- In this video, I'm gonna break down step
by step how I edit faster using pre-built motion graphics.
I have a second channel where I only do story content.
And on this channel I like to do a lot
of history style videos.
And a lot of these require digging
up some archival footage combined
with some different maps to really give context
to the stories that I'm telling.
Now one of these videos
is about an abandoned place just outside
of Los Angeles, and it has this dark history
around the people who built this compound that's
in this valley, only five minutes
from some of the most expensive homes in the city.
So for this video
I wanted to explore this abandoned location
while also painting the picture
of what happened here over the years.
And a big part
of crafting the story was using motion graphics to
really give you that sense
of what was happening at this location.
And before we dig into the edit
I just wanna say a special thanks
to MotionVFX for sponsoring this video.
Now, when I'm making this style of video
I don't wanna spend weeks and weeks on the edit.
I wanna be able to get them done fairly quick
because when you're creating content here on YouTube
it's not about just making one
really amazing piece of content.
And that's it for the channel.
It's about making consistent videos over time.
And so you wanna be able to be fast
while also having a professional look
with the videos that you're creating.
So that's why I turn to pre-built motion graphics
for pretty much everything that I do on both of my channels.
So let's dive into this edit
and I'm gonna show you what the finished edit
timeline looks like,
and I'll show you how I speed up
my workflow using motion graphics
but also just my process of going through an edit.
So this is my finished final timeline
and you could see as I scrub through this
everything is already built
and I have all of my A-roll, my B-roll,
all of my graphics on top.
And as I scroll through this piece
you could see there is a lot going on
and that's just on the visual side.
And if we scroll down to the audio
you'd see I have all of my dialogue here in dark blue.
The teal is sound effects, and then the green is music.
So there's a lot going on in this edit.
However, this edit only took me about a day to finish
and part of that was the workflow that I go through
to be able to cut this kind of content together.
So the first stage
before I touch music, sound effects, graphics,
anything like that, is just getting my main edit done.
So the A-roll, the main story
and then I'll layer on the B-roll on top of that.
So I have my A-roll sections separated out here.
So I can just show you how I approach this
before I actually start pushing it all together.
So for the first scene, I have me walking up to camera,
I have my dialogue where I explain what's going
on in the story and I have some B-roll cut over that.
And then after this, I'll have a transition
to my next scene where I'm talking again.
And so I'll cut a transition
from the footage that I have, walking up the trail,
going up to the little peak right here
to see where I'm at.
And then I'll go to the next scene where I'm talking
to camera again and then layering on the B-roll
of what I'm talking about during that sequence.
The first cut is supposed to be straightforward.
You're looking for each one of the scenes
that you went out and filmed, cut 'em together,
have some transitions, if you need a transition
from one scene to the next,
and then what you do is push it all together
and make it flow.
And this is how I approach every edit because
if you can get that first cut done and on the timeline,
the whole workflow starts moving so much faster.
If you're trying just to piece together little sections
and you don't actually know
what the full video's gonna look like,
even if it's super rough,
well you're gonna keep getting bogged down
on the little details when, more importantly,
you want to get through the edit as fast
as possible because once you get that done
you could see the whole picture of what you're doing.
And then you go in and start tweaking little things
and adding all the fun stuff.
So this is what the final timeline looks like
with just A-roll and B-roll.
And you could see on my main timeline here,
this is most of my A-roll
and then a lot of my B-roll is above it.
I just work in these layers this way
so I could see where my B-roll is versus my A-roll.
Now from here, I go through and tighten up my timeline
make sure that everything flows, and then I start layering
on the motion graphics and all the effects
that's gonna make this footage really pop.
So I use MotionVFX
for all of my effects when I'm making my videos.
And they have plugins and templates for Final Cut,
for DaVinci, for Premier, and they also have a lot
of stock elements that you could use with any software.
And because this is a historical piece
about this abandoned place, I kind of wanna have this kind
of old feeling to the graphics that I'm gonna use.
And I also wanna set the tone with these graphics.
So I can go up to Final Cut and I can go to some plugins.
MotionVFX has a ton of different plugins
for different styles of videos.
So if you just need some titles that are cinematic
well MotionVFX has built some different titles
you could use in your video.
Or if you're someone who's creating something
like fitness videos, well there's a whole fitness pack
which is gonna give you a ton of content that's made
for fitness and sports and just giving you a specific style.
If you're someone who's making like travel videos,
they have a travel pack which has a lot
of different moving graphics that's just
gonna add these different motion graphics
that you can use when you're making your videos.
Now for this project, I wanted something that had
that historical feel to it and kind of that vintage look.
So there's a pack called mSeries Classified
and this has a bunch of different prebuilt motion graphics
and different overlays that I could use to
help tell this story.
So if we go back into Final Cut,
I'll show you what comes in this pack.
There is a bunch of overlays that go on top of your footage
things like film strip or a blurring effect
or some lens dirt defocusing.
There's also some different prebuilt motion graphics
which have different drop zones where you can add footage
into these graphics.
And then there's this section of scribble effects,
so like arrows, Xs, checks, outline,
and then different typography that fits.
And when you buy a pack like this,
everything's gonna work together,
so it's gonna have this seamless feel
but you could also customize all of these elements.
So here's this section of my video
where I have these maps on screen
and I want to show where I'm at and what's going on
To the north you have the San Gabriel Mountains and out
by the coast you have the Santa Monica Mountain range.
Now Murphy Ranch is located
up a canyon that's only minutes away
from one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the city.
As you drive in, you're passing multi...
So I have these two maps.
First one is a wide shot
and then the second one is a close up of the region.
And I wanna point out what I'm talking about.
So I'm showing the mountain ranges
and then I'm showing where this abandoned place lies.
So what I'll do is,
to make these maps just feel a little bit more exciting,
is I typically zoom in and out.
These are basically the same thing as
if you were to key frame your footage in and out.
So first I talk about these mountain ranges up here
and then I talk about where the location is
which is down in these mountains here.
So if we go to this pack
this is a great way to use something like these scribbles.
I'm gonna add the cross over here.
You see it creates an X and it has motion already to it.
I'm gonna stick that up on the mountain range
and then I could go through all
of the different parameters that make this X
and I could change them based
on the video that I'm creating.
So I could change the colors, I could change the thickness,
the size, rotation, position, everything.
So for this, I want to scale this down.
I don't wanna make it as big.
I want to add some thickness to it.
So I'm gonna thicken up those lines.
And then if I wanted to, I could change the color.
So I could go to like a red or a blue,
but for this story I'm just gonna keep it
where it was in the yellow.
I actually like the way that looks.
And then you have things like flickering and the animation.
I could change it to smooth or I could leave it on flicker.
And then to extend the time
I could just pull on either side of this effect
and then I can make it longer or I could make it shorter.
So I'll add the cross when I'm talking
about those mountains.
And then I talk about the mountains here,
I'm gonna add an outline for those.
I'll shrink this down.
I'll do the same type of effect.
So I'll look at where it's at.
I can position on the screen
and then I could use these positioning tools
on the screen itself to change how this effect looks.
Or I could just do the entire scale.
And then I'll do things like add the outline,
make it a little stronger
and I could change the flicker or I can make it smooth.
And each effect is gonna have some different tools
that you can use to modify that effect specifically.
So now when we play this back
I have a cross up there when I talk about these mountains.
And then I have a circle for the next mountain range.
Now the last thing I want to add is some text that
says this is the Los Angeles basin.
So I can go down to the text.
I'm gonna use this typography three
add it on top of all of this.
And then I have text, you could see it right here.
It's not really showing up on this map.
So add the Los Angeles basin
and then I could just grab the cursor and I can bring it
over here into the corner where I want it.
And then I'm gonna change the color
because this font is not popping.
So let's go to white and let's bring up the size.
And this isn't just text on screen.
When I play it back, you'll see that it
has an effect where it comes
into screen and it actually changes a little bit.
That feels more investigative or like a mystery.
And everything in this pack is gonna have that feeling.
So now I zoom into that section, and again
it's just a simple map with the canyon of where we're going.
So I want to use some arrows to kind of
direct what I'm talking about.
I say that we're going to this canyon
and that this affluent neighborhood is right here.
So let's pull the arrow
which has the same look as the other ones where it draws
and then it comes in and we're gonna change our rotation
and I'm gonna change the position of this arrow.
And you could modify everything
about it so that it feels like it flows.
Add the thickness.
So it's a little bit easier to see.
I'm gonna add a second one of these.
And then what I'll do is I'm gonna just rotate
that around the same type of effect.
And so now I have two arrows on screen.
One is pointing to this canyon
and one is pointing to this neighborhood.
And then I'm just gonna add some text.
So I'll do the same type of text in the last shot.
So what I could do is because I want that white text
I could just copy the effect from the previous shot
and Murphy Ranch here and then just reposition it.
Now I don't have to redo all my settings
because I've already built the graphic that I want.
I just need to change the text.
And then I might change the size a little bit
to scale this down.
So now when you put this on
it shows you where Murphy Ranch is.
I'm gonna do the same thing over here
and do Pacific Palisades.
Then I'll go through and shorten all of these up.
And now I've taken two maps
and I've added a bunch of motion graphics.
So it feels like everything's moving
and you can actually see
exactly what I'm talking about
versus just having a still image on the frame.
Let's watch this back one more time.
So the city of Los Angeles is actually surrounded
by a couple mountain ranges.
To the north you have the San Gabriel Mountains,
and out by the coast
you have the Santa Monica Mountain range.
Now Murphy Ranch is located
up a canyon that's only minutes away
from one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the city.
As you drive in, you're passing multimillion dollar houses.
So in another part of this video,
I talk about the history of the people who own this ranch.
And instead of just me on camera talking
I wanna lay out some of the information on screen.
So under the typography in this pack
there's this kind of section that looks like
a bunch of information has been pulled out or redacted.
So I'm gonna add that in, kind of has a cool look to it.
And then I'll add in all my information.
Murphy Ranch, 50 acres bought by Jesse Murphy
but the actual owners are these two.
And then so when he comes on screen,
you could see that it has this kind of feel
that it's like classified.
And I'm gonna put this over here in the corner.
So now when this pops up, information pops up on screen
kind of just fits the narrative of what I'm saying
and kind of the mysterious aspects around it.
And so with this pack, there's all these different styles
of text that I use throughout this video.
So it's big, bold text with motion
or like the highlighted text or the redacted text.
All of these can be be used
in different places and all of them are gonna work together
'cause they're all built for this one pack.
Now beyond arrows and circles and texts
and all of that that you put over footage,
these packs also have motion graphics
that are built that have drop zones
so you can add in footage or photos
and then it moves automatically.
So you don't have to like go through
and key frame a bunch of motion.
So there's this section here where I'm walking
to where there was these big gates
at this abandoned location.
So I wanna show some historical photos
of what this used to look like because it used to
be these cool iron gates that would be the entrance
to this whole abandoned ranch.
So this preset number one works great
because it has some motion graphics that pop up on screen
and then drop zones pop right in front of each other
kind of like photos are being sorted through.
So I'm gonna add in some of my photos
that I want to use for this section.
What I'll do is in my inspector tab
you'll have all these drop zones where you'll
be able to add different footage.
So I could go back to my footage
and here's the different pictures of these gates.
And all I have to do is go to my drop zones,
grab one of these, and then automatically it's in there
and it has some effects on it.
And you'll see that the photo is just full color
but when you put it in the drop zone
it actually has been desaturated.
It's been defocused.
And you can change all of these settings
and I could play with these and slide them
to figure out exactly what I think
looks good for this scene.
So after about a minute or two of editing
this is what I came up with.
So this is the location of the main gates.
This is the entrance to the community.
Now, when I started hiking here a few years ago
you could actually see the gates
but the park service removed them recently.
I desaturated a little bit.
I changed the color, but I didn't do
the full black and white that the preset had.
So with only a few minutes
of tweaking this pre-built effect
you have something that looks completely different
rather than just putting photos on screen.
And to enhance this even further, I added some sound effects
of a camera clicking every time
that the photos were shown on screen.
Now, towards the end of this video
I talk about the downfall of this ranch and what happened.
Now, I don't have any footage or photos to show this
so I wanted to simulate it
in a way that makes it feel a little bit more engaging
than just me talking on camera.
So this is the original shot.
Authorities had been keeping tabs on Murphy Ranch
and as soon as the bombing happened,
they swooped in and they arrested dozens.
They disbanded the whole colony,
and apparently they caught Herr Schmidt
even though there is no record
of him being arrested or even him existing as a real person.
So for this section, what I want to do is just
show some visuals that kind of make it a little bit
more exciting than just me standing here.
So I got a stock shot of someone being arrested
and then I have the prebuilt effect
from this pack with a photo that I added
of someone that could be Herr Schmidt
but I've blurred the face so it feels like you're looking
at like a crime scene and this person was Herr Schmidt.
Now, instead of just layering
on a stock footage shot and this motion graphic,
I'm gonna build some more effects on top of it.
So if we go back to this pack,
there's also all these effects like film strip and blurring.
And I'll add these over the stock footage to make it feel
like the other motion graphics
that I've been building in this piece.
So we'll add the film strip
and then I'll add some blurring to that as well.
And with these combined together
it now adds a different quality to this footage.
And I could go through and change all of my settings
for this blur or for this film strip
and really customize it to make it just feel
how I want it to feel.
But on top of it I have this picture of
the mysterious guy who was arrested.
I'm gonna add X over his face because they caught him.
So I'll use the same effect as earlier as this cross.
I'll change some of the settings.
And now between these two effects,
I have a completely different look for this sequence
where someone's being arrested
and I didn't have to go through
and build any emotion graphics.
They're all from the pack.
And in Final Cut, it's just drag and drop.
And then I can keep going on with the edit.
Authorities had been keeping tabs on Murphy Ranch
and as soon as the bombing happened
they swooped in and they arrested dozens.
They disbanded the whole colony
and, apparently, they caught Herr Schmidt
even though there is no record of him being arrested
or even him existing as a real person.
And the process from here
is adding some different sound effects
that match the motion graphics
and then also going through and adding music.
And so if you wanna speed up your workflow
and you don't wanna deal with motion graphics,
well check out all the different packs
over at MotionVFX and you could see a ton
of different options for all different styles of content.
And I'll include a link down below in the description
to where you can check them out.
Now, if you're new here to this channel,
make sure you hit that subscribe button.
And next, check out this video right here,
which goes through step by step
how I actually write a script for a story like this
that has this kind of mix of vlog, history
and kind of just exploration.
I'll see you over there.