General We Found Florida’s Secret Tail of the Dragon!

[ShiftQuick]

I don't even want to share how long it took me to edit my latest video. Hope you all enjoy. Blood, sweat, and tears went into this production.

 

[Drakhen99]

OK, I just watched it... you don't *need* to tell how long it took to edit, but I can tell. It was a LONG edit.

Very well done! No wonder it's getting 200+ VPH. Bonkers edit, man.

That's the type of video you only see from channels with 100k+ subs, maybe even 500k+ subs.

-John

 

[ShiftQuick]

Thank you!

Yeah, you know how it goes – a ton of late nights and coffee refills, but I appreciate you noticed the work that went into it. Trying to communicate the effort to some certainly falls on def ears.

200+ VPH? That’s insane! What analytics tool are you using to see these metrics?

And yeah, I wouldn’t mind hitting those sub numbers someday. If I do I'll bring everyone else along for the journey!

 

[Drakhen99]

Yeah, I definitely know the late nights and long editing sessions - if you look at my 1200 Miles of Freedom video on my channel [link in my sig below, scroll down a bit], it took me over 20 hours of editing... and it doesn't come close to what you did in your video.

For the VPH, I just looked at the video page and it said you had around 1,050 views and the video was published 4 hours before I looked... so I did a rough guesstimation. For the actual stat, you can look at the analytics page for your video and it ought to tell you.

-John

 

[ShiftQuick]

1,200 miles... sign me up. I've yet to hit that distance on a trip. Most I rode was roughly ~980 when out in CA quite a few years back.

Given your "1200 Miles of Freedom" video is 42 min, I can see why.

I did some research as well regarding the VPH and if you're interested–apparently VidIQ, TubeBuddy, and Social Blade offer some good external analytics.

 

[Drakhen99]

1,200 miles... sign me up. I've yet to hit that distance on a trip. Most I rode was roughly ~980 when out in CA quite a few years back.

Given your "1200 Miles of Freedom" video is 42 min, I can see why.

I did some research as well regarding the VPH and if you're interested–apparently VidIQ, TubeBuddy, and Social Blade offer some good external analytics.

Yeah, that was culling it down from like 4 hours of footage across the 4 days of the trip. Over on my 2nd channel, I did a break-down of the planning, filming and editing of it.

I have VidIQ's extension on my browser, it gives good stats, I just hadn't checked on your video.

-John

 

[Theodor]

I enjoyed the video. A little bit too young style for my taste (grandpa noises), but very well made.

 

[ShiftQuick]

Thank you and fair enough. If you don't mind me asking, what do you think mainly gave the "young style" vibe?

 

[Theodor]

The quick scene changes is what gives me the feeling. You know like Jason Bourne fight scenes
It was not disturbing level, but enough I got the feeling. And yes, I know it's difficult to keep average viewers attention with longer shots. So I won't hold it against you

 

[ShiftQuick]

Thanks for clarifying your observation! I’ve noticed some shots do have a bit more movement than I'd like—just working on fine-tuning that. Really appreciate the feedback; every bit helps as I work to make the next one better!

 

[Drakhen99]

Thanks for clarifying your observation! I’ve noticed some shots do have a bit more movement than I'd like—just working on fine-tuning that. Really appreciate the feedback; every bit helps as I work to make the next one better!

The typical "pattern interrupt" editing technique is to hold a shot for 4-6 seconds. I think that's what @Theodor is talking about - when the cuts are faster than that. It's OK if you're going to do it sparingly, but like he said, too much can be jarring to the viewer.

I liked the edit the way it was, but there *were* some shots that could've been held longer. This is a stylistic choice, and one that goes hand-in-hand with music selection as well, IMO.

Just my $.02, intended to help, not offend.

-John

 

[ShiftQuick]

Thank you! Bring it on... it's hard to learn and improve if the truth stays hidden. No offense taken.

 

[Theodor]

I remember the time when cuts after every 20 seconds were considered frequent

 

[ShiftQuick]

Well that would certainly make our lives a lot easier. haha

 

[Drakhen99]

Well, I gleaned that bit of info from some "how to YouTube" video years ago, and found it helped my retention... although I am sort of using it less now.

Longer explanation:
It has to do with the attention span of the viewer and the way the human brain works. Attention span is about 8 seconds. After about that, with nothing much on-screen changing, the brain starts to shut off, or tune out, the thing that you're watching.

Now, if you change camera angles or scenes TOO often, this is sort of what @Theodor was talking about. The modern Hollywood fight scene cut. Way too many cuts, and you lose continuity. You don't know who's throwing what punch, or where people are in space, so it gets confusing. Also see: the 180 degree rule

So, the sweet spot is 4-6 seconds per scene. Enough to keep the viewer engaged, but not enough to be jarring. If you cut somewhere in that 4-6 second range, it reaches out and grab's the viewer's brain again and says, "hey, something new is happening - pay attention!"

In the olden times, motovloggers had 1 camera, and cut as needed, leading to jump cuts. With modern editing software and multicam setups, we have lots of options to HIDE the jump cuts. You'll see this in every single one of my motovlogs. I cut the blank space and switch camera angles, and voila - problem solved - not jarring jump cuts [at least, that's the goal].

Nowadays, we have a whole group of motovloggers who run multicam setups like me, and still some use 1 camera for the sake of the workflow [editing can be tedious and time-consuming]. I find their videos jarring, because they jump A LOT. Some do it every few words.

Pro tip: cut the blank space out, remove the video from the preceding clip, and smooth the audio between the two audio clips, and you have a much smoother video. I think I did a video on how to do this on my 2nd channel.

OK, so earlier I mentioned that I don't use the 4-6 second rule as much, and here's why. It's a faster workflow [less cutting = less fiddling, right?], and oftentimes I'm in full shadow, which requires me to tinker with the color [more time editing]. As much as I love editing, running 2 channels can be - and truthfully is - taxing on my time, so faster edits = more time for other things in my day, so long as the video quality doesn't suffer.

Sorry, not sorry, for the long post... and now that I've typed it out, I've copied it to a Word document so I can record a video about it. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

-John