7. Video and Editing Skills
Record a video (content insignificant). Find a way to edit it. Learn how to speed it up. Learn how to write notes across the video. A learn-to-love-imperfect-results day.
Before
It’s 9.19 am and I’ve “only” managed an hour of procrastination before starting. However, I am already a step ahead as I have a video. The video is of my very-not-a-hair-stylist partner, Chris, cutting/hacking/shaving my hair, which I had not had cut (or bleached) since end of November and it was neither looking healthy nor feeling good. As I do not foresee hair salons being open for the next few months, I thought better sooner than later and, based on a chat with a friend (thanks, Nadene … sort of), decided I would video it anyway, a “How not to …” video. Unfortunately, this may complicate today’s project as I not only need to give myself a crash course in video editing, I also have about 30 minutes of video. So much for “content insignificant” video of the cat walking up and down a few times over about one minute.
I will be extraordinarily impressed if there is a video embedded in this post today. I will even be slightly pleased with myself if I’ve managed just to know what it is I will need to do to edit and post the video another day. I genuinely have no idea how to set about video editing, how difficult it is or even what software/apps/whatever I need to use. But I’m ever so slightly looking forward to the prospect of having made a short clip, whether today or by the end of the week.
After
It’s 5.01 pm. I have completed an edited video! The soundtrack is horrendous, due to (A) attempting this as a novice in a day and (B) copyright. It is not exemplary, but it has made Chris and I laugh. A lot. And I have genuinely enjoyed making the video.
I ended up using a free trial of Adobe Premiere Rush, which by Adobe standards is ludicrously easy to use. I found this YouTube video particularly useful and easy to follow and, well, I need not write more, here is (yet to be established how) almost nine minutes of a 29-minute video of Chris cutting my hair. Apologies for the language at times.
Click here for your amusement …
My next project will be to explore and have fun with Instagram Stories, which I suspect will be significantly quicker and easier than editing a video for the first time.
