> I could happily edit a fast paced version of the video, only to find the next day that it feels jerky and difficult to follow. It’s baffling to see your own taste for rhythm change from day to day.
I've noticed this phenomenon with anything creative, stepping back is not always enough, you need to step away for long enough to have some perspective - Then if your opinion of your own work changes it's difficult to know if it's due to re-framing or because you've been exposed to other tastes in the interim... it's all a little maddening. I try to differentiate, it's important to know if your preference is fleeting, due to exposure to something of novelty, or something lasting.
Similarly with UI design, even within the "flat" era I see things oscillating back and forth, over-rounded buttons, over-squared buttons, over-rounded buttons, over-squared buttons, back and forth, Google does this constantly as if they can't make up their mind... is it just fashion? is the new black completely dependent on the previous black?
After a while It makes you think very little in life is objective, we are all part of this interwoven thread of culture giving context to all.
Can confirm. As a record producer I'll have days where my perception of the record I'm working on seemingly changes due to the weather. The same record can feel just right one day, and the next day will feel like it's dragging, and the next like it's flying by too fast.
Of course the common denominator in each case is me, so it seems to mostly be a matter of my perception changing. It's remarkable, and something I've still yet to put my finger on after all these years. I wish I had control over it. Stepping away from the project for days or weeks always helps me to see it in a new light, but I don't always have that luxury, and so cannot rely on it.
> stepping back is not always enough, you need to step away for long enough to have some perspective
This happens to me every time I make music. When I am working on a piece of music I gradually land on something, and it begins to sound good, and I keep listening to it on repeat and working on it and enjoying it.
A couple of days later I listen to it again and I realise that it is completely messy and unenjoyable to listen to, like always.
I still enjoy making music though. Even if the music only seems good in the moment.
Well actually there have been one or two exceptions, where a piece of music was actually enjoyable to listen to later, and I could genuinely be proud of it.
I have tried to take some classes to improve my music and it’s helped a bit. But I think that because it is a hobby and I don’t put in enough hours, it’s never going to be great. Hopefully I can have a few more songs that turn out really good though, even if most will be crap.
The same happens to me with photography and cooking. I like my stuff for a while but over time I see more and more flaws and start to almost hate them. Then I need to consciously take a step back to realize that maybe they aren't that bad. I think successful creators have a more stable taste so they can polish their stuff without getting discouraged.
It's more likely that successful creators feel exactly the same way you do about their outputs but have some process to either periodically re-evaluate projects vis a vis tastes or the ability to swallow their pride and put out something that's probably good enough. Otherwise they'd never get to the next thing(s) they're excited about.
It's a common sight to see creators malign their own amazing and successful projects as simplistic or off-base: the "if I only had more time..." phenomenon.
I have made many video games in my free time and usually after 6 months or so I start feeling that this is the worst video game I have ever played, it makes no sense and I cannot relate at all to the me that start working on it. Sometimes I look at them a year later and like (or love) them again. I agree it's maddening.
> In the last 100 years average shot duration has dropped from 12 to 5 seconds. Try to watch 60s westerns, like the dollar trilogy, today. Very sluggish pace. Viewers today like fast edits.
Do we like fast edits, or is this just being forced upon us? I absolutely hate the pacing of new movies. Super Hero movies take this into overdrive, each shot might only be 1-3 seconds, it's nauseating.
Every once in a while, I catch a modern movie with slower pacing. The problem with these movies is the reason for the slow pacing has nothing to do with the story, and is seemingly done for style reasons. Like it's a 2 second scene and they press pause for 8 seconds. Screen writers seem to be completely unable to write a 10 second scene.
> Super Hero movies take this into overdrive, each shot might only be 1-3 seconds, it's nauseating.
Especially in contrast to movies like John Wick where the fight scenes tend to be decently long takes.
Perhaps if the scenes were designed with interesting events with-in them, then cuts wouldn't be needed as much to make them feel like 'movement' is happening.
There's also how you frame the visuals: Mad Max: Fury Road moved at a frenetic pace for almost the entire movie, but all the important bits were framed well, so there was less 'visual exhaustion' by the time the credits rolled.
Live music videos really kill me with all of the fast cutting. When it comes to the guitar solo, I want to see the guitar being played. Unless the non-musician lead singer is doing something interesting, I don't want to see them during the solo. Same with the drummer or any one with a solo. We don't all have ADD/ADHD and can look at something longer than 10 frames.
I liked the first Jason Bourne movie because the fight scenes showed the whole room and you could see the entire fight. I did not like the sequels because they were the opposite. Very fast edits where you couldn't really tell what was happening.
Fight scenes definitely took the brunt of this. First it was shaky-cam, then it was 100 jump cuts. Older action movies didn't suffer from this. I suspect it's much more time consuming and difficult (aka, expensive) to film real fight scenes. Despite the gargantuan budgets of modern films, very little seems to be left for actual acting and set design.
The infamous "36 jump cuts to hop a fence" scene from Taken...3(?) is so wild as to be parody, but its real. Just wild to me that it would make the cut.
Maybe its a new version of "Sneaking the Wilhelm scream into everything", or the rumored "Make the stupidest TV hacking scene possible" contest that is supposed to have lead to the NCIS 'double keyboard jockey' scene.
Fantastic article. It aligns with my experience that books can be more useful than video tutorials at teaching you how to create interesting videos. The author did great work to include so many video examples of the ideas too.
The author referenced YouTube videos, but I find that books are still even better than paid Udemy videos for developing an intuition on how to make an interesting video. Though YouTube/Udemy tutorials can be great at teaching you how to use editing software, experienced filmmakers who write books are often better at expressing how they built an intuition for when to use a particular edit at a particular time.
Murch's "In the Blink of an Eye" (2005) recommended by the author is definitely a great read. I thought it was a great insight that cuts are best when you would naturally want to blink. For a short video, I used the advice once to place cut between scenes when a beat in the background music hit, shortly after a natural pause in a narrative voiceover.
Stockman's "How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck" (2011) is also a great introduction, which helped me competently film a few videos as a volunteer for non-profits that my colleagues were very happy with. It taught me the fundamentals of making a good educational or trailer-style video that don't relate to software. For example, I learned to film solid, non-shaky shots, to bring the camera close to the speakers, to generally avoid shots longer than 10 seconds, and to take special care to record high-quality audio with a microphone off the camera. This might be very basic advice for people experienced with video, but I remembered having trouble watching videos by people in university, who filmed pretty, creative shots, but recorded dialogue that was hard to understand with poor audio quality.
Video tutorials definitely have a place—I would have struggled a lot more to understand Adobe AfterEffects and Premiere Pro without them—but I would say that books are even more fundamental. It's very possible that an entry-level videographer can produce an engaging video by knowing the fundamentals from books and just Windows Movie Maker or iMovie (sticking to basic cuts), as a great edits can happen without more advanced video editing software.
I'm a dad of two young kids and my photo hobby transitioned into recording random videos of our daily life together. Just for us. Maybe sharing with the close family. I use my Camcorder, Phone or sometimes my Canon R6. In that order.
First thing I solved quickly: Storage/Backup. Got a NAS and done. Second thing to solve was more complicated. What to make with all those videos I record? I'm a kid of the 80s. So VHS-sized videos are kind of my guiding star from the past. 30min-60min and clips are shown in order I recorded them. This means usually I throw videos into iMovie and create ~30min clips themed after the age of the kids or the seasons. Add some transitions and text. That felt good for the past 2-3 years.
I then enjoyed editing so much that I got Final Cut Pro (FCPX). I wanted to learn some advanced editing in my very spare time. Some tracking, some color grading, some faster cuts. But learning was slow as hell being busy with many other duties. The raw video material piled up in the past months as I didn't want to admit that I should go back to iMovie so I just forced myself through FCPX. Sometimes with joy, sometimes it feels like a duty and often loose myself because of the advanced tool FCPX is. I already recorded less because I sense the pressure of every new recording on my shoulders.
The thing that I recognized only a few days ago: The initial idea to create VHS-sized movies was ill-advised. That pattern put the pressure on me because it always involves most/all recordings. Selection is super difficult when I want to showcase what happened in an entire season without having a specific topic. I should see the raw videos as my VHS. I should make it accessible on my TV or somehow shareable. That's it. Skip that stupid editing of everything. Nobody cares for that anyway and you can watch the individual files anyhow.
What I should do instead: Pick a very specific topic. Like the first steps of my kids, a birthday party or highlights from our vacation. Something short enough while being really worth, so I spend my precious hobby time with joy.
Maybe that helps some other video recording mum or dad out there. I'm glad I came to that insight so I can enjoy reading articles like the one linked here again.
I'm a father of two young ones, and I faced a similar story as yours. I want to have nice, "cinematic" videos of my kids, instead of just random clips. The hardest part is putting those random clips together to tell a "story", especially if I'm the only one filming.
Like you, I've found that focusing on small topics, like a day out on the balance bike, or a birthday party. There are a few YouTubers that focus on making travel videos, and a lot of the tips that they present translate pretty well, such as making sure to have a lot of different angles.
I've also moved to Davinci Resolve, as it's free. Hoping to one day be doing enough editing to justify getting the studio version!
It's interesting to read a little bit about the history of film editing. It gives you a sense of what this activity is like when it is at a professional level, what kinds of things are important if you do this for a living:
The big thing about on-screen text is to _proofread it_. I'm surprised by how often there are typos in the overlaid text of videos that are otherwise quite professional.
The quickest cuts I've seen are in the AudioPilz "Bad Gear" videos.
I've noticed this phenomenon with anything creative, stepping back is not always enough, you need to step away for long enough to have some perspective - Then if your opinion of your own work changes it's difficult to know if it's due to re-framing or because you've been exposed to other tastes in the interim... it's all a little maddening. I try to differentiate, it's important to know if your preference is fleeting, due to exposure to something of novelty, or something lasting.
Similarly with UI design, even within the "flat" era I see things oscillating back and forth, over-rounded buttons, over-squared buttons, over-rounded buttons, over-squared buttons, back and forth, Google does this constantly as if they can't make up their mind... is it just fashion? is the new black completely dependent on the previous black?
After a while It makes you think very little in life is objective, we are all part of this interwoven thread of culture giving context to all.