Editor Rams

Now you have completed your video.  What next?  Depending on your audience, there are a number of ways to distribute your video. In other words, there are many ways to get your work out in the world for eyeballs to see. Most of you are looking to get as many views as possible and don’t just expect to have your family and friends watch your video.  So in this section, I want to go over the main ways to get your video seen with some tips that will increase the number of views. First, I want to talk about preparing your video for distribution. This could have been put in the end of the better video editing section as well.  Exporting your video the right way is very important.  You want your video to be the highest quality possible without the file size being too large. It would take me too long to go through each video editing program and the different export methods, so I’ll give you a few tips that will increase the quality of your video and decrease the siz...

Audio is often overlooked when making your first videos.  After all, video is all about what you see on the screen right?  Wrong.  Audio is just as important as what is on screen. Nothing drives a viewer more insane than having to decipher what is being said.  So here are a few quick tips on recording better audio. Tip 1 – Use a Microphone Use a microphone.  This may seem simple enough but believe me, I’ve seen lots and lots of people try to get by without using any sort of microphone. Camera makers may claim that their built-in microphone will capture crystal clear sound. This is false.  Unless you are in an airtight room with no outside noise, you won’t be able to get great sound with an on camera microphone.  What type of microphone should you get? There is the standard shotgun microphone often paired with a boom pole and directed at the subjects mouth. These microphones can cost thousands of dollars. I purchased my first shotgun mic off ...

Lighting your videos properly is something that may take more time and definitely more money but it is something that will surely take your videos to the next level.  It will raise them to a level above 99% of online video content. Like I said before, the best way to improve your video making skills is to go out and practice. This post is here to prepare you to do so. Use this as a beginners guide to video lighting. Even if you already know how to light videos, you may still learn a trick or two. Before I give you any tips, lets talk about the different kinds of lights you can use.  Professional film sets use lots of lights ranging from tiny 200 watt bulbs to 10k watt fake suns.  Each light has their own use and knowing each light’s use takes years of practice. There are many basic starter kits out there that will get the job done.  A basic lighting kit will include three lights: The Key Light:  This is your main light source that you will use to light...

There are only so many things you can read to become a better cinematographer.  Truly, the best way to shoot better video is to practice.  With all things in life, practice makes you better. In film, practice is truly the only thing that actually makes you better. Even reading this article isn’t going to actually make you a better video creator.  What will make you better is practicing and implementing the tips I give you into your practice.  That being said, here are a few basic video-shooting tips that will get you ready for shooting better video. Tip 1 – Camera Choice Do you already have a camera?  If you do or if you don’t, this is an important tip for you. The type of camera you have doesn’t really improve your video. Whether you are shooting on your iPhone or on the RED camera, you can still make great videos. Some of you may be saying,  ‘What are you talking about?! The Canon 5d Mark ii is way better than the Canon 60d.’   I will agree tha...

Planning out your video well is one of  the best ways to make better videos.  While you can improve on your camera work, lighting, sound recording, and editing skills later, the first thing you should work on first is preparing to make your video. I will be giving many tips in the following posts about all of those things. After you have chosen your topic, there are a few things you need to do before you actually go out and start shooting.  This period of preparation is called pre-production.  This is where you pre-produce your film. Just as if you were writing an essay, the more preparation you have, the better. Researching your topic is this first thing necessary with writing an essay or making a video. Make sure you know everything there is to know about your subject. If you’re already an expert on your topic, this step may be skipped. But it never hurts to do some more research. Tip 1 – Research Similar Videos In fact, a good way to research is to  s...

Organization Organize your footage.  Just like pre-producing makes your shoot smoother, organizing all of your footage will make your life as a video editor a lot easier. Set up folders for each of the following: Audio Video Still Images Exports Within these folders you can organize a level deeper. In the Audio folder make folders for music, voice over, interview, etc. depending on what you have. Within the Video folder you can organize your footage into the days you shot it or the different scenes. If you have any still images you can organize them by subject or by date shot. The way you organize is up to you. When you import all of your assets (video, audio, photos, etc.) into your video editing program, keep it organized in the same manner that your documents are saved on your computer. This way you’ll know exactly where your items are on your hard drive. Once you start exporting versions of the video, make sure you add a version number so you know what your la...

With every new version of Mac OS X comes new system requirements, and as expected a few machines are getting cut from the list of compatible Macs. The newer the Mac the better, but here is what we know so far about system requirements for OS X 10.8: Basic System Requirements for OS X Mountain Lion: 64-Bit Intel Core 2 Duo processor or better required Ability to boot into OS X 64-bit kernel Advanced GPU chipset required Internet connection required to download and install OS X 10.8 You can check for 64 bit kernel boot suport by typing “uname -a” at the command line, launch the Terminal to do this. The uname -a command will return something like this: Darwin MacBookAir 11.2.0 Darwin Kernel Version 11.2.0: Tue Aug 9 20:54:00 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1699.24.8~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64 Look for “ x86_64 ” to verify that a Mac is booting into a 64 bit kernel. This will happen by default with most OS X Lion compatible Macs, but Snow Leopard users won’t necessarily boot into the 64 ...

If you want to remove the Mac OS X 10.7 Lion “Recovery HD” partition, you’ll need to  do a little bit of work because it’s a hidden partition. Hidden means it’s not just a matter of using your   dual boot   to go into 10.6 and then deleting it with Disk Utility. Quick side note for devs with Lion Developer Preview: deleting and merging the Recover HD partition may not be a necessary procedure, but we won’t know for sure until Lion is finalized and shipping. The basis of this is the brief mention in the release notes that DP4 was not upgradeable to the final version, which sort of suggests you’ll want to format and perform a  clean install  once OS X Lion GM is released. Because of this, we are operating under the assumption that “Recovery HD” will get updated alongside the base Lion OS install, and therefore the old dev version won’t function with the final release – again, we don’t know for sure until Lion ships though. Finally, if you don’t kno...