One of the reasons I do all of my color corrections in DaVinci Resolve is that I don’t have to rely on what I see on the computer screen to guide me.
I know that every computer screen, tablet screen or mobile screen is going to display the results differently so what I see on my screen tells me almost nothing.
However, with a simple understanding (like mine!) of the very basic tools in the DaVinci Resolve Color Page plus knowing how to read a few of the scopes, I can color correct and even color grade with confidence.
However when to comes to audio unfortunately there are no equivalent tools you can rely on.
You just have to listen to what you have, know what needs to be fixed and understand which tool is going to do that.
The only way I learned how to do that was to watch people doing it over and over until I could stumble along on my own.
So in the spirit of stumbling around trying to work it all out, here’s someone that actually knows what they are doing!
The vast majority of the editing I do these days is for a very small number of clients and pretty much all of that is for online content.
Each one of those clients and myself included understand that the look and feel of those videos has to remain consistently branded because that what the audience expects.
Now that’s all very well for them but for me as an editor it begins to narrow down my outlook on the task of editing so I end up thinking only in terms of what I have been producing recently.
Sometimes I need to break out of that thinking and one of the tricks I use and you can use it too, is to go into whatever video editing software you are using and have scroll through the project templates they offer.
Now don’t get me wrong here, I NEVER use included templates from any program in my projects!
What I do is use those templates as inspiration for ideas to get started on any project where I need to get outside of my own little bubble.
Remember that those software companies paid professional designers to style those templates so they are at least technically correct as a starting point.
Here are some shown in CyberLink PowerDirector.
OK so the bottom line here is that this is a poorly disguised promo for the Movavi Video Editor and includes a little bit of a hatchet job on their competitors… those crazy kids!
Anyway apart from that I have to admit that the results they show are fairly accurate as far as the clip they used goes.
However you also have to take into consideration that all of the A.I. background removers will deal with the task differently so it will very much come down to the clip itself and not the tool.
I have used all of the tools mentioned and have had good and bad results with ALL of them.
At the end of the day I am not (and nor should you!) going to choose video editing software on the basis of available A.I. tools.
All of the A.I tools in any video editing software actually connect to remote services anyway and nine times out of ten, if your usage is low, you are better off dealing directly with one of those A.I. sites.
Another week and another update from Filmora, how unusual!
The good news is that they have seemingly caught up with whatever A.I. tools they want to introduce and develop and are back to more practical things.
For example they have added a new system for adjusting the speed of clips and segments within those clips.
You can still use the old Speed Ramping module but this new system offers control from the timeline itself.
Of course they just cant let that A.I. stuff go altogether so there is also new new tool to separate vocals from from an audio track as well!
You can see all the new stuff in action in the video below.
This is another valuable video in my opinion from Gripps2211 that bridges the gap between legacy editing software like Corel VideoStudio and current AI technology.
One of the reasons I like to add this stuff to the Friday Roundup is that to some degree it counters the idea that you must have all the latest bells and whistles to be editing videos.
Of course thats nonsense but the problem is the marketing tends to turn our brains to mush and we lose sight of the fact that it IS nonsense!
The reality is that there are old iterations of video editing software out there that are more than capable of running on modern machines and have all the tools to be effective.
So the question is, why waste time and money on updating to the very latest and greatest when you could just use that software in conjunction with the vast array of online A.I. tools at no extra cost!
One of first things you may need to address as a content creator for any online service like YouTube is that you may have very limited resources, one of which may in fact be space!
Not all of us have the luxury of a large spare room in out house or apartment we can just set aside for videoing purposes!
In light that here’s another video from GabrielVIP on the subject of maximizing value out of very limited space for shooting content.
This is a particularly good video for that because he goes into shooting distances, lens selection and the arrangement of lighting in detail.
Well in a move that shocked absolutely no-one, Casey Faris has just release his updated Resolve Course for Beginners.
Similarly unsurprising it is of course free!
Generally speaking Casey does this either annually after Resolve has been updating for a while or whenever a new, full version is released.
This one is as a result of DaVinci Resolve moving from version 20 to 21 with the public release Resolve 21 coming out of Beta in the past week or so.
If you are using Resolve or if you are considering switching to it as your editing program then this is definitely the video for you.
For those that are already using the program this isn’t just an intro to any of the new features or changes to settings etc.
It is great way to take a fresh look at the program from a pros perspective and maybe learn a few new tricks or, like me, find out there was always a much easier way to do something!
For anyone new to Resolve then this is a no-brainer.
There is simply no way you can kind of stumble around the DaVinci Resolve user interface and think that somehow you are going to end up working it all out!
There is just too much going on in there for that to ever happen and all you will probably do is deepen the confusion!
Casey is a great teacher and is always careful to explain things thoroughly as he moves along.
On top of that he also provides free access to download all the assets he uses for each step so you can follow along as he goes.
This is a video that is quite obviously operating at a level that you and I are probably not operating at!
However I wanted to add it to this weeks Friday Roundup because although the techniques may be a little out of reach, the concepts behind them are major and basic.
We have probably all heard the statement that the most important part of video is audio and this video really shows how that works for real.
Now I am not saying it is impossible to be successful on YouTube these days but!!!!
The deal is that you have to get just about everything right to even get your foot in the door.
There things that you can control yourself and there are things that remain in the hands of the algorithm gods.
The trick is to take any aspect of the video, your channel or the YouTube interface that you can control and maximize whatever you can.
In the video below you can see exactly how and more importantly, why you should handle the Description section with care and attention.
In the video they mention a link to the template for video descriptions, that link is HERE
I would like think that my journey in creating reasonably good looking footage for social media content was like a sailing trip through the Bahamas… but that’s not how it really went!
It was probably more like a lost and panicked meltdown dragging myself sobbing through swamps of Louisiana but fortunately I managed to get there in the end.
My two main bugbears when I look back on it all were lighting and audio with most of the other problems I had stemming from one of those two.
I spent hours (weeks?) faffing around with trying to deaden the sound in the place I was videoing before I finally worked out that if just used a modern lav mic with noise canceling, I didn’t need to do any of that!
I use this one Hollyland Lark M2 and of course there are others and I could spend more hours researching in circles but at the end of the day it really does the job.
The other big problem was that although I had a good camera to shoot with, my footage always looked kinda bad.
Again I faffed around with all sorts of settings in the camera and other stuff all to no avail.
Ultimately I discovered I had a lighting problem and not a camera problem and that the answer to that problem was a good quality light on a stand with a softbox.
My choice at the time and what I am using today is this light, the Godox SL60W on a solid lighting stand with a Wellmaking 34 Softbox.
Once I started using that setup, my life became so much easier!
So the thing with softboxes is that there are a gazillion choices out there as far as size, shape and price go so in the video below you can see some choices but more importantly, why certain features may or may not apply to your video style.
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