Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hey, there. You want to make
better films but having trouble because you
don't have any help? Well, I'm here to show you how
even the crewless can make amazing videos with a
combination of fossil planning, the right tools, and
focusing your efforts. My name is Aaron Palabyab, and I've been a
professional filmmaker and photographer for
over a decade now. I do a lot of work requiring me to be a one-person
crew while still delivering professional
quality for both clients and my own content. The main thing you need as
a solo filmmaker is focus. You can't have everything, but you don't need it. By focusing your efforts only on what you need to
achieve your goals, you can get the job done. We'll begin with how to
choose the right gear to get everything done on your
own while balancing cost, quality, and ease of use. Then, I'll take you through
in-depth breakdowns of several content types and how to approach them as
a solo filmmaker. Then we'll go through
my entire process comprehensively from
start to finish, along with my best tips
to help you become a highly capable solo creator, learned from many years of
study and trial and error. We'll go over how to plan your solo shoots to be both
efficient and effective. From there, we'll go
into how to set up a basic home studio or
shooting [inaudible] , and then I'll walk you step-by-step through my
shooting process on the field. Finally, I'll take you
through my workflow for file management and
approaching an edit. If you've taken my
previous course from clueless to
content creator, you'll recognize
the fundamentals that I'll be recapping
in the beginning. Then, we'll move on to brand new material that
takes you through my actual process in depth. There is so much material in this course that I've
never shared before anywhere else that I
hope it will serve as your virtual apprenticeship
with me in video production. I'm really excited to share all of this
info with you because I wish it had been around
when I was just starting out. I'm confident it'll give you the reassurance and knowledge that you need to
level up your videos, and open those doors that
only great video can. Excited, to dive deep into it? I'll see you in the course.
2. Class Orientation: [MUSIC] Your class project will
be to apply everything you'll learn here to
make a video with a reasonably professional
level of video and sound. I encourage you to try to make a video with
a combination of talking heads and B-roll
of about 3-10 minutes. Here are my suggestions : a channel trailer
or introduction video to present your
content's value proposition and attract your
target audience; a tutorial or review shot in
your home or home studio; a travel vlog with good B-roll; a mini documentary about
your favorite cafe, restaurant or other
neighborhood establishment. You'll follow the
complete process for solo creators outlined in this course from
choosing your gear, pre-production,
shooting, and editing. Don't worry, you can definitely start with whatever it is
that you have right now. In fact, I encourage you to
check the project description for my recommended gear and software depending
on your level. I give feedback to all
projects as my schedule allows so please don't
miss this chance to get a professional
perspective on your work, which is really worth the price of this course on its own. I'm looking forward
to seeing your work. With that, let's move
on to the first lesson, how to pick the gear
that's right for you. [MUSIC]
3. Gear: My Setups: [MUSIC] Let's start with all the most commonly
asked questions by new video creators, which is, how do you
pick the right gear? What gear do you use? Now a lot of more experienced
creators like to say, myself included, "That
your gear doesn't matter." But that's not entirely
true because the gear you pick has a huge
impact on your workflow, and your workflow is one of the main things
that determines your ability to deliver the quality you need
as a solo filmmaker. So how do you pick the
gear that's right for you? The main thing to address
when selecting gear is balancing between
three things: cost, quality, and ease of use. Being a solo filmmaker is
really a matter of trade-offs. For example, the more
expensive the gear you buy, the more advanced it will be, and generally, the
better the quality of your video and your audio. But more advanced
gear will usually be less convenient and more
complicated to use. This is changing rapidly
as technology advances, but generally, it
still holds true. So to illustrate my point, let me take you through a
few of my setups that I use for my personal content
and professional work. First, my iPhone 12, completely bare, straight out of pocket with no
extra accessories. With this setup, I
can shoot anywhere, anytime, be ready to shoot in
seconds, even in the rain. This setup is so easy and fun to use and
allows me to capture the moment exactly as it
happens with minimal fuss. It can even shoot up to 4K 60 frames per second
out of the box. That's something I'd have to pay thousands of dollars more
to get on bigger cameras. At the same time,
the stabilization on the device allows me to get beautiful shots while
moving with little effort. I love it as a tool
for my personal work, and the same goes
for my GoPro here seven black for
motor vlogging or situations where I
need it to be rigged to a vehicle or other
moving objects. For most beginners, I suggest starting out with a
good smartphone or action camera setup
so you can focus mainly on your core
value delivery. More on that later. You can also add in a good full-size
tripod or a small one like this and definitely a good phone mount if
you're using a phone, like this one from Ulanzi, and make sure you get
a mount that can do both vertical and
horizontal to give you the versatility
you need to be able to create content for
different platforms. From here, we move up in quality and size to larger cameras, which are larger
mainly because they have larger imaging sensors. Larger sensors usually
means better video quality. The common formats
we see in order of increasing size are
the one-inch sensor, the micro 4/3 sensor, APS-C or crop sensor,
and finally, full-frame. There are even larger sensor
cameras like medium format, but they're mainly
used for photography, so we won't cover them here. So moving up a number
of levels from my phone is my main workhorse
camera for many years, my full-frame
35-millimeter Sony A7 R2 with a vlogging mini
shotgun microphone attached. This is a special microphone
called the Deity V for Duo, which picks up the audio
both in front and behind, allowing me to talk behind the camera as I'm
demonstrating something. So this is my main
vlogging setup. With this, there's a massive step-up in quality,
as you see here. The main benefit of this is that high-quality increases
your chances of appealing to a
wider audience, particularly on YouTube where high production value is
one way of standing out. But this additional quality does come with some trade-offs. Compared to my iPhone GoPro, I'm not as confident
bringing this out just anywhere because number 1, it's bigger and heavier, you have to get out of the bag. It attracts more attention, which can be an issue
in some places. Then it takes more time to make sure I get the
settings right. Finally, although the
camera itself is okay, most of the accessories
are not weatherproof. So that's a number of additional
things to think about that could really
get in your way compared to shooting with this. To me though, it's worth the
trade-off most times because the video just looks great and my audience
appreciates that. To further upgrade the setup, I use my tripod to get stable shots and even
shots of myself. In professional
situations, I also use my gimbal to get the
smoothest possible shots, but for personal content, I never use it anymore. Finally, this is me on
the field shooting with my Sony A7 R2
full-frame camera on a slider with an electronic
motion control module. Look at how clean and buttery smooth the
resulting shot is. To be honest, it's
quite subtle and takes so much more work
than just using a tripod. But if maximum quality for professional applications or to stand out is what you need, this is a setup
you can consider. However, it is very tedious and time-consuming to setup
as a solo filmmaker, not to mention having
to drag it along with me outdoors where I
shoot most of the time. Most of the time I just
leave it at home because it makes shooting less fun
with all the complication, at leaves me with
less time to get all of the other shots I
need to tell my story. That's an overview
of my setups and how I think about
what gear to use. Here's a recap of the
various gear setups that I mentioned here along with
some additional details, you'll find a copy of
this slide as well as all of the upcoming recap
slides for each lesson in the project resources
accessible in the sidebar of the desktop
version of Skillshare. If you're using the app, just make sure to
open Skillshare on your web browser
on your computer. In the next lesson,
we'll focus on you and your needs so you
can choose your gear. [MUSIC]
4. Gear: For Your Needs & Niche: [MUSIC] Now that you've looked at a few different
examples of gear setups, how do you choose
exactly what you need? Let's start by trying to
answer these three questions. Number one, and
this should be very familiar if you took
my previous course, what is the value
your audience is seeking from you or that you're offering
to your audience? If you're on YouTube,
for example, there's a good chance having better production value
will benefit you, but only if and
when you're already well-versed in delivering
your main value to your target audience. For more on that, checkout
my previous course, From Clueless to
Content Creator, here on Skillshare but I'll
illustrate some points here. If your niche is, for example, tech reviews, then you know the
main value you're delivering is good
insights about tech, informative visuals, and
good shots of the device. If you're a blogger
with a following, you're mainly
sharing personality and slices of your life. Ask this question for whatever your particular niche may be, what are the main shots
you and other people love and expect to see
in your kind of content? Thinking about all those things, what gear is going to enable
you to deliver the value the most while not getting in your way for being
too complicated? If your main value comes from your personality and
the interesting things you do and the places you go, then capturing immediacy is more important than
pure video quality. Trust me on that one. This is why many big vloggers and all Tiktokers use
just their phones. Less expense, less complication, but total focus on the moment
and on your reactions. The main point is this, don't sacrifice your ability
to capture your story or your message in pursuit of
pure production value alone. Unlike professional
film-making, even the highest production
value without a good story and your
unique voice does not do very well on YouTube
and social media in general, and that's a good
thing because there's more room to stand out without
professional experience. Now if you're already a
pro at delivering value, which I hope you are, if
you took my first course, then you can afford to invest the time and the money in using more advanced gear to elevate your content
above the rest. Just remember, no matter how
good your production value, never to lose the
authenticity that makes all great
content stand out. Anyway, you can
always mix and match setups according
to the situation. If you watch my vlogs lately, some of them are shot entirely on my GoPro and iPhone now, while most are shot using a
mixture of my bigger cameras, drones and iPhone or
GoPro for certain moments to emphasize their immediacy
and capture my reactions. Of course, all the practical
considerations aside, the last important question is, what do you want your content
to look and feel like? What is your goal for your work? Creating content for social
media is essentially a hobby, no matter how much
money you make from it, so you should enjoy what you create and the process
of creating it. If you want to be able
to produce content as beautiful as that
of your heroes, then, of course, you should
aspire to be able to use the gear that will
enable you to do that. Just don't get caught
up on spending so much money on gear
because you want your creation to be sustainable
and going broke or going into debt to get great gear might not be such a smart idea. In any case, to help you out, I've included a gear
selection flowchart in the course materials, which you'll recognize
from my previous course. Here's the lesson recap. In the last two lessons, we learned the
importance of picking the right gear and the
impact it will have on your ability to deliver
the quality you want as a solo filmmaker. With that big question
out of the way, we can get on to the actual
work of making great videos. In the next lessons, we'll go in-depth into
different types of content and my suggestions for
what to focus on for each, so that you can concentrate
your efforts and focus your energy on what's most
important to your work. [MUSIC]
5. Vlogs & Reaction Vids: In this and the
succeeding lessons, we'll go over many
different types of content and my suggestions
for what to focus your time and energy on for each so you can manage
your limited time and resources as a
solo filmmaker but still make great content. Remember, the harder you work, the fewer trade-offs you'll
need to make for quality. But the actual trade-off
is possible burnout in the long run as we are seeing with many large creators. Quality isn't free and
what you don't pay for in money, you are paying
for in energy and life. Now let's talk about each
of these major types of content and my suggestions for
what to focus on for each, starting with vlogs
and reaction videos. The most basic
version of a vlog, as I see it, is the conventional
day-in-the-life vlog. The value being
delivered here is a glimpse into what makes
your life unique or interesting and sharing
your personality which is why this format is so effective for celebrities and people with
unique jobs or lifestyles. Think of these as the digital
equivalent of hanging out. That's why seemingly boring
vlogs posted frequently can still work if curiosity
is high for what you do. This content lends
itself best to basic setups like
a smartphone or an action camera because
these prioritize immediacy and give a
sense of realness, of authenticity,
of being unedited. Especially for public
figures who are often presented in a very curated way, the stripped-down look
of smartphone and action cam footage actually adds to
the value of the content. Excessive effort to look good might actually be
counterproductive. On that note, even though this is the easiest
way to start, I wouldn't really
advise this format to start with as a beginner because it's hard
to gain traction in the algorithm and
elsewhere this way. You have to create curiosity
about yourself first. Now, if you have a certain
really unique personality this can work so the only advice I can
give is to be really real, to be 150 percent
authentic, and yourself. In any case, it's a fun
exercise to do stuff like this. Now, even though
this format lends itself to basic video quality, I'd still advise
to put some time, money or effort in good audio. Get a decent vlogging mic such as this Deity D4 Duo which, again, records from the
front and from the back, super handy, or my
favorite microphone, what I'm using right
now to record this, the rode Wireless GO II. It's super compact,
super versatile, and already comes in a pair. You can research more
about it on YouTube. For solo creators, this
is probably the easiest, most basic kind of
content to make. You can shoot nearly
the entire video with just a camera on your face
with little to no B-roll, B-roll meaning supporting shots
that you can cut away to. For that reason, it can be a
foundation for other types of content such as
reaction videos. Reaction videos
are a big genre on YouTube and elsewhere
just because it feels so good to share the
love or to share in a trend of reacting to something that's really
interesting in some way, whether it's really funny, really gross, or just
really well done. It's just natural for us
to want to participate, to feel part of a community that enjoys and appreciates
what you appreciate. The best part is,
these videos are relatively easy and super
fun to make on your own. Of course, the key to a
reaction video is total candor, being in the moment,
and reacting honestly. You want to be able to react to something watching
it the first time. You want to come
into it cold so that your reactions are totally real. Now, a lot of creatives use nice cameras for this
in order to stand out amidst all the other reaction
videos but the essence of a reaction video is your reaction, nothing
fancy required. All you really need to
make a reaction video is having something to say
so have something to say. This is why the most effective and popular reaction videos are done either by experts in a related field towards being reacted to like
this adorable video by the Fairy Voice Mother reacting to Leave The Door Open, and by people with
charismatic personalities of all different kinds, which you can see a lot
on traditional media. Of course, they may add
very popular videos on channels like React. Here's the lesson recap. That covers some of the most
basic foundational types of content that are easy, fun, and accessible to
make and will be a really good
training ground to do more complex types of content, such as the topic of
the next chapter, my personal favorite,
travel vlogs.
6. Travel Vlogs: [MUSIC] In this chapter, we'll talk about travel vlogs. Now, I have a lot to say
about this because most of my content revolves
around travel. The point of a travel blog, as I see it, is two-fold. First, it's to take the
person on a vicarious trip, to give them the feel
of the experience, whether they plan
to visit or not. Second, it's to give them the information they
need so they can be prepared to go there and figure it out whether
or not it's for them. You need to get great footage of the place and the experiences
you're having in it, along with authentic, in-the-moment reactions to the best and worst parts
of the experience. There's still the fundamental
aspect of realness that we talked about in the
last chapter in vlogs. But with an added element
of visual interest, you definitely need to shoot some good B-roll of the
place you're visiting. Capture some instant-worthy
compositions or memorable things. Let's take one example. If say, you're visiting a beautiful beach
in the Philippines, my home country,
you have lots of beautiful surroundings and
a very relaxed atmosphere. Here, you'll have
a lot of time to react all you want,
shoot great B-roll, even aerial and time-lapse, and have plenty of time left
over to enjoy your vacation. You can do fun
things like sailing or paddle boarding
or jet skiing. You should action camera to
capture those as well for a good mix of more
worked-out setups and in-the-moment shots. In these more easy-going
travel vlogs, you have a lot of opportunity to inject a lot of personality, humor, and insight. To see what I mean, check out this piece from vlogger
Damon Dominique. It's a fabulous example
of content that combines the best of talking
to the camera vlogging, travel vlogging, and more
formal documentary style film-making into something so unique, entertaining
and endearing. Creators of any level
can learn a lot about the possibilities of solo
content creation from this guy. In a similar vein, a food trip vlog has enticing shots of food and
your reactions to eating them. Here you want to combine
various elements to give the audience a
virtual taste of the food. Be very expressive on camera. Describe what
you're eating well, take really nice
close-ups of the food, and then don't forget to add in establishing shots
of the restaurant. You can also consider
chatting with the chef or servers to get
some extra insight. Now, this is a category
where you can be very successful as
a solo creator. To see evidence of this, just check out all of Mikey Chen simply dumplings channels. It's just simple
production value, but all tied together
by his passion, his similarly
bottomless appetite, and genuine curiosity for food. Now on the other end of
the travel spectrum, there's outdoor adventures
somewhere isolated doing an extreme sport and that's a
different type of shooting. Typically, your camera here will just be along for the ride and you won't have
as much time or space to set up anything fancy. In general, you'll
want to record more of your reactions
and what you're seeing from your
point of view to give a literal
first-person perspective. Having a stabilized
phone or action camera is definitely the way to go here since you'll
be moving around a lot oftentimes
in the elements. These are things like
hiking, climbing, bicycle, or motorcycle riding, and pretty much
any extreme sport. As a solo creator, you won't have a second
camera mount to give you those Red Bull action shots, but you are perfectly capable
of delivering immediacy, sharing something that probably
most of your viewers have never seen or
experienced themselves. You can set up your tripod or join together a
shot of yourself. But this usually works only
if you have lots of time and space and aren't in a group,
you need to keep up with. That said, some of the
top travel creators now have made their
name capturing incredibly beautiful
cinematic footage completely on their own while on rugged outdoor adventures. They are redefining
the possibilities for what it means to be a
solo creator right now. The big name in this niche
would have to be Kraig Adams, who's built a huge and
dedicated following by popularizing the silent
cinematic solo hiking film. Drew Simms has elevated it even further doing the same for overlapping chips in
his Jeep Wrangler with solo setups that just
boggle the mind. Then there's these usually
Asian silent outdoor vloggers such as Japanese creator
their Morirone who's long, slow, peaceful, silent
camping videos are a big hit. Now while I had many of you, I'm sure I aspire to make
this quality of content, what you need to know
is that it takes a tremendous amount
of time, effort, not to mention fitness and it will definitely
get in the way of the actual travel experience because you'll be
mixing work and play. See what I mean,
just look at all of Kraig Adams' montages of him hiking all the way
back to the camera. I don't suggest you
start out doing this. This is something I
really suggest you build up to over time as your passion, filmmaking ability, and
just obsession with quality push you to be able to put in this kind of effort. Here's the lesson recap. In the last two lessons, we broke down what makes for great vlogs, reaction videos, and travel vlogs
all of which share an emphasis on
in-the-moment reactions. In the next lesson, we'll talk about how to make more informational
types of content.
7. Advice, Reviews, Tutorials, & Explainers: In this lesson we'll
talk about how to make great informational
content namely, as I see it, advice, reviews, tutorials,
and explainers. These types of videos
are usually made with a talking head on a tripod
not hand-held like a vlog, and relevant B-roll,
and infographics. First, advice videos. This is the most basic type
of informational video. It's just you
talking in front of the camera sharing
something useful. These run the gamut
from videos that cover nutrition and health, social media tips, inspirational
content, and many more. It's not as detailed
as a tutorial, and it's mainly just
a lecture on camera. It can cover any topic you're an expert on or just
passionate about. You can make the entire
video of just you talking, and as such all you need is
a decent place to shoot, a good microphone, and your script or
talking points. This is super doable
for a solo creator, very easy to edit, and a great way to
practice being on camera. I suggest putting in a few
moments of useful B-roll to smooth out your edits
and add visual interest. One big tip I can give is to use a camera with a tilty flippy
screen like this one, or an external monitor so you
can check your composition, how you look and whether or
not you're actually rolling. Because I've done long spills, expended all this
effort too many times it turns out that
I wasn't rolling, or my head was cut off,
and things like that. Now let's talk about reviews. For reviews you need
a decent quality, well-lit talking head
with good sound, and combine that with
relevant, clear, appealing B-roll of the
product being reviewed. These are also very doable
for a solo creator. For most things, the
easiest way to make them is to have some home studio setup. We'll go over how to set
one up in a later lesson. The essential elements
to have in a good review are, accurate information, useful insights, and good
B-roll that shows off the product being
reviewed and its various components and features. In this way, reviews
are an all-around type of content that require
you to have a good script, do behind the scenes
research and testing, speak well on camera, and know how to shoot both
good talking heads and B-roll. These are doable despite
all of the work, because unlike travel
vlogs, for example, you have all the time you need and you're only
dealing with yourself, and an object in a more or
less controlled environment. For that reason, reviews
are a great exercise for any solo creator
looking to work on their all around
film-making skill. I'd advise you try it out. Now let's talk about tutorials or online courses like this one. In terms of production, these are another step up
but in a different way. This time you need not
just to talk on camera, but be able to explain
and even document an entire process
to teach someone something from
editing in photoshop, brewing a coffee, changing
a tire to baking a cake. Like a review, you'll spend
a lot of time talking on camera and gathering
relevant B-roll to illustrate your points. But here there's
a greater chance you'll need to shoot it in chronological order if you are documenting a process
or creating something. But just like a review, you'll
be shooting on your own in a controlled environment with
virtually unlimited time. Again, it's all about just putting it together
shot by shot. Speaking from experience, creating tutorials or an entire Skillshare
course or two is a great way to practice not just your shooting
and on-camera skills, but your overall
ability to present information in a
digestible, helpful way. Additional elements that
tutorials might require are screen recordings if
you're teaching how to use a piece of
software or an app, and infographics to illustrate your point or emphasize
key parts of the process. These require extra time
and using other software, but nothing you can't
handle as a solo creator. For a great example of effective
voice only info content, checkout brand new creator
pixel leaves on YouTube. She literally just started with no film-making background, but her content is
already polished and so high-value for
its target audience. She achieves this with
clean cinematography shot completely on iPhone and with a cheap ring light, good audio, with a cheap mic,
great art direction, and most of all, tons of super useful insights
and examples. Swing by her channel
for inspiration on what a complete beginner with lots of passion
for their topic and initiative to learn can do. Now let's talk about explainers. Explainers can be as
simple as advice videos with you just talking on
camera the whole time, and be as complex as the
beautiful animated videos of Kurzgesagt are way up there
combining live action, animation, infographics
and effects like Johnny Harris's genre defining work on his channel
and invokes borders. I have to tell you
upfront not to compare yourself
with Kurzgesagt, Johnny Harris and these top
creators because they employ entire teams working
countless man hours. This is not an achievable level of quality for a solo creator. Let's focus on the
aspects that we can achieve to still create
great explainers. What are these elements? I would say they
are deep research, good writing, and
illustrative visuals. Now if you're really
passionate and knowledgeable about
your chosen topic, these first two should
come relatively easily. When it comes to
the visuals though, which can admittedly make or
break an explainer video, there are lots of tools
you can employ to do it well without
too much effort. If you're already handy with After Effects in motion design, then you have a big advantage. But if like me, you aren't, then you can use
photographs and B-roll, whether original or stock from services like story blocks, static infographics made in any presentation
app like Keynote, and pre-made
customizable animation templates that a lot
of companies sell. These all require extra
time and effort to create and render especially in
the case of animations. But I've used them
myself to create animations that are
above my pay grade. One of my favorite free
tools when I need to map animation is Google Earth
Studio which is free. Using a combination of these, you should be able to craft
a pretty fine explainer, but you'll only need
a lot more time and effort than an edit
without any graphics. Here's the lesson recap. In this lesson we broke down the essential elements
of informational videos, ranging from super
simple advice videos, to highly complex animation and information field
explainer videos. In the next lesson, we'll
round it out by covering the newer kids on the block,
which defy convention, namely TikTok and IG Reels, and way on the other end of the spectrum, traditional
cinematic videos.
8. Tiktok, IG Reels, & Cinematic Films: [MUSIC] In this lesson, we'll go over the convention defying New Kids on
the Block, TikTok, and IG Reels, and way
on the other end of the spectrum, traditional
cinematic videos. We'll talk about how
a solo creator can be successful at
creating either one. Let's start with
TikTok and IG Reels. As a filmmaker from a
traditional background, I used to be completely
dismissive of these, along with a lot of
people, especially my age. But after looking into it, I am not genuinely
fascinated by TikTok videos. It truly is an evolution of filmmaking and it
shows what happens, so it becomes fully
democratized and freed from all the old rules and
conventions of filmmaking. As such, I consider
it as a showcase of creativity for the new
solo at home creator. There's a hilarious video by comedian @bennymofodavis on
TikTok, check it out first. What he just talks
about how TikTok doesn't conform to any of the rules and expectations of traditional production value. You don't need props, wardrobe, a script or
even a good camera. You can even use your cell phone's low-quality
front camera. You can create a scene
with as many characters as you want and play
them all yourself. You can film any situation
you want without any production design in
your messy living room, just by acting it out. All that matters is
that your content is super entertaining, relatable or interesting
and TikTok will give it the chance in the algorithms
sometimes with huge numbers. My viral TikTok kit is a simple no cuts clip of my girlfriend driving my Jimny through some gnarly terrain. That's it, look at
those crazy numbers. A quick additional note
that I wasn't able to include in the main shoot
because of lack of time. The thing about IG Reels as opposed to Tiktok
is that IG Reels lend themselves more to
the kind of clip you just saw that I had on TikTok, which is short captivating
or super interesting clips. In the travel spaces would
be typically a single short, almost too short, clip of a really
cool destination or activity you can do in
a certain destination. Usually, it's just
something really snappy also or clever or funny, and that can work
well on IG Reels. While this admittedly
hurts coming from a traditional
filmmaking background, it also makes sense because
TikTok and its clone IG Reels has become the for-the-people,
by-the-people platform. It's a place where
actively trying to make things look too good
is beside the point. It's the most authentic
platform or at least it feels that way
sometimes to a fault. Clearly, TikTok and IG Reels are a great place for a
solo creator without any filmmaking
background to flex their creativity and
even reach an audience. It's all you, your personality and
all shot on your phone. The quality of your
content on TikTok depends mainly on your script, how well you come
across on camera, and your ability to use its myriad built-in
features such as filters, text, sound, and
music and, so on. I would actually encourage
you even if you have no plans whatsoever of growing
a following on TikTok to check out the
popular content there, especially in your niche, because it could
be the source of so many ideas that have
never even occurred to you. You could even really
find yourself there, find where you belong as
a creator, who knows? As with all of the types of
content we're discussing, it could be a great exercise
trying to make one yourself. Now, way on the opposite side of the spectrum is what I would
call cinematic videos, which I used as an umbrella term for films made according to the traditional aesthetic and technical criteria
of filmmaking. These include narrative
films, beautiful montages, documentaries, experimental
and art films, series of various
types, and the like. The other kinds of things
you would watch on Netflix, Apple TV Plus, HBO, etc. These, of course, are some of the most challenging
videos to make for a solo creator since traditional filmmaking has
always been done with a crew. You will require a
lot of planning, some pro gear, and perhaps most of all, time. I think it's great to aspire
to include the qualities of these films in your work to
elevate them above the rest. These qualities include: a well-structured narrative
that evokes emotions, beautiful cinematography
edited together seamlessly, perfectly used music,
multiple layers of subtext, great acting, and the like. How do you get this level of
quality as a solo filmmaker? Well, with study,
practice, decent gear, lots of preparation
and lots and lots of time invested in every
part of the process, from pre-production all the
way down to distribution, to getting people
to see your work, to getting your
investment to pay off. Now this is something
I think that you should build up to overtime as it may be overwhelming for beginners to try to do this. For amazing examples of cinematic videos done
by solo filmmakers, checkout the aforementioned
hiking films of Craig Adams, the crazy effects
driven work of JR Alli, and then you can check
out early episodes of Johnny Harris' Vox
Borders series on the Vox YouTube
channel when he was still doing it
mostly on his own. I humbly submit my
own travel vlogs that skirt the line between
vlog and documentary. You have a big advantage here if you're good
at After Effects, but again, it's not necessary. The important thing is to tell a compelling story
while adhering to the discipline of
traditional filmmaking. Here's the lesson recap. [NOISE] That caps off four jampacked lessons on
content for solo creators. The objective of
starting off with these was to get your creative
juices flowing within a more defined set of
criteria to hopefully make this whole process a
lot less overwhelming. For your exercise now I
invite you to think of three or more ideas for
single pieces of content, whether in the categories I
mentioned in Lesson 2 or a combination or a completely new one, if you
can think of one. Start imagining how you're going to prepare and execute them. In the next lesson, we'll go
over a solo creator centric process for preparing your
shoots for maximum results. [MUSIC]
9. Planning for Solo Creators: [MUSIC] As a solo creator, you want to do everything you can to manage your
workload while at the same time achieving
a level of quality that makes it look like you
have an actual team. So instead of
distributing work to different people at one time, think of yourself as
distributing your work to multiple instances of yourself
over a period of time. The one you working
intensively on one task at a time
consecutively can almost simulate
having a whole team and the key to achieving
this is simply planning. While just winging
it could work, you can save a lot of time and effort by working things out well in advance for your
shoot and your edit. Here's a process
you can adapt for planning your solo
content creation. Step 1, create
your content plan. Don't just aim to
make one video. Come up with several concepts
relevant to your niche and channel value
proposition and then schedule some proposed
upload dates. Once a week is a decent pace for a YouTube creator whereas most other platforms
where content isn't evergreen require more
frequent posting. Now, this is helpful
in two ways, on an overall level, it sets a direction and a commitment for your channel which is essential to grow, and second it helps you to batch plan your shoots which can
save a lot of time and energy. Step 2, write your
scripts and shot lists. For each of your video concepts, write down a full script or at least relevant
talking points. Check my previous course from
clueless to content creator on Skillshare for tips on how
to structure your scripts. What is particularly helpful for solo creators is to work
out in advance which parts you're going to say on camera and which parts you
will cover with b-roll and then mark
those in your script by highlighting or putting in bold the parts you'll
say on camera. The rest can easily be done on voiceover so you don't
need to memorize them. I suggest doing your
intro and outro on camera along with certain
key points that need your face and personality
to emphasize it and then for points that need to
be illustrated with visuals, cover those with b-roll. If you want to go the
extra mile you can create a shot list which
you can either match up perfectly to your script using a two column script format shown here and download the bold
in the project resources, or you can simply list down the general
shots you want to get. You only need to
be as detailed as the complexity of your
content calls for. The advantage of creating
a detailed shot list as we do in professional film
is that it allows you to allot the amount of
time necessary to get different kinds of shots
of different complexity, and allows you to have
an overview if you have all the shots you need to
tell your story completely. If you just say need a
close up of a device, you can finish that in five
minutes at your house. But if you want to
shoot an aerial shot of your vehicle in the mountains followed by a time
lapse of the sunset, then you'll be able
to plan ahead to invest the time you
need to get those shots right and be sure you've
packed all the gear necessary. It's in this management of limited resources to
get the best results that your creativity
and determination as a solo creator
can shine through. Step 3 is to batch schedule your shoots and to
stretch your content. If you're wondering
how some solo creators can pump out content
so consistently, it's because they
don't make the content in the same week that
they publish them. Particularly if your
content is informational in nature and not dependent on
being absolutely current, you can plan to shoot
several pieces of content in one go in
your home studio. Have all your scripts
and shot lists ready and see how much you can squeeze
into one day of shooting, maybe three even up to eight
episodes all in one day. Now, this will
entail a good deal of time and energy up front but generally you just set things up once and then roll and
shoot the rest of the day. From there, it's just
scheduling the release of your content which you can automate using YouTube Studio, Facebook Creator Studio, and other third party apps. This is super useful if you
aren't a full time creator, if you have a day job and you're only doing this in
your spare time. Now, one pro tip I can give when doing batch shoots is
to change your wardrobe and or styling for
every episode to maintain the
illusion that you've shot this all separately. You can even apply
this batching concept to travel vlogs by separating one trip into several episodes
depending on one topic, and you can even stretch the
content further by making separate edit downs
from the same material. For example, if you're
somewhere for three days, you can make a vlog about
destinations A and B in one 15 minute vlog
covering the first two days, and maybe day 3 in
destination C was memorable enough to make
one whole separate vlog. Then you can squeeze up
another piece of content by creating something like a
5-8 minute travel guide from the entire
trip featuring on the highlights and
information and this will help appeal
to audiences that don't have the time or interest to watch the whole half
hour of your two episodes. Then going even further, think about how you can
re-edit and re-purpose your content to work on
several different platforms. Study what works on each
platform from YouTube, Instagram, Facebook,
TikTok, Instagram stories, and the like to see how your one shoot can
be stretched to a variety of content to reach different audiences
making your solo efforts go a long way. A good example I can give is
how MotoGeo does his videos. He has one main long cinematic
motorcycle travel vlog and he follows that up with a shorter review of the
motorcycle he used. Occasionally he'll release
a shorter derivative video such as a GoPro
onboard riding video, a single segment from
a longer vlog that can be a hidden YouTube
search and the like. In this way, he maximizes
the massive amounts of footage he and his camera
man shoot while traveling. In this lesson, you learned an approach to planning
your content to maximize your efforts
as a solo creator. I invite you to
follow the process now step by step adapting it to be as thorough or simple
as you need for your content. In the next lesson, we'll discuss how to set up a simple home studio or shooting knock for
your talking heads.
10. Setting Up a Simple Home Studio: In this lesson, I'll share
some pointers on how to set up a simple home studio
or shooting nook. A home studio can serve as the bedrock of your
content creation and empower you to shoot a ton of content in the most
convenient way possible. As you can see, I've got a pretty simple
home studio setup. I'll share principles
and techniques on how to maximize a no to low-budget
home studio setup. There are three things
to look into to create a good home studio
or shooting nook. Good production design,
good light, and good sound. Production design refers
to how everything that's on camera is going to look
in terms of your space. You want to set it up such
that it has visual appeal, a measure of depth, and so that it conveys something about your personality or brand. The easiest way to do this is to pick a
spot in your house or apartment that's already
relatively well-designed, as most of us who are in
the creative field will do. A big bonus if it's already
well lit by windows. That will save you a
lot of time and effort. Your main setup will involve just moving some
furniture around. An external monitor or a camera with a tilty
flippy screen is essential in being
able to properly set up and run a home studio. If you have neither
of these things, check if your camera
brand has an app that enables monitoring
from your phone. Compose your shot at
the proper distance, usually showing about half
your body or a little less. In professional filmmaking, were thought to be
extremely finicky about everything that
appears on camera. Employing a little bit of
that discipline can really help elevate the quality
of your talking heads. Pay attention that
there's nothing overly distracting or
messy in the frame. From there you can add or
subtract things and move them around until you
get the result you like. Again, it's essential to have an external monitor
of some sort. The technique I
use to save a lot of time and effort
is to shoot with a 50-millimeter prime lens that blurs my background
significantly. The individual objects
don't matter as much as their overall color
and arrangement. That results in my
talking head looking pretty clean with
minimal effort, but you will need a camera
with good auto-focus for this. On that note, you want
to position yourself a little bit of a
distance away from your background as this depth allows you to have
that background blur, the shallow depth of field, as well as reduces
the amount of shadows being cast by your light
onto your background. Let's move on to lighting. For most beginners,
I would really suggest aiming to
use window light, which is what I use for basically this whole course
and all of my talking heads. The fact is that the
very large soft light you get from a window with some light curtains is
impossible to replicate with anything but the
biggest professional lights. But of course, the main
disadvantage is that lighting conditions will change throughout the day
and with the weather, so you won't be
able to shoot 24/7, unlike you would be able to
do with artificial lights. However, what I don't like
about artificial lights is that stock YouTuber basement
look which isn't bad, but I want to go for
a different look. If window light isn't an option, you can offer these inexpensive, super versatile
LED video lights. They run on batteries, they even come with
a built-in remote. They are perfect
for solo creators. This is the Yongnuo YN300, and it's such a full-featured,
affordable light. You can do daylight
balance, warm, and even RGB with various
built-in lighting effects. These small LEDs are
such a game changer and I wish they had been around
when I was starting out. You can leave them
in your studio or even take them
anywhere with you. You don't even need a dedicated
light stand for this, as you can mount them on any tripod which has
an Arca-Swiss mount, which is the standard mount for semi-pro and pro photo tripods. You will, however, need two
or three of these to have a proper studio lighting
setup with no natural light. If you need a bit more power, you can also opt for its
bigger brother, the YN 600, which is also super
portable and still runs on the same Sony NPF batteries. The good news is, if these
are still out of your budget, there are even cheaper versions of basically the same thing, although I would get
the best ones that you can afford without
spending too much. Just know that if
you want to shoot a wide shot that looks
like it's in the daytime, you pretty much can't do
this with small lights. You need either natural light or really big lights that require lots of
crew and modifiers. You may be wondering
if you can just use household fixtures like lamps to be able to light
your talking head. The answer is not really. Because you want
to be able to use high-quality
consistent light that doesn't flicker
and has high CRI. In the case of this light, you can switch between daylight, which is about 5600 Kelvin, considered white
light, or tungsten, which is warm light, or about 3200 Kelvin. This gives you reliable
repeatable results without any flicker. Otherwise, you will get either mixed white
balance or flicker, which tends to look
weird on camera. You can, however, use
these households fixtures as design elements
in your background. Both window light and
small LED lights are a great option to allow you to shoot detail shots
for your B-roll, for your reviews, and tutorials. Window light gives good
general illumination. You can just place an object in the light and go in close, while a small light is easy to set up
wherever you need it, to light say, products
and small objects. The approach we use to
light talking heads is called the three-point
lighting setup, consisting of a key light, a fill light, and a backlight. Sadly, we've run out of time to include that
in this course, but there are some great
YouTube tutorials that you can look at to learn basic
three-point lighting. The third thing you want
to achieve is good sound. This is both the most important and most
challenging thing to achieve without
a proper setup. Let's go into it. First, you need a
decent microphone. These days, any cheap
lavalier mic like this is more than enough for
most beginning creators. This is preferable to the
camera's built-in mic or even the on-camera
shotgun mics because you can't match
the crispness and clarity of having the
mic next to your mouth. These can be wireless, like this Rode Wireless Go 2, or have long cables
that allow you to set a good distance
from the camera. This is essential
because you want your mic as close as possible, while the camera needs
to be a little bit of a distance away from you to have the most flattering angle. The next thing you need
to do is to minimize the noise and
reverb in the room, start with turning off any sound emitting devices or appliances, like electric fans or
even air conditioners. These will be silent to your ears but will be
audible in a recording. Although admittedly,
I have mine on because it's just too hot
here in the Philippines. Most people think that it just needs to be in a quiet room to record good sound
but as you can hear, there's also the issue of
reverb or echo to deal with. Many beginning creators
make the mistake of recording sound
in the bathroom. But you want to be able to
avoid recording sound too close to large hard surfaces, like these tiled walls, even the floor or a table or
even the monitor in front of you because you cannot
remove this in post. All rooms ideally need
some level of treatment. Check out this great tutorial by Curtis Judd on how to use sound blankets to
treat the room. If you need to DIY everything, you can try a few
different things. You can try say hanging blankets or even rows of clothes
somewhere nearby. A rod might be able to help, heavy blackout curtains like I have here will be able
to help a little bit, but mainly what I do is just, I use a good mic, try not to speak too loud that my voice reverberates
through the room, and I try to just sit
away from the walls and other very large
hard surfaces. Don't forget to do
a soundcheck and listen to playback on
good earphones to make sure your mic and
room are all set up properly and that
you're not missing any other sources of noise. If you have noise-canceling
headphones, this is the time to use them. If you have the space and budget and don't mind lifting
heavy objects, consider getting a
Century Stand or two, to give you a lot of options in your lighting and sound setup. C-stands are highly
versatile and robust stands used in professional
production that you can rig up in countless ways. Once you have everything set up, then you can start
rolling and knocking off your shot list in
manageable chunks, making sure to skim your takes every now and then to
make sure you have good composition and that you're still recording good sound. Having your script
ready and broken down into which parts
you'll say on camera, and which parts will be done on voice-over will be
really helpful here. I hope you took the
time to do that. In terms of approach, I suggest you finish all of your talking heads
first and you can even do your
voice-over by keeping the camera rolling while
you read the script, as I'm doing with this course, with my script hidden
away somewhere nearby. This does take up more
space than recording audio, but it's very convenient
in terms of the edit. Then once you're done with
all the talking heads, you can start moving cameras around to be able to
shoot your B-roll. Here's the lesson recap. That about does it for our
lesson on how to set up a simple home studio on
little to no budget. In the next lesson,
I'll show you my approach to
shooting on the field.
11. Solo Shooting While Traveling: [MUSIC] Let's talk about how I approach shooting solo while on the field
and traveling. Preparation here is key, because you need to
be your own crew and your own backup while traveling somewhere potentially far away. Before setting off,
I always go through a checklist of everything I'm
going to need for a shoot. I use Evernote, but you can
use any note-taking app. First, I create a master list of everything I need to
pack for a certain trip. For example, here is my
road trip packing list. Then what I do is I
copy and paste this onto a new node
specific for my trip. I add and delete items as necessary depending on the trip. As you can see, I have
my things to pack all organized and worked
out in a lot of detail, because in the rush of
packing and preparation, it is so easy to forget something small but
super important, like a battery charger. This is so important to
have to re-emphasize this. Don't leave home without
freshly formatted cards. This can turn into a nightmare where you either
run out of space, or you don't know which files on that card have been
backed up or not, so you can't delete it, and so you will be
one memory card short and all of those
kinds of issues. Always, start with fresh memory cards when
you're going on a trip. Next, of course,
have your script or shot list printed
already on your phone. Of course, while traveling, you can't predict exactly
what will happen. But the important thing is
to have a general idea, a general plan that will guide you in terms
of what to look for, and this will actually free up energy to be more spontaneous to the inevitably
unexpected opportunities that pop up during
a travel shoot. Now, how do I approach shooting? When I arrive at my locations, I'm not in a rush to
immediately shoot B-roll, although I will want to get my immediate reactions
to what I'm seeing. I want to have a
look around first, especially if I didn't have a chance to sculpt beforehand. I want to be able to figure out the different opportunities. I'll note the different
locations where I can shoot different parts of my
plan, or my story. I'll look at the direction
of the sun to see if there's any good light that's worth
waiting for later in the day. Also, since I'm traveling, especially if it's
personal work, I don't let the
shooting get too much in the way of my
enjoying the place. As the day goes on, I'll be trying to get
captivating shots for my intro, finding things
people in situations that are interesting
that I can react to, and of course, capturing my in the moment reactions to them. Another thing to be
mindful of is how you can keenly transition from
one scene to the next. Whether with the
techniques such as an in camera transition or
a piece of B-roll, on on-camera spiel to lead
us into the next situation, a voice-over, etc. Then as a trip winds down, I'll start thinking
about creating an appropriate
ending to the vlog. Many times I've already
shot my closing spill, then had something amazing
happened after it, and that's totally fine. I'll just shoot your ending. It's best to be open
because the best adventures are always the ones where
something unexpected happens. Those stop rolling when things start not to go
according to plan, because these are
the best moments. Now in terms of how I
actually use my gear, I'll usually start shooting
first on my iPhone and 12 because I'll still
be moving around a lot, and I'll still be discovering all the possibilities
of the place. Of course, I'll make sure to get my reactions, but
at the same time, this phone doesn't
get in the way of my experience too much yet. Once I'm settled in, that's when I bring
out the bigger guns, my full-frame Sony camera with the front and back vlogging mic. Using this, I'll be able to get stuff like detail
and close-up shots, especially of food and
different details of the place, and just so I have a good
mix of whites, mediums, and close-ups to keep
my edit interesting and visually beautiful with
the bigger camera. Here's a tip, for wide
shots in bright sunlight, a good smartphone like
the newer iPhones, can take the place of
a mirrorless camera, and few people would notice. But when it comes to
close-ups like portraits and food shots where you
want a blurred background, larger sensor cameras still
give much better results. When the light starts to drop, then smaller cameras
are no match for a good large sensor camera
with a wide aperture lens, anything from F2.8 and wider
when it comes to video. If time and energy permit, I'll put my big camera
on a tripod so I can get great shots of myself
in the surroundings. These are some of my
favorite shots to make, and I was inspired by Craig
Adams to shoot in this style. These are great for solo creator because it simulates
having a camera man, and provides a visually pleasing
break from all the vlog, selfie and handheld shots. [NOISE] I make sure to
have my microphone on for the shots to preferably
with a wind screen, so I can use the ambient
sounds recorded while filming. Each clip effectively gives me a few minutes of quality
background sounds that I can use to create atmosphere and smooth
out cuts in the edit. This is also when I launch my drone and shoot
my time-lapse shots. Moments like this of being in one specific beautiful
place for a time, or where I gather most
of my beauty shots, that I can then use
throughout the edit. As a rule, always aim to shoot more than
you intend to use. You'll have options in the Edit. You'll never know how
inspiration may strike, and what visual poetry
you might find as you review your footage in the
days and weeks after a trip. If it feels like you could
use it, just shoot it. Memory is cheap nowadays. Just remember though,
that the more you shoot, the longer it will take the
sieve through in the edit. It's good to achieve a balance. When traveling by car or even motorcycle, especially
by yourself, then you have a lot
of opportunity to shoot wherever
inspiration strikes. My photographer explore series on YouTube is all about this, where my friend Angela or
travel photographer and I go off the beaten path in
search of little-known views. Having a car means you can
have all your gear ready to deploy wherever there is a
beautiful view to be had, and you can take your time. Remember, taking time is the true key to getting
beautiful shots. Then at the end of the day, I always make sure I backup my files to one or
two hard drives, and put away and protect my
memory card if possible, and slot in a new one
for the next day. The latter is especially
important for drone shots, because you never know when
a flyaway might occur. Here's the lesson recap. That's a comprehensive
walk-through of how I approach shooting
while traveling. The truth is there's no hard
and fast rules to this, and I'm constantly changing
my approach depending on the results I get
and even my mood. But regardless, I showed you how I think things through
and hopefully, you can pick up some
valuable principles and ideas that you can apply
to your own travel shoots. In the next lesson, we'll take all of this footage
and I'll show you how I organize and prepare
files for a big old edit. [MUSIC]
12. File Management for Editing: In this lesson, we'll go over how I offload and manage files in
preparation for an edit. This is key to be able to have a smooth and organized edit. The first thing we
need to do is dump the files from the memory
card to the computer. I advise that you do this
in two separate places. For example, your
computer's internal drive and the separate
external hard drive. Personally, what I do is
I backup the files on two identical external
hard drives and then make another copy on an external solid-state drive
called an SSD for short, to take advantage of their faster speed
for a smoother edit. I don't use the
internal drive on the computer that much because
video files can fill up this precious space really
quickly and you need a lot of space on your internal drive to maintain the performance
of the computer. Also, don't use the memory card, your SD card for long-term
storage of files, because the cost per gigabyte on one of these
things is so much higher than a conventional
spinning hard disk drive. It's just not a good
use of your resources. In terms of backing
up your files, remember the old saying
that two is one, and one is none. Speaking from experience,
hard drive failures are rare, but there's a 100 percent
chance that they will happen sometimes for
no apparent reason. Don't be that person
who is left in tears after their files just
disappear forever. A corrupted or
damaged hard drive is almost always going
to be unrecoverable, and if it is, it's going to cost a lot of time and money. While it may be
expensive upfront to have a second hard
drive for everything, it will save you a lot of expense and heartbreak
in the long run. Most modern computers will have fast solid-state drives or SSDs as their system
drives inside, and these will give the best
performance for editing. The trade-off though is that the price per
gigabyte compared to conventional spinning
hard disk drives is much more expensive. You only want to keep
your projects on your internal SSD temporarily. What I use, as I
mentioned earlier, is this one terabyte
external SSD, which gives me a
good balance between speed and cost per gigabyte, because the internal
SSD, while really fast, is super expensive per
gigabyte compared to this, but also faster than the cheaper storage on a
conventional spinning drive. It's also more durable
for travel because you don't have the actual
spinning disk inside. Given all of that, here's how I actually manage the files. First of all, I
create the folder in my backup drive with the
date and name of my shoot. I'll create folders with the name of the camera
as I shot with, say A7C then A7RII, then iPhone 12, my drone, and any other shots from
additional sources. I'll then copy the
main media folders off my memory cards wholesale
to make sure I don't miss any files and place them in the correspondingly
labeled folders in preparation for the edit. I'll also create
additional folders for other files
I'll be creating. VO for voice-over, music, stills, and exports for
my final rendered files. The advantage of organizing
on your hard drive is that it makes it easy to organize once you're in your
editing program. I'll use Premiere Pro to show
how I organize my files in the actual edit
since this is one of the most commonly
used applications. But the principle
should apply to whatever software you're using. Let's create a new project, making sure to place it
in the same folder as the video files and then
name it accordingly. Now let's pick our
scratch disks. This is where Premiere
will store the files it will work with and create
during the project. You can make this the
same as the project, but I prefer to have a separate folder in a separate hard drive
or the same hard drive, because these are temporary
files that are meant to be deleted as soon as
I'm done with the project. This also means
that whenever I use my backup software to
backup the project, it won't copy these
space-consuming temporary files. Then I'll just drag the folders from my hard drive
into Premiere Pro, let it process them, and
Premiere will reflect how I've organized
them in my hard drive. I'll create a folder called sequences where the
various sequences, that is the actual edited
video projects will live. Then I'll create the main
sequence for my project. From here, you're ready
to start editing. Here's the lesson recap. In this lesson, you
learned how I prepare an organize my files in
preparation for an edit. Good organization right from the beginning will go
a long way to making your edit more manageable and we always want to do that
as much as possible. Let's get to the edit
on to the next lesson.
13. How I Approach an Edit: [MUSIC] In this lesson, I'll show you how I
approach an edit. Now take note that this
is by no means meant to be definitive or
the best workflow. But the objective is to show you how one
professional, me, does it to be able to
demystify the process and allow you to figure out what works for you, so
let's get into it. I'll usually start with
laying out all my footage in the sequence in
chronological order or in the script order. Once it's all laid
out like this, I'll basically re-watch
all of the footage from start to finish
or at least skim it. This is where a lot of
the ideas will start to emerge about how I'll be able
to put this all together. I'll be on the lookout for different ways to tell
the story and things like B-roll that
might be useful in ways that I didn't
expect while I shot it. This part is really where
you should be open. You shouldn't be too
concerned about cutting things out except the
most unusable parts, because this is
really where a lot of your ideas will emerge. Don't judge it just yet, just watch it all through. From there, it's really
as simple as just going through it over and
over from start to finish, cutting and rearranging things, and waiting to see
what further ideas emerge as the story really
starts to come out. Trust me, that happens
every single time. I'll do this until the
edit is as tight, meaty, and polished as it can be, or until the deadline comes. I've just actually finished this massive four-episode
docu-series edit, with four cameras and a
separate sound recorder. In the beginning, I
didn't know how I was going to get through
this by the deadline. But after getting through it, the process turned out
to be no different. I started with just all of the footage laid
out on the timeline, and I just started cutting
it without judging it or worrying about how it
was going to turn out. I just worked on it until I had a basic assembly of the story that I could
watch over and over. I based the skeleton of it on the soundbites
that contain the meat of the content and on key
visual moments in the footage. Then what magically happens every single time is that
with every succeeding pass, the story becomes
really clear and you just hit this flow
where the ideas come, and you see what feels
right in terms of the edit. You just have to
trust the process. Then once we have the cut
locked in, more or less, that's when I work
on either doing or finalizing the music,
the sound design, color grading, any other
special effects and animations, and things of that nature. It's still a lot
of work and time, but it's honestly simpler than it looks in terms
of the process. Just so you know, all of these different
steps, the music, the color grading,
the actual cut, the sound design, the sound mix, the animations, in the
professional world, each one of these is handled by a separate dedicated
professional. As you can imagine,
this can take a lot of time, and really, it tends to be a little
bit tedious in terms of just trying to finish
something quickly. But you, as a solo filmmaker, you don't have to
worry about that. You're not accountable
to a client most times. You can just do this all as you need for much less
time and money. Then just to wrap things up, once the video is done, I export it for uploading
online in the H.264 codec. Here are the settings
I use for HD, and here are the
settings I use for 4K. If you're uploading
a vertical video, you can use the same
bitrates as HD, but makes sure you're using
the vertical aspect ratio. You can click here to make sure your source matches your output. Remember that it doesn't
really matter whether the file ends in.mov or.mp4. Premiere Pro will
export the file in.mp4, while FCP 10 will use.mov, but the underlying
encoding is broadly the same and will be viewable
and uploadable anywhere. I will export this file into my Exports folder that
I prepared earlier, and then go to Photoshop
to create my thumbnail, either from a photo I took or from a frame from the video, and from there, it's
ready for uploading. Here's the lesson recap. That's an overview of the nuts and bolts of
how I approach an edit. In the next lesson, we'll
go over the actual art of editing and what to look for in terms of having a good editor. [MUSIC]
14. Qualities of a Well-Edited Video: [MUSIC] In this lesson, we'll go over some of
the qualities I look for in an edit and some tips
on how to achieve them. Above everything, I want to edit a video so that it delivers the maximum amount of value
in the right amount of time. I want to cut out any and
all parts that don't serve up any kind of visual,
informational, or entertainment value,
making it as tight as possible and as filled
with value as possible, but no tighter than that. This will only live in the best parts and your
audience will appreciate that. Now, what is the
right amount of time? The right video
length depends on your type of content and
your target audience. You usually want to go shorter when trying to
reach a general audience, but have more leeway
for long videos with a dedicated audience for
your channel or niche. Next, I want my cut to feel as smooth and polished
as possible while conveying as much meaning or information visually
as possible. This means, first of all, that I'll focus on finding
B-roll that artfully or appropriately supports
whatever is being said or the story being told. That's one and then two, I wanted to be able
to use B-roll to smooth out as many
jump cuts as possible. Although these days jump cuts aren't as much of a big deal, it's just having
too many of them is a little bit
jarring to the viewer. But more than just covering up jump cuts and making
transitions feel seamless, the true aim is to use visuals and audio to convey
some kind of subtext, mood, or story-telling point. This is what I think
we mean by cinematic, when a video packs not
just visual beauty, but is also ripe with meaning. I don't always
manage to do this, especially for simple vlogs, but it's always a goal to have
these deeper moments that all add up to making a
video feel very cinematic. These small details all add
up to become greater than the sum of their parts to make your video feel
very well-crafted. Now, let's be honest, it's not a requirement at all to be successful
and to build a great community on any of the social media where you
might share your video. But it is personally very satisfying to
achieve and there is an audience that
really appreciates the extra effort and
skill that goes into it. I can recommend you check out the tutorials of Brandon
Li on YouTube and on his actual online film
school to get deeper into the art of editing
as this guy is a master. If you really want to get
advanced at filmmaking, especially for travel, he's
a good resource to find. Now, you may be wondering, do you need to have some
genius idea worked out beforehand to achieve this level of artfulness in your edit? Well, the good news is my
experience is, not at all. Most of my best
editing ideas and cleverest editing
moments have almost all come not from pre-planning, but rather organically from
the process of working on the material over
and over and over. The work itself is
what inspires ideas, along with the familiarity I have from spending
so much time on it. As with any form of creativity, you have to trust the process. It is the discipline
that repetition that brings forth great ideas. But of course for very
technical and novel executions, you do have to bake this
into your pre-production and editing to make sure you have all the elements you
need to pull them off. Another question you may have, how do I know that
a video is done? I'd say that's usually a balance between when a video needs to be published and just trying to
make it as good as possible. I have enough experience to know the minimum level of quality
I'm aiming for and honestly, each one of us
differs according to our needs and what
our audience expects. My best advice would be, do what feels good for you and then see how your
audience responds to it. It's this dynamic process of learning between
you and your audience, which is one of the best things about posting on social media. Now I'm guilty of spending too much time on
editing a video, but that's just because a lot of my personal
satisfaction comes from taking a piece of content from
good to great, hopefully. I'll spend hours
in an effect that maybe nobody will ever
know this or comment on, but it's okay because
it's just for my personal satisfaction
and practice at the craft. Here's the lesson recap. In the past few
lessons we went over how I approach an
edit from start to finish and learned about some of the more subtle aspects that can add up to make a video
feel very well made. With time and application, you should be able to
have the confidence not only to make your first video, if you're making your first one, but to challenge
yourself to step up your quality in every
aspect of filmmaking. But before you go, I still
have some final words of encouragement and
insight to share with you. [MUSIC]
15. Parting Thoughts and Encouragement: [MUSIC] Congratulations for making it to the end of this massive
course on solo film-making. I hope this deep dive into my process has
given you a lot of useful insights that
will help you grow into a confident and
skilled filmmaker. If I could leave you with
one last piece of advice, it would be to take your
time, learn as you go, and keep making awesome
videos that you will love. Most of your growth
as a filmmaker will take place
not from watching this course but from
the practice of creating again and again. Don't be too pressured about how one video performs no matter
how hard you worked on it. Remember that you have an unlimited number
of them in you. I hope my course can
serve as a guide and source of encouragement no matter where you
are in the process. Appreciate too that when you
can do it all on your own, you don't need to wait for anybody's permission
to make great videos. Make stuff, shared it
with your audience, learn from them, and repeat. Whether or not you aspire to work with large crews one day, these skills will serve
you well and possibly even open up professional
opportunities for you. If you enjoyed this
course, by the way, do leave a good review
because it really helps. Don't forget to follow
me here on Skillshare for course updates, promos, and the like, and do
get in touch with me on social media
displayed onscreen now. Please share your projects
so you don't miss the chance to get a thoughtful professional
perspective on your work as my aim is not to criticize but to help you be
the best creator you can be. Thank you so much for investing all this time and effort
to take my course. I appreciate you and your
desire to make great work. Until the next, my name
is Aaron Palabyab, and I'll see you
on the interwebs. Peace out. [MUSIC]