Roast my video edit / grading / etc.

MattInFla · 2025-02-18T11:19:39-0500

Hi everyone! I just posted up an edit of some flying over the weekend. Please feel free to offer comments / suggestions / brutally honest appraisals.

Thanks!

mavic3usa · 2025-02-18T11:42:37-0500

Not sure there is anything to critique. Others than the cheesy transitions and some oversized captions, it looks like you simply took the raw video output between the start and stop buttons and joined them together in FCP and...that's about it. If that was your goal then it's fine. If not, there may be dozens of comments if you were looking to do something else (not sure where to start because I don't see any "editing"). What was that, just you flying around the area looking at stuff?

MattInFla · 2025-02-18T11:46:26-0500

Mostly just checking out random spots for future shooting opportunities. I shoot a lot more stills than video, so trying to get better with that.

There were probably more than a few opportunities there for more interesting shots that I didn't see / capitalize on.

akdrone · 2025-02-18T13:27:04-0500

MattInFla said:
Hi everyone! I just posted up an edit of some flying over the weekend. Please feel free to offer comments / suggestions / brutally honest appraisals.

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Thanks!

The lead in with the earth is cliche. I think there is one just like that with iMovie. At 0:14 the question I would ask you, and one I ask students is “Which is the focus, the sky or the foreground. Choose. Cut the horizon in thirds unless you have a reason to not do so. There was no reason to not do so here. 0:22 Were you using Auto exposure or was it just set too dark? 0:27 Very nice smooth pan. The sky was taking up just the right amount of space. 0:47 A little hesitation in the panning. Not dramatic but I’d have left that hesitation part out. 0:54 I would have stopped and reset the exposure or, failing that, corrected in your NLE by bringing up the entire scene. Around 1:01 as you enter the bridge area there is hesitation. Using Cruise Control would have alleviated that and if you realize it’s happening just go back and make that run again. A transition between scenes is better than a scene with hesitation IMO. As you leave the bridge it’s not bad but again, practicing with Cruise Control would have smoothed that out. That’s just a matter of experience. A transition would not have worked well at that point IMO. The right turn completed at 1:41 was done at an entirely different speed than all the previous flying. Learn to pan at the same rate you have been flying at. At 1:41 you pan to far and swing back left. I’d have cut that and put a transition there also. Just personal preference I guess but it was also a result of panning too fast. If this entire thing had been done on Cine mode with Cruise Control it would have been much smoother. 1:54 and before/after, once again your horizon is in the middle. Clearly the bridge is the important thing and it should be filling at least ⅔ of the frame. 2:25-2:29 another pan too far and now I can see it is set for Auto Exposure which is causing issues here and there. 2:42 Good to fill the frame with the subject as opposed to the sky but did you really need all that water in the frame? Your call. 3:06 Another fast pan that goes to far requiring a correction. The auto exposure is seeing the super bright lights in the water and stopping down too much causing the land and water on the left of the screen at 3:11 to be too dark. You can keyframe exposure values with any decent NLE and should do so in a lot of this video. Jumping to 5:49 I’d mention that the kite sails should have been kept in the frame. I think That’s all for this commentary. You can look at other parts with my thoughts in mind. I’d work on post processing of exposure, learning to use Cruise Control, and panning more slowly so you don’t need to go back to correct for over shooting the pan. Many of my videos could get similar critiques

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MattInFla · 2025-02-18T13:39:26-0500

Thank you for the thorough reply. I’ll watch it again with those comments in mind, and definitely look at cinematic mode and cruise control. I’ve got a few other video locations in mind, so I’ll give those a run.