ehougaard: Right off the bat, your clip is WAY better than MY first attempt! Well done and of course, the swans were VERY cinematic.
Here are my suggestions:
- Once you have all your clips on the timeline, before you start making any cuts, pick your audio track and put it on the timeline too. Drag the height of the audio track to make it taller so you can see the peaks (beats of the music.) Now as you begin editing, when you find a spot where you want to make a cut or shorten a single clip, look at the audio track and zoom in so you can align your cut with the beat of the music. It's easier than you think and you actually got one perhaps intentionally, I don't know, at 2:18. I believe that doing this increases the overall presence and quality of the viewing experience.
- As iShouldBe said, watch out for abrupt camera or aircraft movements and don't include them in the final vid.
- Try to keep your final videos a little shorter, like two minutes or less. This is one of the most difficult parts for me because, as we all know, WE think OUR stuff looks GREAT and don't want to cut out any of it. <laughing hysterically....I'm my best audience.)
- Good work on just using jump cuts and a cross dissolve for transitions. Newbies, myself included, tend to want to use all the glitzy transitions available in most video editing software when in fact, less is more.
- Obviously, you don't need any camera help as your color grade and focus were on the money.
- Ditto for your smooth aircraft control, another difficult task for yours truly.
- Finally, just keep on keeping on is my best recommendation as experience and learning new things about your software and improving your flying/cinematic skills are the best way to improve the quality of your work, IMHO.
For a first attempt, I'd say it was magnificent.