As a short form creator, long form media may seem daunting - in an unknown space with different levels of audience engagement and watch time as short form-content, challenges may present themselves in that transition. One of the hardest challenges to many is the more complex filming and editing - here are some guiding principles that can help you in your journey!
filming →
- Duplicate all your footage as soon as you take it
- You don’t want to be in a position where an important recording is lost if software fails.
- Carry an external hard drive & use a cloud storage service
- We recommend the Samsung T7 Shield, and using Dropbox or Google Drive to backup your footage during production.
- Delete footage after you’re done
- Footage takes up a lot of space - delete it after you’re done editing your video.
- Film in the Logarithmic function
- The Logarithmic function compresses highlights and shadows to fit within the camera’s dynamic range - allowing the camera to use its full range - this gives you the most information in shadows and highlights to use for color grading when you edit.
- Keep your workflow organized
- Keep each project isolated, with raw footage and color graded footage separated from other assets used in editing - learn how to use bins in your editing software to assist you in this process.
editing →
- **Capcut vs Premiere Pro/Resolve**
- As a short form content creator, Rremiere Pro/Resolve look very intimidating - but it operates on the same basic principles that short form content editors like Capcut operate on.
- The free version of Resolve is our preferred editor, as it has almost every feature you need, but the premium versions of Premiere and Resolve may have more features.
- Learn from online tutorials
- Develop a Style Guide
- Developing a style guide allows you to better understand your creative style and in the case you have to ever outsource your editing, a style guide makes sure your editor and you are on the same page.
- Short Form vs Long Form
- Engagement is generally harder to grasp on long form content, as content can be 10-30x longer and you must retain engagement throughout the entire video.
- Edit your clips to tell a story, and in tandem, record your clips with a vision or story in mind with an idea of how you are going to edit them later.
- When scripting a piece of content, script with the final edit in mind to reduce your workload on all fronts. Editing is a game of endurance - iterate and tweak your style as you develop.
- Get a teleprompter
- To properly plan out your scripts, especially filming on site for “man on the street” style content, having a teleprompter will cut down your workload.
- Tease things at the beginning of your video that pay off towards the end:
- Use storytelling techniques in your work - by telling a story by opening with a hook and waiting till the end to elaborate on the hook will keep viewers engaged.
For more information on the briefing with Cam James, you can find the link to the original briefing here.