Hi there,
As a former professional video editor, I found your video needing a few minor pointers to improve your work going forward.
1: The slow pan across, you should only pan if there there is a reason, rather stay in one spot, panning should not be abused, it needs to be used for a reason.
2: I am not sure what at 0:13 into the video what the video is about, it is about the tv or is it a monitor? The display or what is on the screen, the video and the wipes on the screen distract.
3: There is no opening to the video, so no real reference to cue the audience as to what the topic is, that is important, it sets up a level of expectation.
4: From 0:13 to 0:40 you show the apple tv, dark lighting, and hard to see, then you show action on the screen, it is hard to follow what you are talking about.
5: Audio is very important, the quality needs to be strong, that is not how it sounds played natively off a 2013 retina 13inch MacBook pro [yes the onboard audio is a bit tinny]
6: 0:50, you show the apple tv, and it is nigh impossible to see the ports, you need to be way closer to the apple tv, either optical zoom in, or shoot in say 4K, and digitally zoom into the ports, so you can see it.
7: You need to shoot a lot of what the old-timers such as myself call b-roll. This is now called overlay, as it is covers the underlying video, to be used to highlight an aspect.
8: Graphics?? Where???What is this at 1:23?? This yellow graphic, what are you referring to...I am a bit confused...
9: At 2:39, the music..I can understand the need to fill in the audio, be careful about what music you use, and the volume, it is competing a little too much with the voicer track.
10: So far I have not really been able to really follow what you are trying to day, the point is kind of lost in the demo of Apple TV, apart from the brief mention about yahoo...You say more of that later... No.. you make a point, follow up at that point, jumping forward to this point later is going to loose you audience...
Think of walking through your house, you are showing it off to someone, you don't start at the front door, then show the kitchen, mention the wonderful walk in pantry, then show off the bedroom, then go back to the pantry, that would be illogical.
11: 2:55... What is with the phone and the apple tv, what are you trying to say, what you should rather do is in this 5 minute video pick 2 problems, and spend 2:30 on each. that way you can focus...
At this point 2:55 I have grown bored, I cannot follow and I am heading off to video new on youtube..
As a professional video editor, it was my duty to assist the client to decide how best to construct the video, you as the video editor are by default the 1st audience to view the finished work, you have to switch off the producer aspect and think about how this is video is looking...
To be honest this is not a video fit for broadcast, if you are planning a career as a video editor, you need to re-edit this video, invest in something a bit more suitable, say final cut pro x, watch a tutorial or many, think about what I have suggested.
As an example you need roughly 20, 5 second shots per running minute. If you hold a shot too long it becomes boring, help keep the audience interested by changing the shots, introduce new ideas, but keep the focus, rambling on for 5 minutes helps no one, and the message you are trying to broadcast is lost.
The quality of the shots is good, the letdown is the quality of the editing, it needs to be reworked, re-edited, focus on no more than 2 issues, and really thunk hard about those issues, think about how you are going to find many more shots of the same thing, repeat a shot is a sin!!!
Thanks for the detailed review of the video. Brand new to this so anything helps.
I also noticed you joined the forums today. Welcome
1. Not really sure when to use, but thank you for pointing that out.
2. I was under the impression that the Title and thumbnail would provide good cover over what its about, but seeing that someone didn't take it into account makes me believe something more than me "asking if the apple is worth it in 2017" wasnt enough to get the point across.
3. I will be sure to include openers in upcoming videos as i practice with this hobby.
4. Going in, the lighting is going to be bad since im just in a room with no real bright lighting besides one softbox lamp and only using an iphone to film, so that shows the limitations of the hardware.
5. Not sure what to say about audio, other than, i used a blue yeti mic and garageband for the recording. None of the footage audio was used for this video.
6. Again, more on lighting from just being one lamp, but ill try to invest in more down the line, but I'm sure i can make it work with one lamp if it try to use a different background, since black on black makes finding good exposure a bit difficult.
7. I've been told that by one of my friends going to school for video production that b-roll is vital just in case you need filler. I see that now.
8. As for old-timers, that was a reference to PC gaming since my target audience is more PC/Gamingtech focused. so I assumed this wouldnt be understood by anyone that wasnt into high-end PC gaming, so thats a hit or miss in general.
9. I agree, the audio is something i need to work with much more on. Still new to this so im not expecting my work to be a masterpiece.
10. I dont remember mentioning anything about yahoo. Maybe audio was bad, but youtube was mentioned, but probably bad timing saying youtube, while the selector was on the word yahoo. So bad editing on my part.
11. I think again, the lack of clarity was the problem. But to recap, it was about airplay with the iphone and how it makes up for no youtube app on the apple TV. I thought that was pretty straight forward, but again, I'm starting to realize that the visual aspect is more important that the dialogue.
At 2:55, "As mentioned earlier, there is no native youtube app, but with the help of apple's use of airplay, you can stream any of your youtube content from any of you apple computers or iOS devices." This was said while using airplay in that shot.
This has again, has led me to believe that more visual on screen cues are needed to grab attention.
The most valuable thing i found, is what you said in point 11. The fact that i couldnt grab the attention well enough so the viewer could learn something from the video is where I definitely see where the presentation is what lacks in my production. And no need to say minor, in all honesty, i believe what you stated were actually major when i look back at it and reviewed the video with what you said in mind, but I will also keep in mind what my target audience is as well.
As far as trying to be good for this to be broadcasted. Not at all. I knew that from the get go, and just plan on making tech videos for youtube only and dont ever plan on trying to become a professional video editor. I know the target audience i'm going for, but i really needed to find out if i could hold the attention long enough for each point. One thing I had a hard time trying to do when editing was trying to cut it down clips as much as possible. The original video was about 7 minutes long, and I decided on cutting a lot out, seeing that even most tech oriented people wouldnt see a use for it.
In the original post, I also stated that, this video shows what most people might have at their disposal. Which were, a smartphone, a computer, and a simple editing program. So pretty much a poverty setup.
"I'm not saying that anything i use is professional grade or that everyone is going to have a similar set up, but just curious to know if the work comes off as well done or even professional."
Seeing that you said the quality was good, is a good sign that almost any body can start filming since even the iphone5 is a very capable device from 2012. But editing makes the biggest difference in grabbing attention.
Thank you very much for your input. It is greatly appreciated and I am taking it much into consideration for my next upcoming videos. And just to be clear, this is only a hobby
No intentions of being the next big director or anything.
@Msivyparrot brings up some excellent points and if you want to elevate your skills, pay attention to the advice given.
If your editing intentions, however, are to create YouTube tutorials or reviews, I'd say most of your video is fine. In some ways, it's better than most tutorials, and in other ways, you can definitely improve. Aside from the advice given in the thread above, I would also suggest a quicker, more focused pace for your tutorial or review. I do like that you had different angles highlighting your material but I would say the length of the shots could be shortened. Music and graphics are tricky. Maybe not so much for simple YouTube videos but research and take note of some quality videos on YT and learn from those. There was a section at 4:32 where there is a guy (ranting) on screen. Either the audio was grossly out of sync or this random section was confusing at best.
Keep at it and good luck!
And thank you for your reply on getting the idea for typically what most people like me were trying to do for a video like this.
And for the ranting guy in the video, i didnt include the audio from any of my shots otherwise you would just be hearing a fan.
I will be sure to try and summarize my future videos better, but I do want to try my best to highlight the features of whatever it is I'm talking about, while keeping it straight to the point, but at the same time being detailed enough to reduce the amount questions after.
One thing to note is, most tech youtubers dont really go through the process of editing and just kind of throw in a one take recording and throw it on there. But I watch people like Jonanthan Morrison and LinusTechTips (he has a production crew though), and they go through the work of making it look professional. So thats one of the things i would like to achieve.
