Rainy weekend/Editing

[JbroDrone]

First weekend since I have had a drone that I absolutely can’t fly it. (I don’t like ). Practicing on some editing though. iMovie is pretty good it seems (I know nothing about editing ) Will probably be purchasing an editing software at some point. We are an Apple household and I’m flying a Phantom 3 SE. what software do you guys suggest?

 

[RickDownes]

First weekend since I have had a drone that I absolutely can’t fly it. (I don’t like ). Practicing on some editing though. iMovie is pretty good it seems (I know nothing about editing ) Will probably be purchasing an editing software at some point. We are an Apple household and I’m flying a Phantom 3 SE. what software do you guys suggest?

DaVinci Resolve 16 free edition is very good, I use it for a variety of video work, needs a decent computer though.

 

[David_Cambridge]

Stick with iMovie until you need tools it doesn’t provide. More powerful editors won’t make better movies, and are more complex to learn and use.

Resolve, Final Cut Pro X, and Premiere are all solid choices for more powerful editing tools, but in my experience the tools provided are not needed for editing drone video.

Most of my editing of drone videos only involves cuts editing, color correction, shot to shot transitions, and speed changes. IMovie and other simpler editors mostly provide these capabilities.

Only practice will make you a good editor, not the tool.

 

[RussOnTheRoad]

Stick with iMovie until you need tools it doesn’t provide. More powerful editors won’t make better movies, and are more complex to learn and use.

Resolve, Final Cut Pro X, and Premiere are all solid choices for more powerful editing tools, but in my experience the tools provided are not needed for editing drone video.

Most of my editing of drone videos only involves cuts editing, color correction, shot to shot transitions, and speed changes. IMovie and other simpler editors mostly provide these capabilities.

Only practice will make you a good editor, not the tool.

I tend to agree. While I am new to video editing, as a long time professional photographer I have many times been asked "what camera will make my pictures better?" My answer is always the same: "It's not the camera it's knowing how to use it. What you need to make your pictures better is to learn the principles of photography."

I expect the same is true for video editing.

That said, I have used iMovie 10 a little and I find aspects of the interface non-intuitive. I struggle to get simple things such as titles done and can't make them the way I want them because it seems the options and controls aren't there. It's organizational scheme is mind boggling to me. Also, it automatically saves projects with no manual Save option it seems. I have lost projects in crashes because I couldn't manually save them. The lack of a manual doesn't help. I do not like iMovie. I have taken a quick look at DaVinci Resolve which appears to be much, much more robust but also much, much more complex and it seems to require more horsepower to run. It will take me a long time before I can do anything with Resolve because of it's complexity.

I need to take film making and editing classes. My lack of skill and knowledge may be a part of my frustration with iMovie but the class I took at Apple didn't help much (too superficial) and with no PDF manual I could find, it has been frustrating to learn. There are web pages with instructions but that's different and more difficult than a book with a table of contents and an index. Somebody set me straight if I am mistaken, please.

 

[David_Cambridge]

I have been a professional filmmaker and editor since the mid 60s, and I couldn’t agree with you more. Video editing, or any editing is a complex, interactive effort designed for blending and mixing color corrected images and sound, and controlling all of this across time.

The tools that provide the controls required end up being complex too. The pro packages - Avid, Resolve, Primiere, and Final Cut Pro X all do a great job, and are very powerful, far beyond what anyone is likely to want to do with drone footage. They each take difference approach to the problem, with vastly different user interfaces. Professional editors argue constantly and passionately about their respective merits, with no obvious winner.

All of those mentioned above will surpass the needs of drone video production. I haven’t seen any lower end products that could not provided the needed shot selection and trimming and color correction capabilities.

Any video editing will take time and Practice to get comfortable.

 

[cneedelman]

I tend to agree. While I am new to video editing, as a long time professional photographer I have many times been asked "what camera will make my pictures better?" My answer is always the same: "It's not the camera it's knowing how to use it. What you need to make your pictures better is to learn the principles of photography."

I expect the same is true for video editing.

That said, I have used iMovie 10 a little and I find aspects of the interface non-intuitive. I struggle to get simple things such as titles done and can't make them the way I want them because it seems the options and controls aren't there. It's organizational scheme is mind boggling to me. Also, it automatically saves projects with no manual Save option it seems. I have lost projects in crashes because I couldn't manually save them. The lack of a manual doesn't help. I do not like iMovie. I have taken a quick look at DaVinci Resolve which appears to be much, much more robust but also much, much more complex and it seems to require more horsepower to run. It will take me a long time before I can do anything with Resolve because of it's complexity.

I need to take film making and editing classes. My lack of skill and knowledge may be a part of my frustration with iMovie but the class I took at Apple didn't help much (too superficial) and with no PDF manual I could find, it has been frustrating to learn. There are web pages with instructions but that's different and more difficult than a book with a table of contents and an index. Somebody set me straight if I am mistaken, please.

Try watching a few Resolve tutorials like this on Youtube,

Anytime you get stuck, just Google it and you'll find the answer. Eventually you'll become proficient. The more you do it the better you get.