Why does it all take so long?

MartinE wrote on 3/28/2017, 7:43 AM

Did a 2 minutes piece (90th birthday party) but editing
still took me >4hrs. Here is the process.

Shot about 20 clips max, here’s a rough list:

Action:

Preparing cake, lighting candles, bringing it in, singing,
blowing out etc etc (all one big shot with CUs of old lady and pans to guests clapping etc, sync sound on cam)

Old lady thanking everyone and guest banter etc (one shot,sync sound on cam)

Popping bubbly, filling glasses and handing out (2-3 shots mainly CUs)

CUs: Guests talking, eating, drinking. Cards, cut cake, glasses, presents, balloon etc

Method

Upload and review

Trim clips in trimmer (I&O) and dump to T/L (A) in some sort of order

Find some music that fits mood and pace and add to T/L

Start to arrange clips in meaningful sequence (scene setting, action, closing etc) lots of shuffling, deleting)

Fine trim the cuts to look “smooth”

Start on sound: Look for good chatty voice bits and mix together for a general hubbub base for the non sync sections.

Pick out laughter and add in a couple of places.

Find cork pop and insert in right place.

Decide where to fade in/out music and mix all sound (simple volume envelopes then boost and limit o/p)

Colour correct all clips for exposure and balance using colour curves

Do a quick render and review, move a few things about, sort out a few glitches.

Look at clock: 4 hours! What, for 2 mins of finished video. I was going my fastest too

Is there any way to speed up this process?

The only areas I can think that give room for improvement are avoid cc if poss. Don’t be so fussy about sound (but sound is so important to me)

Am I alone here or is it just a matter of practise?

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Comments

SecondWind-SK wrote on 4/4/2017, 10:22 AM

Ushere...your experience with corporate video editing mirrors mine. I would add that I budget additional editing time after delivering the first cut based on the client's individual propensity for requesting changes.

ushere wrote on 4/4/2017, 9:59 PM

@secondwind-sk - i used to have a great many clients like that ;-( even as bad as spelling the ceo's name incorrectly! i did like you, build in a contingency and since i always kept complete .veg's of the project making changes was pretty simple - NOT like the old days of tape. now that did get to be an expensive proposition for lackadaisical producers. i think i could have probably made a decent living just from client changes alone ;-)

you might appreciate this -http://www.lesliewand.com.au/pages/tech_docs/ClientMadeChanges.mp3

set wrote on 4/5/2017, 12:16 AM

you might appreciate this -http://www.lesliewand.com.au/pages/tech_docs/ClientMadeChanges.mp3

😆

MartinE wrote on 4/5/2017, 2:13 AM

Musicvid, thanks for the helpful comments. You're right about the cuts at the start, the music calls for longer ones. I was shooting 25P as I always do on my XF100. Never thought of using 30P but since the exposure hit would only be slight I'll give it a try. In fact due to the low light and the fact that the XF100 isn't great in low light I actually went with a 360deg shutter which gives a massive light boost. I think you can get away with the extra motion blur in fairly static situations. Yes it was six hours approx. but I confess that I was lucky with the music. It was already in my collection and I stumbled on it quickly otherwise that would have been another couple hours finding something suitable. Thanks for your help.