Happy New Year! I hope you captured some wonderful footage of your little one(s) over the holidays with family and friends. If you've been keeping up with my posts thus far, you should have an abundance of videos of photos of your little one. Unless your little one has yet to arrive, then you probably have a very long list of photos and videos you will want to create. Nevertheless, at a certain point you're going to have to do something with those videos, because you're phone can only hold so much data. As much as it kills me to delete photos and videos of my little guy off of my phone, I know that I have to from time to time in order to make room for MORE photos and videos of my little guy. Make sure you back everything up before deleting anything. I would recommend on-site and off-site back-up. Considering our house caught on fire when I was in the hospital giving birth (thankfully there was mainly just smoke damage), you would think I would take my own advice on that, but I digress.
Editing is actually when the storytelling happens in unscripted material. Just watch the credits at the end of your favorite reality show, there are actually "writers." They don't necessarily tell the "actors" what to say, but they go through all of the footage and create a story out of the hours and hours of chatter. This may seem like a daunting task for your home videos, and that's when you can hire someone else to step in and create the story for you and your family, but it actually can be pretty fun once you get started.
The first thing you will probably need to do will be to find a program to edit your footage in. There are a number of online editing programs that are rather user-friendly as well as simple editing software options for Macs and PCs. There are tons of online tutorials that can make you a sufficient editor without too much time and hassle. Make sure that you know at least how to pick in and out points of the clips you want to use, how to add in simple transitions and titles, and how to export a final file that you can either display online or use to create a DVD.
Once you have chosen the program, you may have to convert your footage into a recognizable file format for your editing software. If you don't know what format your footage is already in, do a quick Google search of the camera (or phone) you're filming with and the word "codec" and you'll be able to find out. Then you can put that codec into Google and the name of the software you'll be editing with to see if they are compatible. If not, again you can search for online tutorials on how to convert the footage into a useable format. In my case, I had to run all of my iPhone videos and my husband's Galaxy videos through Compressor before I could bring them into Final Cut Pro.
Okay, so now you've got footage ready to edit and a program to edit it in, congratulations, now the real fun begins. Watch all of the footage...a few times. You'll start to see that some clips are more useful than others when it comes to telling the story. Really ask yourself if that clip shows a new milestone, is just too cute not to include, or shows the same thing in a different outfit. Or perhaps the video may include your little one interacting someone else that isn't around very often or may not be around for very long, then you'll want to include it to show to your child in the future.
Now that you've figured out which clips are the most important to include to tell your story, now it's time to really pick out those important moments in each clip. Each clip should be at least ten seconds, but really not longer than twenty when creating a montage for others to enjoy. If you find a clip that you definitely want to use more than twenty seconds of, see if you can divide it into two or more different clips and cut out some footage in between and then connect them with transitions. This way you'll really keep the story moving and your viewers interested.
Depending upon the software you're using to edit, you may be able to add in titles and drop in photos to fill in the gaps in the story when you weren't able to capture video footage, as well as add in a music track. Definitely put in dates and age in months when the footage or photo depict a milestone, especially if you are not keeping a traditional baby book as well. Transitions, such as cross dissolves and fade out/fade in are a nice touch to move from clip to clip. Try to stay away from some of the "cheesier" transitions that will cheapen your story. Remember, the video you are making is about the subjects in the video, not your editing. A rule of thumb to remember, if the editing calls attention to itself, then you're doing something wrong. Cuts should feel motivated and have a nice flow to them.
If you want more specific tips on cutting clips, I will include those in a future blog post. In the meantime, feel free to see some of my storytelling in the video baby book samples on my website.
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