What is “Remote Video Editing” and how does it help you?
Hi! I’m Philip Quintas and I’ve been a professional videographer since 1989 and have shot and edited 1000s of hours of video in dozens of formats (both analog and digital) and helped several people setup and build YouTube channels since DVDs (remember those things?) became virtually obsolete after 2010.
What many people feel is that they don’t have enough time or knowhow to edit the video they shoot. That’s not surprising considering how many things are “out there” competing for the precious time you have and software solutions can require a certain amount of study and practice before they deliver the results you desire.
Video editing is both an art and a science. It does require a certain amount of technical expertise (although I believe that everyone can learn how to do it reasonably well, fairly quickly) and an eye for what works and what doesn’t work in the medium of moving pictures accompanied with audio. However, to do it with finesse and in a short turn around time is not a very common skill set.
What happens is: people get excited about something, turn the camera on their phone on and record a video (or two, or three) to show (and tell) the world what they are so very thrilled about. This is great, it’s engaging and can be a very effective way to communicate.
Here’s the thing though, often the first time a person tries to tell a story it’s awkward or incomplete or they want to show or tell something they think of later, you know, add in some additional images, words, motion pictures or sounds. In many cases the issue is that they want to remove a bit of irrelevant information or make one video out of more than one video file (or visa-versa).
Whatever the problem is, it’s a little more complicated than “shoot, share and move on.”
That’s where video editing comes in to play. When someone modifies raw video (a raw video is the entire file created by the camera from the time the record button is pressed on to when it is pressed again, stopping the recording), intentionally changing a video file in someway, they are “editing the video”. That’s what I do, every day, mostly for people I’ve never met in person.
I am a Remote Video Editor.
Here’s how I can help you: I can edit your video for you and send you the edited file so you can have more control over the message you are communicating with the videos you post online.
This whole process is simple to set up and can be done as many times as you want to do it.
In nutshell this is how it works. You copy the video from your camera (or phone, tablet, computer, etc…) into a folder online (only you and me will have access to it there) and tell me what you want cut out, added in (oh yeah, if that’s more stuff you’ve got on your device, I’ll need those files too, so you’ll put them in that same folder online) and modified (titles and music added, cropped, for example) and I make the changes by downloading the files and using the software I am very familiar with to create a “Rough Cut”.
I then upload the “Rough Cut” video file to YouTube (or any other streaming site that allows for private viewing) and you can watch it there. If you are happy with the result, then I can upload the video to that same folder you put the raw footage in (remember that folder?) and you can download, post it anywhere you like and that’s it!
If for any reason you want changes made to the Rough Cut (sometimes we need to watch the video to see if it “feels right” before giving it the thumbs up), you let know me what you want changed, I make the changes and I upload the new and improved version to YouTube. This iterative process can be repeated as necessary until the video becomes the best it can be. That’s when we call it the Fine Cut and it’s ready to be posted and shared online.
That’s remote video editing.
I’m here to help you by walking you through the process from start to finish either through my other posts and/or on a one-to-one basis.
I can even do other things, if you’re interested, like teach you how to shot better looking and sounding video. Plus, I can help you set up, build and organize a YouTube Channel, write video descriptions (to entice people to actually watch the videos you post), create custom thumbnails (those images associated with your videos that get your audience’s attention and help identify your videos as they scroll through social media) or even post your videos for you (that’ll save you from that time consuming step in the process of sharing videos online). But that’s a whole other thing which I’d be glad to discuss with you at your convenience.
Right now let’s concentrate on Remote Video Editing, because I believe that what you create should reach more people who will appreciate what you have to offer.