Monday, January 26, 2009

Video Production Editing

Video Production Editing has been easier nowadays since the computer revolution. I remember, when I was in highschool, I used to edit videos using analog VHS and Betamax with an audio mixer at the side. When I do video production editing, I record the video tapes coming from my Sony V8 camcorder to a VHS tape which becomes my raw footage source. Then I try to map out all the scenes I wanted to use and carefully record the cuts in order according to the script, timed by the music or audio accompanying it. When everything is in sequence on another VHS tape, I record it again to another VHS tape, this time with audio. And there you have it, a grade-A highschool project. I was so good at doing it that students from other classes started coming in to me for help. But you know when you're in highschool, you seem to be so busy you forgot to make business, so I made all videos for free.

But now, it's so much easier doing video production editing as if you are cutting and pasting... and in the digital age, you are just cutting and pasting. Adobe Premiere is one of the entry-level software that you can use. It is so easy to use, you can start editing even without much knowledge about it. Most of my clients back in college were also fellow students, some from other schools and some businesses who just wants cut-to-cut editing. I've earned fairly doing this once a month but it was a bit boring. Nothing creative about the process. You just follow the clients' suggestions, which music to use, which sequences to include, do it in this order and on and on. You'll be like the translator between your client and the software. After awhile, I gave up video production editing at that level and started to explore.

At that time, my daughter will be having her first birthday and I wanted to show my friends how she grew up from month 1-12. So I've decided, this will be cool, I will use my skill in Adobe Premiere and show off! If you want to see that AVP, please click play on the button below:





In video production editing, my edge was sort of a 'well-thought-off' video. I try as much as possible that the music's feel/tempo and lyrics matches the ones at the video/picture, even the timing that it fades in and out. That way it would create the most impact. A friend of mine noticed it and there you go, another video production editing business opportunity.

At this moment, Adobe Premiere is getting to be a bit boring. It has this limited features that you can only use on basic video production editing. As an artist, I tried to explore new softwares that has more tools to express my creativity. And I found out about Adobe After Effects.

Adobe After Effects just blew me away with its interface. You can't seem to figure out which buttons to press first when you are a newbie, but I managed to grasp the interface and workflow. From then on, hundreds of plugins to experiment on and I just couldn't stop video production editing.

Check out my website and see how far I have gone from video production editing on Betamax to Adobe After Effects.



Right now I'm more into motion graphics, specializing my skills a little further. It's funny how you move from one level to another just to find out that you will be moving again soon. As the competition starts to get tighter (that's when it gets boring, because competition would mean more and more people can do what you do), you will either move to another area or try to specialize in one specific part of that business.

Most of the time I'm asked how do you start a business with video production editing. And my answer always is, "YOU START WITH WHATEVER YOU HAVE." Right now, my business revolves around an 8-year old computer, skills, and a lot of friends. But I won't be discussing this until next time when I post some of the tricks in the business of video production editing.

See you next time!