive to me, and makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong. It doesn't help that I'm not seeing much growth on my channel, which stymies my motivation to keep at it. It can take me 2-3x the length of the footage to get to a rough cut alone, much less the niceties that I'm adding. Am I focusing too much on smooth transitions, fancy editing, text overlays, and the like? I know some of you have watched all my videos and may be able to point out efficiencies I'm missing or overcomplications I'm introducing for myself.

I see some vloggers out there with similar family situations (little kids, full-time job, etc.) and they're able to shoot film sometime during the day and have it out on YT THAT SAME NIGHT! This seems impossible to me - what the hell am I doing so wrong???

Thanks for letting me vent,

-John

 

[R-Rated]

I apologize if this was covered elsewhere, but I searched and didn't see a thread on it, but this question nags me quite a bit.

How long does it take you to edit a vlog? For apples-to-apples comparisons, let's take a 1.5 hour ride, 2 cameras, 2 stops. So, 3 multicam clips in a NLE. (I am using Davinci Resolve 17)

Background: I am a stats nerd, so I keep a spreadsheet with videos I'm planning, filmed, edited, and posted, and I track how many hours it took to do the editing and how many days from footage shot to video posted to YT. I am currently at a 5 hour average over all the videos on my channel, with a minimum of 1 hour and a max of 15 hours.

The video in the scenario above (1.5 hours of footage) resulted in a 19m video, and took me 8.5 hours to edit, including background music, syncing videos, adding overlays and transitions, the whole kit & caboodle. That seems excessive to me, and makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong. It doesn't help that I'm not seeing much growth on my channel, which stymies my motivation to keep at it. It can take me 2-3x the length of the footage to get to a rough cut alone, much less the niceties that I'm adding. Am I focusing too much on smooth transitions, fancy editing, text overlays, and the like? I know some of you have watched all my videos and may be able to point out efficiencies I'm missing or overcomplications I'm introducing for myself.

I see some vloggers out there with similar family situations (little kids, full-time job, etc.) and they're able to shoot film sometime during the day and have it out on YT THAT SAME NIGHT! This seems impossible to me - what the hell am I doing so wrong???

Thanks for letting me vent,

-John

John there is no magic formula other than what you feel good with producing and what your audience enjoys.

If you over invest in time editing and don't get the feeling and results you want then scale back. What matters in the end is what makes you happy. Once you hit it big and actually earn a living then you can worry about diligently scheduling editing and shoots.

Just my take on it.

 

[Drakhen99]

John there is no magic formula other than what you feel good with producing and what your audience enjoys.

If you over invest in time editing and don't get the feeling and results you want then scale back. What matters in the end is what makes you happy. Once you hit it big and actually earn a living then you can worry about diligently scheduling editing and shoots.

Just my take on it.

Thanks for reminding me why I'm doing this - I enjoy editing!

Also, I really dig your latest series of 5-minute videos. Nice, quick coverage of topics & rides. I noticed you don't go crazy into editing and get good results... I'm gonna copy you a bit I think

I think I need to scale back the scope of my projects, or at least cut more stuff.

I got in a bit over my head with the Hero 9 dual camera setup, since it nixxed the Smart Remote, but I just got The Remote in the mail the other day, so I'll have to play with it and get it paired to my Hero 8 and Hero 9 and go out and film and get rejuvenated! I certainly don't mind spending 2-3 hours editing footage, but dang, 7+ hours on each video is a huge time suck!

I still giggle when I see the view counter on my "Bagger Showdown" video... 1.4k views and counting, all for what took me 20 minutes to storyboard in my head and on paper, 20 minutes to film, and about 2.5 hours to edit - including finding memes and stuff to do overlays with.

I've easily put twice that into Bagger Showdown #2 (which is about 60% complete at this point), and I hope it does just as well for the channel!

-John

 

[Arfa]

I don't keep tabs on how much time I spend on editing, but it's certainly ages! Usually, I'm doing an hour or two editing here and there when I can around other work and family commitments. I'm definitely in the perfectionist camp, constantly tweaking and tuning edits, fiddling to the nth-degree, until I'm happy. Overall, it can often be weeks or months before I actually finish a video.

I've tried quick short clips in the past, and yes these you can turn these around faster. These usually revolve around a single incident or occurrence. For a longer ride or adventure, it's definitely the above length edit regime for me.

 

[Drakhen99]

I don't keep tabs on how much time I spend on editing, but it's certainly ages! Usually, I'm doing an hour or two editing here and there when I can around other work and family commitments. I'm definitely in the perfectionist camp, constantly tweaking and tuning edits, fiddling to the nth-degree, until I'm happy. Overall, it can often be weeks or months before I actually finish a video.

I've tried quick short clips in the past, and yes these you can turn these around faster. These usually revolve around a single incident or occurrence. For a longer ride or adventure, it's definitely the above length edit regime for me.

At least I'm not the only one!

I've got a couple of projects from October that I'm still working on, but they keep getting bumped, either due to lack of interest (by me) or other projects taking their place in the editing line... I guess that's the same thing though

-John

 

[Moto Mengy]

Editing time depends on a lot of factors for me. Some of my videos I edited in two hours, others took days until I was happy with them. Some just flow together naturally while I struggle immensely with others. I've even deleted a few motovlogs because I couldn't edit them to a point where I liked it so rather than spend more time trying I gave up and moved on, lol.

I find it all incredibly fun and challenging though!

 

[HippoDrone]

Mostly I'll get back from a days ride and transfer all the files to my PC while I get out of my riding kit (and if it was a dirtybike ride, grab a shower) and make a cup of tea. So assuming all my footage is on the PC from when the clock starts, this is my workflow:
1) Edit each 360 video into the directed fixed view video, 30min
2) Add the edited 360 vids and the GoPro vids into my editor, line up the footage from both cameras, 10min
3) Cut the whole thing down to just me talking (or at least 90% talking), 60min
4) Cut all the bits where I am talking IMO rubbish, 30min
5) Choose which camera view for each natural break point in talking, 10min
6) Delete all the superfluous footage, 10 min
7) Add intro/outro music and watermark, 5min
8) start the render.
So from opening my editor to clicking render I am looking at around 2.5hrs editing time. If I am doing a big trip, it doesn't really take much longer although the cutting time does as you kind of have to watch the footage to find the talking bits.
My PC will render a 20min 4k60fps (100,000kbps) video with multiple camera angles in around 30-40min, once it is rendered I'll give it a proof watch and if it is good, it sits in my ready to go folder until I bung it on YT.
Generally if I have any technical issues with audio etc, they become apparent very early when editing, so I'll just endex when that happens and watch Netflix or somit not YT related so I don't get the rage!

 

[Drakhen99]

I see where your efficiency lies ... you scrub through the footage to find the interesting (ie, talking) bits first, and then go back in a 2nd pass to choose camera angles. I've noodled around the idea of trying that, and will do just that when I get to edit my next multicam video. Thanks!

I guess I'm just not fast at this, even if I get a lot of positive feedback about my editing. At least I learned to not throw a bunch of transitions in until near the final edits so I don't waste time transitioning clips that are later going to be removed!

-John

 

[HippoDrone]

I see where your efficiency lies ... you scrub through the footage to find the interesting (ie, talking) bits first, and then go back in a 2nd pass to choose camera angles. I've noodled around the idea of trying that, and will do just that when I get to edit my next multicam video. Thanks!

I guess I'm just not fast at this, even if I get a lot of positive feedback about my editing. At least I learned to not throw a bunch of transitions in until near the final edits so I don't waste time transitioning clips that are later going to be removed!

-John

Aye, no point polishing something you are going to bin, do a rough cut first, then make it pretty!

 

[WaltInPA]

Its interesting seeing different workflows. Mine is a little different.

1) Import All GoPro Clips > Merge to New Compound Clip > Create a Marker to Sync
2) Import all Osmo Action Clips > Merge to New Compound Clip > Create Marker to Sync
3) Create New Multi-Cam Clip and Add to my Timeline (Set the Video and Audio on the GoPro Clip
4) Watch Entire Clip and cut out dead air / dull footage
5) Watch a Second Time - make finer edits tightening up the delay between sentences, eliminate um's and such
6) Watch a Third Time and add in cuts between cameras (IMO this masks the large cuts I made in Step 1 and reduces the need for Transitions)
7) Add in Overlays / Transitions
8) Do a quick Color Correction (which boils down to adding saturation and and contrast, applied to all like clips - One for GoPro and one for Osmo Action
9) Output and Upload

I've never paid close attention to time but I think I'm at roughly 3-4 times the original video length. So if the original clip is about 30 minutes of footage I have a finished video in about two hours. This assumes that I'm not trying to get fancy and do something above and beyond what is typical for my channel.

 

[Drakhen99]

I like your workflow. It *might* be a smidge faster to just lay in the 2nd, 3rd, etc. clips from each camera into your multicam clip after you sync the 1st from each camera, so your multicam clip looks like this:

GOPRO1|GOPRO2|GOPRO3
OSMO1|OSMO2|OSMO3

That way you won't have to create compound clips for each camera, just the 1 multicam clip and then add in the rest - this is what I do, and it works well.

-John

 

[Dewey316]

That is pretty close to the workflow I do. Took me a little over 3 hours to edit the video today that I shot yesterday. It was a big edit though, 5 camera's, 7 different multi-cam clips, and 138 cuts along with in helmet audio, off bike audio and music. The final video came out at about 18 minutes. Where my quick new years day video, I shot in one take on 3 camera's, did a single multicam clip, and finished the whole 4 minute video in about 25 minutes. I think the big variation is how much footage you have to mess around with to get the basic layout and edit done.

 

[Drakhen99]

Dewey, you're FAST at it! I took like 10 minutes of footage, cut it down to 5.5 minutes, and added background clips & transitions, threw in some background music, and that took ... around 2.5 hours :\ For my 2020 Year in Review video. And that was literally 1 camera, 2 or 3 clips, then the background clips (6 or 7) and the moving around and getting the right footage from each.

-John

 

[Dewey316]

Well, I don't know about that, but I am very linear what I film and my edit, so it is really a lot of organizing and laying out, then trim stuff out. Doing something like you video with a green screen, and doing things that aren't straight edits would take me a whole lot longer.

Edit to add: Part of it is doing the same processes over and over. Like my color grading, takes me all of 3-5 minutes to do, but that took me a ton of practice to figure out what I need to do, so now I can it quickly. The key is, my color grade process is exactly the same for each video, and my color in all of my videos looks the same (at least I think it does). You are learning all kinds of new things, and doing new things in each video (which is SUPER cool), once you land on a couple of things that you do over and over and over, they will be things you do in minutes instead of hours.

 

[Drakhen99]

That's no joke! I recently discovered the Master Bins thing in Resolve, which simplified and quickened my editing process GREATLY. Also, transition presets (since I mostly use the same ones over and over).

I'm definitely going to try the 2-pass multicam editing workflow next time I have 2-camera video to work with - trim the fat THEN go back and switch camera angles.

Oh, and the green screen stuff is silly easy to do once you know what to do (like you said) ... I even found a new & better way to do it than I did in my NYE video, so I'm definitely going to employ THAT technique on the next green screen video.

Right now I'm going back through videos already uploaded (but not released) on YT and re-editing them for better audio, since I just found some effects to add in to whole tracks which cleans up a lot of the wind noise when I'm not on my Street Glide (these videos have my Kawasakis in them), and I'm toying with re-uploading, detailing, thumbnailing, etc. like 5 videos. Might take me a few hours but I think the results will be much better. Resolve has some really neat audio tricks you can do in it... but again, it's learning new things (which I already did) and applying them elsewhere.

I look at it as a gradual increase in production value & quality, which I know will take time but be easier later on, and I really don't WANT my videos to be perfect - I think the little imperfections can be humorous and I'm no production studio - just 1 guy with a passion for his hobby.

Hopefully more people than just me like it

-John

 

[Meifesto]

On average, 2 to 5 times the length of the raw footage is the time i spend editing it.
More cameras means more time editing.

Sometimes you can be sneaking and edit 2 vlogs at the "same" time, but even then you are still looking at 2 times the length of the raw footage per vlog.

 

[Moto Mengy]

My workflow is almost exactly like Walt's honestly. Except I don't merge any clips together, I'm cutting and splicing like a mad doctor anyway so no point for me to merge them. And I haven't bothered with any color correction or saturation or contrast changes yet, my clips are straight from the GoPros on full auto settings.

I do take more time to edit than Walt does though, sometimes I agonize over what to cut and keep and which camera angle I think looks best for a part.

 

[Drakhen99]

On average, 2 to 5 times the length of the raw footage is the time i spend editing it.
More cameras means more time editing.

Sometimes you can be sneaking and edit 2 vlogs at the "same" time, but even then you are still looking at 2 times the length of the raw footage per vlog.

That's what I'm doing RIGHT NOW! Yesterday I went on my Frosty Balls ride and recorded 2 vlogs, 3 takes of each (on different roads, at different speeds, mostly the same content).

So far, in 2 hours I was able to go through about 1.5 hours of footage, cull the crap, break each take into its own timeline, create 2 master timelines for the individual vlogs, and edit each take into a rough cut.

Next up, reviewing each take of the 3 for each vlog, picking the best, and dragging that into the master timeline for its vlog, and then doing final edits, camera angle selection, audio fixing, and color grading. Then add in my watermark & bg music, and render.

-John

 

[YBGuy]

How long does it take to edit a video? Sometimes it feels like FOREVER plus a day.

But I guess here is a more realistic breakdown:

Passing Traffic Tuesday: 30 minutes to 4 hours
Unboxing Videos: 1 hour to 5 hours
Rides: 3 hours to multiple days
QuickEdits: 15 minutes to a 3 hours.
Demos: 2 hours to 15 hours

 

[YBGuy]

I see where your efficiency lies ... you scrub through the footage to find the interesting (ie, talking) bits first, and then go back in a 2nd pass to choose camera angles. I've noodled around the idea of trying that, and will do just that when I get to edit my next multicam video. Thanks!

I guess I'm just not fast at this, even if I get a lot of positive feedback about my editing. At least I learned to not throw a bunch of transitions in until near the final edits so I don't waste time transitioning clips that are later going to be removed!

-John

With more practice you will get faster! : )