on the Big Branch
I finally completed the video I started to edit with Bob Krist two weeks ago. I have included it below. It is also on vimeo if the link below sends you astray.
Here is what I have learned about video: It’s fun to shoot and even more fun to think about what to shoot and how to shoot it. This is especially true for all us old-timers who have photographed for years and are in such a rut we don’t recognized it anymore. Learning video (or anything new) gets you out of your photography rut.
It took me about 5 hours to shoot the 64 clips of winter streams over three days of shooting. I missed one perfect day for shooting but otherwise I had pretty good luck. It took me about 5 hours of editing to assemble the video and another 5 hours to learn how to do it. Yu will see that the editing technique is very basic but it is good enough for a nice piece. I have the fundamentals down, now I can add the fancy stuff. I used Final Cut Pro X (ten) as my editing software and I found it to be very straight forward and intuitive to use. All the FCP X horror stories that I had heard had me pretty nervous to try to use it but it was a joy to use. I started with iMovie but found it to be frustrating to use. iMovie is like a entry level digital camera- it tells you what to do and then fights you if you try to do something differently. A more sophisticated camera or software works with you. I got frustrated with iMovie in 15 minutes- FCP X was great. Don’t listen to all the naysayers, try it, you’ll like it.
To learn FCP X I searched for clear, easy to understand and follow tutorials on the web. There are a ton of choices. the one I used was www.izzyvideo.com. Izzy speaks clearly and slowly and shows you FCP X in an orderly and intuitive way. I went through the first 15 lessons (each lesson is 4-12 minutes long) twice, took notes and then dived right in. FCP X is much more like Lightroom then it is Photoshop as far as ease of using goes.
I still have lots to learn with FCP X, don’t get me wrong, but at least now I have a start. I also ordered three books two of which were awful and the third just okay. Still looking for the definitive FCP X book.
And the video isn’t finished yet. I need to refine the sound a bit and the video needs a title and closing credits (seems to be the convention). Every time I look at it I see another place that needs a bit more polishing but that’s okay. There’s always tomorrow. Hope you enjoy this little interlude!