What to do with all this footage

By Karen Erens

 

What to do with all this footage?

 

Do you like filming while scuba diving? Or do you like taking pictures?

 

What do you do with the footage after the dive?

 

Are you one of those persons that carefully save it to an external hard drive or upload them into a cloud?

 

Why would you do that?

 

Do you have plans to make this into an underwater holiday video?

 

But the reality, once back home, nothing ever happens with the footage.

 

Do you recognize the issue at hand?

 

Well, you’re not that different from all those thousands of people making “GoPro” footage all the time you see them around you, and most of this footage ends up on an external hard drive, and nothing will ever happen with it.

 

Why is this? Fear of Missing out, Fear of letting go… FOMO and FOLO

 

Well, even I have to admit, although I make a lot of movies, I still have a lot of unused footage on my hard drive.

 

The reason?

 

It is a lot of work to make a nice video, and once the footage is saved in a certain location, you tend to forget it after a few days, so nothing happens with it. That’s such a shame.

 

Why would you invest all the effort of buying an action camera, taking it down during your dives, giving less attention to your actual dives and focusing more on getting good images done? Then finally, those images end up on your hard drive, doing nothing with those amazing video clips you have made!

 

So hopefully, this article can provide a way for you to improve using your footage.

I would like to give you some guidelines to help you edit a video.

 

1. Only film cool stuff underwater, don’t film without having a plan in your head for a movie, and don’t make the video clips too long (min 10sec – max 30sec) as you have to watch everything again while editing.

 

2. Ensure you have a video editing program available; for example, the GoPro App provides one, iMovie (Apple) is a good one, and Windows Movie maker is not too difficult to use. Give yourself time to get used to it because, with all new things, the beginning is not so easy, and you’ll have to spend some time using it to become better at editing your videos.

 

3. Upload the footage as soon as possible on your computer/phone. If you wait too long, you might forget about it.

 

4. Immediately delete the bad video clips, mistakes or unclear shots.

 

5. Upload the rest of the video clips in the video editing software.

 

6. To start creating movies the easy way, select the “template” option in your video editing software. Most of the programs provide this option. You can choose a certain template, select your best footage and let the software make a video. This kind of video is usually flashy, short parts of your video clips are used, and it is very fast and easy to make a video. Usually, the software decides on the used footage, so you might be missing interesting parts.

 

7. I would advise using this option in the beginning of learning how to do this editing, as you’ll learn from it. The second step is to edit this automatically created video.

 

8. But if you want to take it one step higher up the ladder and don’t want to use the predefined templates:

 

9. Add the video clips to the film plot, and immediately cut the bad parts (parts like where you switch On and Off the camera or make fast/unstable movements that you made during the dive, etc.) .

 

10. While watching the video clips, cut the boring parts and make an interesting story with the good parts. Imagine watching the video as a bystander. Your attention needs to stay captured until the end of the video. This is the most challenging part of editing because you usually like your own footage too much and don’t feel like deleting parts of it. However, don’t be afraid to delete it. It makes your movie faster and more interesting for your audience.

 

11. Limit the time of the video to max 3 minutes. It is so much easier to work with a smaller video. Don’t forget you need to keep your audience’s attention.

 

12. Ask yourself, how many times do you watch other people’s videos that last that long?

 

13. It is all about short and plentiful action.

 

14. Put some nice music with the video, a title page and maybe some comments to help understand the story. Make sure the music you use is copyright-free music. If it’s not copyright free, your video will be rejected by most social media. TIP: on YouTube, you’ll find lots of copyright-free music, free to download and use in your movie, and they are not all boring music types…find the right rhythm to go with your video!

 

15. Once the movie is ready, watch it completely! That’s your final check! Done? Now use the movie everywhere you like, upload it to your Facebook page, Instagram or even create your own YouTube Channel!

 

Below the article, I have added some example movies!

 

Do you see the difference between using a template (see the movie: This is just not another turtle) and a movie made from scratch (see the movie: Shark love)?

If you have a dive business, school or shop, use the best footage of your last diving holiday to make promotional movies for your business! In that way, you can enjoy your footage and attract customers by using it.

 

Want to get some more inspiration?

 

More movies can be found on our YouTube channel: ScubaBiz.help

You can also find some special movies created as memories for clients taking a Try Dive (even if it is in a pool) on the Youtube channel: TTDvideo.

 

Remember, your customers will spread the videos amongst their friends, thus making publicity for your business!

It is all about imaging!