Proposal: <1 hour pre-shooting meeting at the start of LOTE3, half-day post-production workshop at the end.
Day 1: Discussion and Guidelines for Shooting (at LOTE3 and in general)
The aim of this session is to see who is going to be shooting video of any kind at LOTE - whether on professional gear or smartphones, whether for a single session or trying to cover the whole event, whether working on your own personal video or wanting to work with others on a collaborative video. Bring your gear and ideas, and let’s see what we have, what we want to make, and where and how we can collaborate by sharing footage and not doubling up on workloads.
We will also run through tips and tricks regarding technical settings, shooting guidelines, important points to remember, rules of thumb etc.
Session duration: 1 hour
Who should attend: anyone who is or would like to be involved in any stage of video production at LOTE, and anyone interested in improving their video production workflow. Also anyone planning on coming to the post-production session on day 4 would be advised to attend day 1 as well.
I’ll set up a framework for discussion, but ideas and input are welcome and expected from all participants.
Please bring: any gear you have with you which you may use for documenting LOTE: cameras, audio recorders, phones, microphones, laptops…
Special requirements: none, just the standard room setup.
Day 4: Post-Production workshop (using LOTE3 video documentation as an example, but applicable to any video project)
4-hour session consisting of:
Basic concepts and workflows of video editing.
Introduction to the free software video editing program Kdenlive.
Good practise in dealing with/organising files and footage effectively.
Rules of thumb, tips and tricks.
Introduction to actually useful effects.
Some technical explanations - file formats, codecs, settings, audio…
And whatever else comes up along the way.
We’ll be working through Floss Manuals’ Introduction to Video Editing with Kdenlive and editing the footage we shot at LOTE3, each issue may be introduced by me but the editing will be done by you!
Who should attend:
Anyone who would like to learn more about making videos, troubleshoot your workflow, or get some ideas.
Anyone who has been shooting at LOTE3 - the act of self-loathing that is editing your own footage is the best way to learn how to do it better next time around
If you have experience working with video, feel free to help out with explaining/teaching/helping/answering questions.
Anyone curious about what you can do with video + free software.
Please bring: any footage that you shot at LOTE, or other footage you might want to edit. If you don’t have any of your own footage, we will have plenty to share!
A laptop.
Special requirements: someone with good linux chops to help me with software - setting up virtual machines for anyone who doesn’t have linux or who might have strange issues ocurring with graphics cards etc. My knowledge is from a user/editor perspective but I’m a bit crap when it comes to installing distributions, codecs and libraries etc, and I’ve never had firsthand experience with virtual machines.
More info on the sessions from the initial post:
I’ve just run a two-day workshop on video editing, teaching 13 (mostly) beginners the basics of editing theory, some technical details, tips and tricks, and the specifics of working with the free software program Kdenlive. Through the process I learned a lot about what is useful to people starting out with video, and I’d like to offer a more compact workshop at LOTE3 to help Edgeryders use video more effectively and efficiently to communicate our work and ideas.
Following a suggestion from [Noemi], perhaps this could be a half-day workshop on the final day of LOTE, in which we could work on editing together our footage into a Making of LOTE video.
The workshop would loosely follow the structure of FLOSS Manuals’ Guide to Video Editing With Kdenlive, with some extra pointers about commonly used effects and techniques to improve quality and workflow.
One difficulty with offering a video post production workshop is the lack of quality cross-platform tools. Kdenlive works reliably on Linux and occasionally on Mac. It’s possible for people to run an Ubuntu LiveCD from a usb stick, I suppose. I can also offer support for people using Final Cut Pro on OS X, but I don’t have experience with any Windows programs. Is there anybody else with experience working with other programs who might like to help with the workshop? Most NLEs work essentially in the same way, just with different names for tools and concepts, and maybe different ways of applying effects etc. So maybe we can talk about basic editing concepts and show how to apply them in different operating systems.
Another key issue is that most problems in post-production can be alleviated with good organisation and planning before and during shooting. The most common problem in video post-production is not ‘I don’t know how to use effects’, it is ‘I have too much (poorly-planned) footage and don’t know what to do with it’.
Whether shooting with dedicated video cameras or with cellphones, whether shooting every day or just a single 15min session, it would be ideal if those of us planning to shoot video could get together briefly at the start of LOTE as well. Some basic discussions beforehand would ensure that:
-we shoot with a clear idea of how the footage is to be used.
-our footage is relevant, high quality, and can integrate well with other video
-we understand what kind of B-Roll* makes sense, and how it can be used (*details, cutaways, inserts, whatever you want to call it)
-we know what / how much other people are planning to shoot
-where possible, we use the same technical standards (framerate, sample rate, picture size)
-we all have a basic understanding of ‘rules of thumb’ for lighting, composition, audio recording. (even if we go on to break those rules!)
This can all be covered relatively quickly, in less than an hour. Having a quick meeting at the start not only means we work better together and share the task of documenting more evenly, it produces better quality footage and (MOST IMPORTANTLY!) less work in post production.
So what do you think? Would this be a worthwhile use of our time at LOTE? If anybody would like to be part of these sessions in any way or has any suggestions, please let me know!