This video is brought to you by Storyblocks Audio.
A couple of months ago, I made a trip to Iceland.
I've shot over 400 clips and published the final video,
last week here on our Youtube channel.
I was blown away by all of the amazing reactions.
And many people asked me: how did you edit that video?
Well, here are 5 editing tips from my Iceland travel video.
[Cinecom's intro music]
Hey folks, Jordy here for cinecom.net.
First of all, if you haven't seen my Iceland video yet,
then definitely make sure to do that first
and then come back for the editing tips!
I'll leave a link to the video up there and in the description below.
I also have a video with 5 tips for shooting a travel video.
I've created that right after I came back from Iceland.
I'll also leave a link to that one in the description below.
So this was my very first travel video that I've ever created.
It was a lot of fun, and I've learned so many things from creating that video.
Both from shooting and editing.
I'm quite proud myself about the end result, although if I could do it over again,
I would do it completely different.
But it's from mistakes or experience in general that you can learn.
So I think, these tutorial videos right here it’s very nice to give you a head start.
But by the end of the day, you're going to learn the most
by just creating a travel video yourself.
So, I really encourage anyone to do that.
Even if that's a travel video about your own city.
Alright, but that's no why you're here.
You probably wanna see some gorgeous editing tips.
And I'm going to start off with the sound design.
Throughout the entire video you would hear the camera sounds.
Now, there are three main reasons why I included the camera sound
and not just let the music play at full power.
First is to create depth.
You're not just hearing music, but you're also hearing what you're seeing.
It's considered more cinematic as it just gives so much more depth to your shots.
The second reason is to help the audience understand
what’s going on in the shot a lot faster.
When you see a bird, it takes a little bit of time for your brain
to understand that it is a bird.
With the corresponding sound of a bird,
your brain will be able to process that faster.
This allows you to create a fast-cut edit, which we'll dive in later.
And then the last reason is so that you, as the editor, can focus on an action.
If I would take the real sound from the camera,
you would hear nothing but wind.
But I'd like to focus on a detail, which is a bird arriving at the other bird
and it's not so easy to land over there.
So I would add a flapping sound of their wings.
You would never hear that for real, but as an editor,
we can create that sound and let the viewer focus on a subject or action
that we want them to see.
So then, where do these sounds came from?
Well, three locations!
The first one if from an online library.
There're various libraries out there, I used Storyblocks Audio for the most.
They are also sponsoring this video, but I also genuinely use their service.
And that's because, when it comes down to sound effects or beats,
their library is just like really strong.
All of the sound effects are high-quality recordings.
In a matter of seconds I could find what I was looking for
and I could just download as much audio clips as I want to
without having to pay something extra.
There's this one simple fixed price per year.
I can highly recommend to check it out yourself,
which you can do by clicking the first link in the description below.
The second audio source was the actual sound of the camera.
Even though the internal microphone of your camera isn't great,
when mixed with music, it can work out fine.
Now, I didn't used the in-camera sound much,
because of all the wind in Iceland.
But it's always worth checking the camera sound
if there's something in there that you could use.
Never ignore it.
And finally, foley sounds.
That's the fancy term for capturing your own sound.
While I'm editing and I need a specific sound that I can't find anywhere else,
I would just simply record it.
Here's a shot of Kim rubbing her hand over ice.
Maybe I didn't knew what to look for, but I just couldn't find it.
So, I recorded a sound of me rubbing my shirt.
In Premiere Pro, I would often use the Rate Stretch tool
to speed up or slow down the sound.
And that would change the pitch of the audio.
And where I'd like to do this is when I have a swoosh sound
that I'd like to use more often.
But I also don't want the audience to know that I'm recycling sound effects.
So, I make sure every swoosh sound’s a little bit different by stretching them,
changing their pitch.
Alright, that was the first tip, -I know- pretty long.
But sound design is just super important!
The next editing tip is called Point of Interest.
When you're making a fast-cut edit,
it's not just about placing different shots next to each other
and cut them to a fast beat.
You wanna make sure that the viewer sees and understands every shot.
And like seen before, sound design already helps processing the shots faster.
But even more important is the Point of Interest.
When something happens here in the frame,
the audience is focussed on that point.
When you then cut to a shot where the action lays on the other side of the frame,
it will first take some time to search for that action,
to move your eyes to that action
and then start with processing what you're seeing.
So that means, you need to let the shot stay for a longer time on screen.
Or else, your edit is gonna be chaos.
The point of interest is the point where the actions lays or where the viewer looks at,
if you then cut to a shot where the point of interest
lays within the same area as the shot before,
the viewer will not have to search for it.
So that means that your shots can be shorter in time
and thus you can make a fast cut edit.
Tip number 3, which is a workflow tip!
When you have hundreds of shots and have no idea where to start,
then the ‘pancake’ editing technique might be helpful.
Essentially what you do is first go through all of your shots
and take every useful piece from it.
Drag that into a timeline.
When you're done, you create a new sequence.
Drag the window of that new sequence to the bottom
so that you have the two sequences on top of each other.
You can now choose to start your actual edit,
by selecting clips from the top sequence.
It gives you a better overview, plus you can skim very fast through your selection.
You could also add a third sequence and use the middle one as a sub-selection.
For example, if you have a bunch of b-roll,
you could add that in here and leave the other shots in the top sequence.
Within those selection sequences you could already make mini-edits.
Place shots next to each other that match,
so that it's easier to bring them to your final timeline.
Stacking sequences or timelines like this is called ‘Pancake Editing’.
Tip 4, transitions!
And I'm not talking about those fancy transitions,
but sometimes very subtle things that I've added to almost every cut.
I mentioned in my first video, on how to shoot a travel video,
that motion is super important.
Both motion from a subject in your shot and motion from the camera.
If there's no motion, or only one of the two shots have camera motion,
then I would add fake motion in post production.
I usually do this by adding the Transform effect to a clip,
scaling it up through that effect and then animating the Position property.
Finally, set a custom shutter angle for natural motion blur.
This is very minor though.
A very gentle pan or tilt that is barely noticeable.
But it connects with the motion of the second shot.
If both of your shots are static, you could add such an animation on both of them.
Important is that you're going to ease the right keyframes
so that your animation starts and stops smooth.
Again, you don't want the viewer to actually notice that there's a post-animation.
And finally the last tip, which is rhythm and pacing.
First of all, try to create a story within your travel video.
Don't just paste a bunch of shots next to each other.
And this doesn't have to be much.
My story was that we traveled through Iceland for several days
and that the landscape was so beautiful.
So, I started with the first steps into Iceland, the first glimpse that we saw.
Here we have a slow rhythm,
then for a brief moment I had a fast-cut
and then I went back to a slow pacing.
And I'm telling a story by doing this.
We were overwhelmed by the nature and wanted to travel fast
and see as much as possible,
but in fact you shouldn't do this.
You should take your time and enjoy what's around you.
So that's slow, fast, and back slow.
And then, as we get into Iceland more and more,
we get to travel faster.
It's like riding a bike for the first time.
So we get a fast-paced editing until we see something stunning
and go slower again.
A fast-cut travel video does not go super fast from start to finish.
You wanna use that rhythm to tell your story.
Also, if you have a fast-cut part, don't get predictable in here.
It's actually fun if you have a fast-cut edit
and suddenly break that rhythm with a stunning shot.
Or maybe don't cut to the next shot, but cut to the same shot.
I've actually done that several times where I would cut to the same shot
going in reverse.
It's still a cut on the beat, but it's more of a surprise.
The reason why it took me about three months to edit this video
is because I struggled to tell a story with a bunch of a random shots.
Eventually, I'm very happy with the result, though.
After I've gone through all of my shots I took the time to reflect to my travel.
What was my experience there, How did I see Iceland?
And when I found the answer to that, I started editing.
Thank you so much for watching,
thank you Storyblocks Audio for the support,
and like always:
Stay Creative!
-Jordy, what are you doing?
-This is something that I haven’t tried before,
skating out of the elevator.
Here we go!
Let’s do a kick-flip!
Never mind, no, let’s not do a kick-flip!