Aspect Ratios – Film Editing Pro
I thought I might kick off this week with a little educational pice on the subject of aspect ratios.
These days we tend to deal mainly in 16:9 aspect ratios for home use with the occasional foray into 9:16 or even 1:1 for social media.
The subject of aspect ratios in movies has a long and very interesting history covered in the video below and well worth a little time to watch.
10 Basic Video Editing Cuts That Will Make Your Videos Better
This is a good recap of some basic editing cuts that everyone should know and be using.
More importantly within the article they provide excellent examples from real movies to illustrate exactly what each cut achieves and why you should (or should not!) use it.
8 Steps to Cinematic Composition
First of all the video below is an unabashed plug for the film making course the creators of the video have on offer.
By all accounts it is supposed to be a pretty good course but I have no association with it or personal knowledge of it.
I think a bit of shameless self promotion on their part is a small price to pay for what really is an excellent video.
Let’s be clear here, I don’t expect anyone reading my blog to be going out and shooting a Hollywood blockbuster right this minute!
However there are some excellent tips and great advice on achieving better composition in your own video projects.
What Is A Circular Polarizing Filter? – Get Better Looking Video
Many of you may be at least familiar with Polarizing filters and if you are not then you probably should be!
To bring it down to a pure simplicity, polarizing filters remove reflected light that you as a human can’t really see.
The best example of it that I can think of is when you look at a beautiful ocean view and see the deep blue of the water.
You take a video or photo of it and when you look at that photo the ocean appears as a sort of dirty looking green color!
That weird color is the result of reflected light in the atmosphere that the camera picks up but you don’t perceive.
A polarizing filter removes that excess reflective light allowing you to only capture pretty much what you as a human can see.
Polarizing filters have their limitations and one of the main ones is that they filter in a linear manner so you don’t really have much control over the results.
It either works or it doesn’t!
A circular polarizing filter offers a little more control which is best explained in the video below.
What Microphone Sounds Best? Blind Comparison with 5 Different Mics
This is an interesting blind test of some of the common types of microphones you can use in your videos.
It is not looking at the subject form a brand vs. brand perspective but more in the sense of styles of microphone against others.
Probably the biggest takeaway from the whole thing is that regardless of which microphone is being used, the distance from the mic seems to be the biggest factor.
Once you move the sound source from one foot to three feet away the quality drop off is very noticeable.
Quick Shortcut to Delete Clips – PowerDirector Quick Tips
In the latest version of PowerDirector some users have noticed that the little Trash Can icon that sat just above the timeline has disappeared.
As is the case with most changes like this there have been some tears before bedtime and gnashing of teeth… by a few people.
Overall pretty much no-one really noticed it!
The main reasons it was removed were that not that many people actually used it and it wasn’t really clear what or exactly how it was going to remove whatever was selected at the time.
On top of that it didn’t offer any kind of choice as to what should happen with other assets that may be affected by the deletion.
Audio Interview Tips – How to Get Interview Audio
Some excellent audio tips here from a pro specifically pertaining to interviews.
To get the great quality he achieved in his short documentary, yes, he used a pretty good microphone but that wasn’t the whole story.
There are lots of other environmental and technical aspects you can apply to get great audio in an interview situation.
The Basics of Multi-Cam Live Production
Setting up and capturing a multicam event whether live or recorded for later editing requires some pretty serious planning.
I know that most people will not be operating in a fully professional manner as described in the video below but!
The more likely scenario is that we went to an event of some sorts.
Not only did we capture video but every man and his dog did also.
Someone mentioned that we know how to edit videos together so now we have a mountain of footage from different sources shot at the same event in a totally uncoordinated manner!
By at least understanding a few of the basic concepts outlined in this video you may be able to get out of this without looking like a complete idiot.
Let’s Talk About Video Editing
Another extremely informative live stream this week from Daniel Batal covering… well just about everything really!
Obviously within the hour and forty-two minutes of time he spends on this one you would expect there to be quite a few subjects covered.
Although he tends to work mainly with either Filmora or Movavi, these webinars tend to go much wider than just subjects relating to a particular brand.
In this one he covers .png files, Ryzen GPU cards, color grading, lighting, motion tracking, workflows and on and on it goes!
Grab a tea, coffee or beverage of choice and settle in!
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