Over years of capturing adventures, I've refined my video editing process into a streamlined workflow that prioritises both efficiency and quality. I'm not one for spending weeks editing a trip when I could be planning the next one. So, I've adopted a few key principles to keep things efficient and enjoyable.
I use music as a guide, but remember, the music should complement the content, not overpower it. And let's not forget the people in the videos. Show them in their best light, with respect and dignity. As for sharing, I've opted to keep my videos semi-private on my personal site. This way, I can share my creations with friends and family without worrying about copyright issues or online trolls.
Software
- Davinci Resolve - Free video editor that is EXCELLENT and works on most platforms including iPad
- MP3 downloaders - For getting the music from Youtube
1. Picking Music
I like to choose songs that either match the vibe of the trip, I listened too while I was there (Nostalgia) or are recommendations from the people I travelled with
Simply search the lyric version on youtube and paste the link into one of the downloaders I mentioned above
2. Scripting
I used to spend a lot of time on scripting but to be more efficient ive found it only necesary for grouping and making a general arc
In short, you don’t even have to watch any of the clips, simply enlarge the thumbnails in the folder to get a rough idea of the places visited and group them like ‘Motorbike riding’, ‘Football on the beach’ and ‘City walk’
Once you have these in bullet point form, group them under the songs picked that match the songs vibe and order them based off of what tells a better story, e.g ending with drinking or something really funny
Note: Not all clips are ordered by default, make sure to scan through the whole folder to make sure you got everything
3. Prepare Footage
In Davinci resolve we can render proxys, what this means is the software creates a low quality version of every clip used for editing. This makes the software much much faster as the low quality footage is easier to process for your computer. Then at the final render, the software will simply swap the low quality for the high quality.
Over all it just makes editing much faster
4. Group Footage
Ofen I use a main camera, action camera and a drone, so the clips are never grouped in the folder consistently. Now in the video timeline, i like to group everything together ie I visit a pool so I’d grab all the clips walking around, action clips swimming in and the drone clips flying overhead.
At this stage I haven’t even watched a clip, merely grouped them all for each bullet point in the script in the order of the script on the timeline
5. Gather Commentary
Finally we will watch the clips.
Scrub through (Dragging the red play head quickly) until you hear some talking. If it seems interesting, funny or explains whats going on, cut it out of that clip and drag it up to seperate it from the over all footage.
Do this for the entire timelines worth of footage
6. Sort Commentary
Now we have all our interesting spoken bits, put them either at the front or end of the group. This is because there will often be ‘opening’ exposition and closing. e.g we talk about riding our bikes somewhere and then have arrived in that place, so we want the talking about going clips at the start and the arrived at the end. The middle is now all our the clips between those two points
7. Sync Clips with Music
For each commentary grouping we now add them over the audio. I like to have them where the songs decreases in tempo leaving natural room for talking. Don’t worry about how long the talking goes for, as long as its good. We can adjust the song next
While talking, drop the volume of the music to about -25Db while leaving the louder bits at about -5Db
When the talking finishes, I like to have the music swell into a montage of clips. The length of this montage will depend on how interesting and numerous the remaining clips are for this grouped section are
In this example, we can actually just make sure an interesting part of the song come sin at the montage then ensure the song quietly swaps in the background at a loud point of talking. It’s often completely unnoticeable to the viewer but can require some fiddling to make it completely imperceptible
Do this for the entire song and you should now have all your commentary aligned with gaps where the music is at its best
Note: It’s important to make sure the talking is easier to hear, go through each clip and increase/decrease the audio as needed to ensure nobody is hard to hear
8. Mark the Beat
Play the timeline and with the current song clip selected, tap
M wherever you’d like the video to change usually in time with the beat or other district sounds in the song
9. Add Montage Clips
When you know how many clips you’ll need (In this case 11), go through the remaining grouped footage and seperate the best looking ones that will help tell a story
Then, remove their audio and align with the markers
10. Add to Song
Drop the clips right into the song section you marked out and give it a test.
Once you’re happy delete the grouping of remaining clips and do the next
11. Add Transitions
It can often be jarring if the location in the video suddenly changed so it’s good to add a transition to convey you’re in a new location for the video.
I use a pack of transitions you can find online but anything will do
I also recommend using a little audio queue like a ‘Whoosh’ but don’t over do it, keep it subtle and don’t do this for every location change, just the big changes
12. Map and Markers
I like to show on a map where I am (Depending on the trip)
Get the png satellite map from google images
13. Add Text
Next it’s good to add some text that help reinforce what i might be saying in the video. Like location or song used names
14. Render
Finally, do a render based of your preferred settings
I like to do a 4K ultra high quality render that is often an enormous file size and hard to stream then a 1080p render which is network optimised for my website and general sharing
Slowly folks are moving to AV1 encoding but currently I still use H.265 for a good balance of size and compatibility
15. (Optional) Make A Short
Using the already organised clips in the timeline, I select every single one that looks good and copy them
Then open a new project and paste, aligning them with a chosen song for about 20-30 seconds then rendering it as something like
<country name> Reel/Short/TiktokNext, adjust so they all fit in portrait mode, this is what i then share on social media and acts as a sort of trailer for those in the video before sharing with them
And thats it!
This guide has been a whirlwind tour of my travel video editing process, honed over years of capturing adventures. We've covered everything from crafting a narrative with music to showing the people in your videos their best selves. Remember, efficiency is key – you don't want editing to eat into your next adventure
The best travel videos are the ones that inspire wanderlust in others. So get out there, capture those memories, and create cinematic masterpieces that transport you back to those incredible experiences.
Happy travels, and happy editing!