Video: Patrick, Me, and the Foothills Trail A4 to A5

[FireInMyBones]

Patrick's second backpacking trip and I'm trying something different with the video editing. I'm looking forward to tips and thoughts.

[BigLazy]

Great video. Looks like an awesome trip. Thanks for sharing the video.

[carolinasbackpacker]

Looks like a good trip. I can't wait to get back out into the woods once things kinda settle with the new job

[Bruciehi5]

That looked like a pretty scary spider! Can’t wait till it’s 82 degrees here. Nice waterfall closely followed by a bit of tree hugging. lol, Love the sound of your camera in zoom mode! My thoughts on your video editing are; I like it... enjoyable, easy to watch and follow, the trip seemed to be well covered from start to finish with all kinds of interesting things. Thanks, FireInMyBones, that was really good!

[FireInMyBones]

Great video. Looks like an awesome trip. Thanks for sharing the video.

You're welcome. It was a lot of fun.

Looks like a good trip. I can't wait to get back out into the woods once things kinda settle with the new job

Yeah, I'm gonna miss you up on the Art Loeb this weekend, but work comes before play.

That looked like a pretty scary spider! Can’t wait till it’s 82 degrees here. Nice waterfall closely followed by a bit of tree hugging. lol, Love the sound of your camera in zoom mode! My thoughts on your video editing are; I like it... enjoyable, easy to watch and follow, the trip seemed to be well covered from start to finish with all kinds of interesting things. Thanks, FireInMyBones, that was really good!

The spiders are pretty crazy looking, but not poisonous enough to really hurt humans. Yeah, Patrick's "wingspan" is 6.5 feet so in comparison the tree was rather large. The zoom noise is kinda cool. It's growing on me.

Thank you for the kind words. Is there anything I can improve on for next time I edit?

[Bruciehi5]

SNAKE! I watched your video again and this time I saw a snake. I must have blinked, or something during the first watch - nice snake too! I like the seventies style music at around the 3:40 mark.

As for editing tips, I don’t really know much about it, I just watch what others do, including travel shows on TV, and try to make my videos using bits of editing that I like.

One thing I’m “trying” to do is cut the video length down and one thing I’ve noticed that the big guns do is be in front of something interesting, like a waterfall, and while talking about it, there are a few different short (2 to 4 second) shots of the thing being talked about shown and then you can see the person talking again. It’s a way of showing more in less time and it kind of speeds up the video and makes it more interesting at the same time. Long scenes slow the pace down and lots of short scenes make the video feel more action packed. The problem is, you have to remember to do both the talk part and film from different angles and distances while out on the trail – it’s easy to forget to do it.

Another thing is to have “quiet” background music, when there is no sound on the video and you add some talking at home during the editing, it just livens it up a bit.

Putting your camera on a tripod, whenever you can, will cut right back on shaky video syndrome.

You’ll notice that the big guns don’t zoom much. They cut from far to near, and sometimes, from near to far. There are two ways to do that, one is to switch the camera on once, film from a couple of different places and edit out the parts where you are moving. The other way is to switch the camera on, film, switch it off, move, switch it on, film. It depends how far and how long it takes to do the move part as to whether I leave the camera on or not. Leaving the camera on makes it a bit quicker and easier to edit, because it’s all on one video file, but it can use more memory and battery power.

Anyway, FireInMyBones, I hope you can find something of use. I still don’t understand how to do the above, so if you don’t understand what I was going on about, that will make two of use. I haven’t quite got it clear in my mind how to do it, but it’s fun trying.

[ShadowAlpha]

Nice swimming hole! and good video - thx for sharing.

[FLRider]

Good video! I like the new editing style. It fits your personality and filming style very well; it's very informative without being overlong with info dumps that can bore the audience (vidience?).

That spider was even creepier than the hundreds of grandaddy longlegs on the trip back in July. Big sucker.

I didn't quite catch if that was Lake Jocassee or not; either way, it looked like a beautiful swimming hole.

Nice little piece on how to ensure that you get the threads of the bottle with the Aquamira. I hadn't thought of that, but it definitely makes sense as a step to avoid back country upset stomach.

Thanks for sharing, FIMB!

[Jack]

Love this trail and love this video. Nursing a back injury but plan to hike this section very soon. This and A5 to A6 will complete the Foothills Trail for me...though I'll continue to return to it. This has only served to whet my appetite to get back out there.
I know nothing of video editing but I host an audio podcast called All Who Wander (www.allwhowander.us). When I was asking for advice, a friend told me about a free product called Levelator. Google it. It is absolutely the easiest, most user-friendly way to even out your audio levels. I can't imagine recording without it. Drag and drop the file to an icon on your desktop and seconds (or minutes) later the adjusted mp3 shows up in the same folder as the original. Thanks again, Jeremy!

[FireInMyBones]

SNAKE! I watched your video again and this time I saw a snake. I must have blinked, or something during the first watch - nice snake too! I like the seventies style music at around the 3:40 mark.

As for editing tips, I don’t really know much about it, I just watch what others do, including travel shows on TV, and try to make my videos using bits of editing that I like.

One thing I’m “trying” to do is cut the video length down and one thing I’ve noticed that the big guns do is be in front of something interesting, like a waterfall, and while talking about it, there are a few different short (2 to 4 second) shots of the thing being talked about shown and then you can see the person talking again. It’s a way of showing more in less time and it kind of speeds up the video and makes it more interesting at the same time. Long scenes slow the pace down and lots of short scenes make the video feel more action packed. The problem is, you have to remember to do both the talk part and film from different angles and distances while out on the trail – it’s easy to forget to do it.

Another thing is to have “quiet” background music, when there is no sound on the video and you add some talking at home during the editing, it just livens it up a bit.

Putting your camera on a tripod, whenever you can, will cut right back on shaky video syndrome.

You’ll notice that the big guns don’t zoom much. They cut from far to near, and sometimes, from near to far. There are two ways to do that, one is to switch the camera on once, film from a couple of different places and edit out the parts where you are moving. The other way is to switch the camera on, film, switch it off, move, switch it on, film. It depends how far and how long it takes to do the move part as to whether I leave the camera on or not. Leaving the camera on makes it a bit quicker and easier to edit, because it’s all on one video file, but it can use more memory and battery power.

Anyway, FireInMyBones, I hope you can find something of use. I still don’t understand how to do the above, so if you don’t understand what I was going on about, that will make two of use. I haven’t quite got it clear in my mind how to do it, but it’s fun trying.

Thanks for the tips. I always look forward to another Brucie video. I'll consider those tips...until I understand them all, and give it a go.

Nice swimming hole! and good video - thx for sharing.

Yeah, I was not quite sure what I was going to find. It turned out to be very secluded.

Good video! I like the new editing style. It fits your personality and filming style very well; it's very informative without being overlong with info dumps that can bore the audience (vidience?).

That spider was even creepier than the hundreds of grandaddy longlegs on the trip back in July. Big sucker.

I didn't quite catch if that was Lake Jocassee or not; either way, it looked like a beautiful swimming hole.

Nice little piece on how to ensure that you get the threads of the bottle with the Aquamira. I hadn't thought of that, but it definitely makes sense as a step to avoid back country upset stomach.

Thanks for sharing, FIMB!

It was Lake Jocassee. It was so nice after the hot/humid hike. I'm trying to cut to the chase a bit more and also have fun so I won't get bored watching these latter.

Love this trail and love this video. Nursing a back injury but plan to hike this section very soon. This and A5 to A6 will complete the Foothills Trail for me...though I'll continue to return to it. This has only served to whet my appetite to get back out there.
I know nothing of video editing but I host an audio podcast called All Who Wander (www.allwhowander.us). When I was asking for advice, a friend told me about a free product called Levelator. Google it. It is absolutely the easiest, most user-friendly way to even out your audio levels. I can't imagine recording without it. Drag and drop the file to an icon on your desktop and seconds (or minutes) later the adjusted mp3 shows up in the same folder as the original. Thanks again, Jeremy!

I'll look up that program. I wonder if it'll work with a Mac. I've hiked every section and now am working to get a thru hike planned. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going solo for a 3 day trip or with a buddy on a 4 day trip. Not many people are game for a 30ish mile day, so a 4 day could be nice.
I hope you heal up and get back out there.