I had a goal for myself to finish the video of my husband and I’s hike to Tablerock on Thanksgiving by the end of January. That did not happen. Nor did the revised February goal get met. I didn’t even bother to set it as a goal in March, because there was simply too much going on (busy at work plus catching ALL the colds). But here and there, I’ve been chipping away. Listening to the video with earbuds, because I’m self conscious when my husband can listen to the edits. Not to mention I have to replay stuff a lot to generate captions, so it would probably get annoying for him.
At any rate, on April 4th, I finally finished the video. I learned a lot along the way. For starters, I learned that the super fancy software (DaVinci Resolve) I thought was going to be my video editor going forward does not actually work with MP4 files. My GoPro takes MP4 video, and so I had to pivot to a different software. I actually ended up pivoting back to VideoProc Vlogger, which I had tried but then discarded when I got DaVinci. The set up on both is similar enough for my purposes.
For this video, I learned how to add text so I could make my own captions, how to speed sections up, and how to multi-select my text blocks so I can move them all at once when I change my video.
The actual hike took something like 4 hours, and I captured a good chunk of that on video (about 65 minutes). The hardest part of the process was deciding what to cut and where to cut it. For some parts, I wanted to make sure to include my talking, but I didn’t want to include every place I spoke. I filmed the entire length of our hike from the bottom of “the ramp” to the top of Table Rock, but I knew I wouldn’t want to include that whole stretch at normal speed.
I ended up watching most of that footage at least 3 times, and more for the parts where I captioned and the parts where I was trying to find a good place to make a cut. I sliced and diced the whole trip down to less than 18 minutes. It still felt a bit long, but I want to try trusting myself with the length. I like what I’ve included, and I did resist the temptation to include “everything”.
I’m satisfied with the end product, even if it will never blow up the internet. Next, I’m going to need to go do some more filming. Otherwise, I won’t have anything to use to make another video. And one thing I’m definitely going to do on the next video is record an introduction instead of having to put one in afterwards.
I’m looking forward to the next one, and hoping it won’t take me quite as long to process.