Putting together films

[Josiah S]

I have been wanting to put together a movie of drone footage that I have taken. I am just having trouble organizing everything and am not to good with davinci, any tips? Thanks in advance!

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Besides tips here, and looking through videos posted by others, take a look through YouTube, there are some great drone video type channels that have loads of editing tutorials.

This one is one of my subs . . .

Stewart and Alina

As a husband and wife team, we have spent the last 10 years creating every kind of video and photo content you can think of - from music videos to corporate promos to wedding films to YouTube videos! Let us show you how to get the very best results from your gear and how to edit your content for...

www.youtube.com

My biggest tips are . . .

Keep videos to no more than a few minutes, and that's with REALLY good, interesting footage.
Keep clips short-ish, say 10 seconds, and mix them up a bit, avoid repetitive scenes.
Not too many impact laden transitions, dissolve is nice and subtle.
Music, learn to match the theme of the video, not too loud either.

 

[Josiah S]

Ok thanks I will look into it.

 

[Skybuyer]

I have been wanting to put together a movie of drone footage that I have taken. I am just having trouble organizing everything and am not to good with davinci, any tips? Thanks in advance!

"I'm not good with Davinci" tells me that you just haven't taken the time to learn the basics. Having tried a number of "easier" editing programs first I can tell you the basics are no harder than any other editing program. Stay with it. You'll thank me.

First, watch the video below. It will give you a heads-up on everything you need to know to get started. Bring your lunch and watch it through. Then go back and watch it again taking notes of ideas an the time stamp where you can find things. Anything specific you want to find out is in short YouTube clips all over the place.

If I were coaching you what I would tell you to do is import all your footage into Davinci. then go to the "Cut Page". Make sure you click on the icon highlighted in white.


This will allow you to scrub through all your footage. Of course you'll only want to use sections of this clip. To do that, when you get to a section that you want to include, at the beginning of that section hit "i" for "in". When you've gotten to the end of the useful section hit "o" for out. DR will then trim (mask out) all the unwanted footage before and after, BUT IT DOESN'T DELETE IT SO YOU CAN ADJUST IT LATER. Now you have to bring it into the timeline. The easiest way to do that is put it at the end of your trimmed clips, then put them in order later. Do to that his "Shift-F12" which will append, or put the I/O clip at the end of your timeline. You can then intuitively move them around in the "Edit" page. There are several different techniques for that once you get stuff in there and learn a little more.

IT IS REALLY THAT SIMPLE... just not familiar to you yet. Don't give up on it so easily. You just have to learn where stuff is and then develop your own routine. There are SO many tutorials out there that go from basic to very advanced. I'm pretty much that proverbial old dog that can't learn new tricks... so I settle for 1/2 trick here and there. Trust me, Davinci Resolve is for you if you just stop being resistant to it. Like the Borg... YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED!

Watch this video first:

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Here are some others you might find helpful to get started:

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I love Jason. Watch this video when you have 2 hours or more. He talks fast so you might want to cut the viewing speed to give you time to absorb some of this. But it can get you going.

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[vivalacoulter]

I really am quite an amateur at editing videos, I just use iMovie that came free on my computer and phone.

It's pretty easy for a simple movie though, I record basically everything I do in a flight and then split/cut it up to capture all the nice smooth moments, add a title screen with the drone type and location, some free background music (bensound.com is a great resource), a few transitions between clips so it doesn't seem jarring and hey presto!

 

[Dave Maine]

Editing is an art unto itself. The more you practice it and understand it, the better your end product will be.

Most drone videos are boring, being interesting only to their makers. Viewers are very intolerant of too long videos, and will drop out quickly if they feel the video maker is wasting their time.

No video program will do anything automatically. Pick one and spend the time to gain an elementary mastery. I use Final Cut Pro X, Motion, and Resolve. Resolve 18 would be where I would start if I was just beginning.

 

[FlyingFilmmaker]

Editing is an art unto itself. The more you practice it and understand it, the better your end product will be.

Most drone videos are boring, being interesting only to their makers. Viewers are very intolerant of too long videos, and will drop out quickly if they feel the video maker is wasting their time.

No video program will do anything automatically. Pick one and spend the time to gain an elementary mastery. I use Final Cut Pro X, Motion, and Resolve. Resolve 18 would be where I would start if I was just beginning.

I would be pretty happy if I could get my hands on Resolve 18. ?

 

[FlyingFilmmaker]

Nice to see another young drone pilot and aspiring editor on here! Davinci is quite a beast to learn, but it's definitely worth it. As far as organizing the footage, try to come up with some kind of "story line" flow to the footage. Something that makes sense. Also try not to have more than two shots on the same scene, unless they are radically different perspectives. And the biggest things is, practice practice practice! And watch drone videos from experienced pilots/editors and try to replicate some of the things you like about those videos.

 

[Dale D]

I have been wanting to put together a movie of drone footage that I have taken. I am just having trouble organizing everything and am not to good with davinci, any tips? Thanks in advance!

This is probably premature, but once you have actually learned a bit of editing follow these simple rules. (these are rules I made for myself);
1) keep your video to around 3 to 3 1/2 minutes-film smoothly,
a)no quick yaws, or gimbal moves.
b) If you do, edit them out
2) use regular photographic teachings- tell a story, starting with a wide shot, then an intermediate shot and then a close shot
3) don't repeat stuff
4) easy does it on the fancy transitions- they are irritating as hell. Just stick with cross dissolves
5) use music which fits the subject, hopefully, calming and not hard rock- and, oh, by the way Use music!
6) Try to learn to shoot in H.265 and d-Log and edit with color grading
7) most viewers will turn off your video by 30-50% of the way in-Over 3 years of statistics say that only 25% finish my videos

I could add more but if you watch a lot of videos on this site, you will soon get the idea.

Good luck to you!

Dale
Miami

 

[Josiah S]

Wow thanks for all of the replies! I am watching the videos and will work more with davinci resolve. I shoot in h.265 but not d log. I will shoot in d log from here on out though. I would say I like color correction the best, and that is probably what I am the best at. The organizing all of the shots and everything will take awhile and even though I am much younger, I am still not very good with computers and somehow end up deleting what I don't want to delete and keep what is junk.? Is there any difference with d cynalike and d log?