Shot this video for a vimeo storytelling competition about a month ago. The competition wanted us to tell the story of someone doing what they love. Winston has a love affair with food so I thought that his story would be a right fit for this video.
I don’t think he knew what he was getting himself into but a phone call and a few of hours later, I was at his place filming him and his dad cooking dinner. I wanted the video to be as authentic as possible. So rather than directing, I was happy to let the event unfold naturally.
The interview was impromptu but I’m glad that I did it. It was through this that I was able to learn more about what food meant to Winston and the kind of culture that he’s trying to cultivate in the food blogosphere. The goal of the video was to communicate Winston’s food philosophy and to capture a precious moment of food bringing people together. Hopefully I was able to just that.
Shot this while I was visiting Singapore last summer. For the longest time I had difficulty completing the videos cause I just didn’t know how I was going to edit them. The fact that I wasn’t happy with most of the shots made matters worst. Most of the shots I took were shaky, out-of-focus, and lacked narrative.
So I left them untouched for days, weeks, and now months. But those incomplete video projects were always at the back of my mind. I knew I had to finish them and get them off my chest. Fortunately, inspiration (and motivation) struck and what you see now are the finished products.
Let’s talk about the editing process. For “Singapore in 2 Minutes”, I knew that I wanted the video to be short but still be able to capture what I did over the 4 day period in Singapore. Rather than stringing together a bunch of pretty-looking shots, I wanted to tell a story of the places I went, the things I saw, the food I ate, and the people I was with. I also didn’t want my video to come across as a “promo ad” for Singapore but more of a personal account of my time there.
The decision to use short 1 second clips came about as a way to overcome the handheld shakiness of the shots. Having those quick cuts helped to lessen its impact by giving the viewers less time to process each scene. But for some instances, the handheld feel do add to the video, especially when trying to emphasize movement or shooting stationary objects, such as food and buildings.
You will notice that I’ve used some out-of-focus shots and very shaky footages to emphasize movement. For those handheld footages that I really like but were unable to justify using, I did one of two things; 1) left it out completely from the video or 2) used “warp stabilizer” from Adobe Premiere Pro. That feature is a life-saver.
Music played a very big part in all 3 videos. But they were also the most time-consuming part of the entire post-production process. If I’m lucky, I would usually be able to find an appropriate backing track in a couple of hours. But for these videos, finding the right track took me a couple of days each.
So if they’re any musicians/singers/songwriters/voice-actors out there who are interested in collaborating, feel free to contact me and maybe we could feature your talent in my next video project. It’ll be fun!
Hope that you were able to gain a little more insight into video editing and the work that goes into post-production. It’s not easy but if you enjoy it, you definitely reap the rewards of your hard work. Happy filming!
SHOUT-OUT to Aun for letting me use his sweet lenses. Thanks man!
Quick video that I’ve put together for a newly opened cafe in Melbourne.
3 Things that I’ve learnt:
1) Always be ready to anticipate the next move. That way, you’ll be able to position yourself and capture more shots from a single action and link together a concise story.
2) There is no (seldom) time for retakes in a busy kitchen.
3) Be present. Is it more important to be taking shots of the guest arriving to the cafe or the action that’s happening in the kitchen?
Hope those quick tips would be useful the next time you’re asked to help cover an event. Happy filming!
It’s not every day that one of my video goes viral. So you can imagine my surprise when “Fireworks in Reverse” started gaining attention on the internet. BIG thank you to everyone who’ve shared my video. Looking forward to creating better videos in the future.
Five things you need to know about the video:
1) There are 4 cuts in the video (can you spot them all?).
2) The actually New Year’s Eve Fireworks display went for 15 minutes. I only picked out the parts which I though looked good in reverse and used the last minute of the display.
3) The song is “Moon Behind the Tree” by Serphonic.
4) This is NOT the first reverse fireworks video on YouTube. There are a handful of “reverse fireworks” video on Youtube dating 4-5 years ago.
5) The bokeh lights at the end of the video are actual fireworks.
Shot this video for a vimeo storytelling competition about a month ago. The competition wanted us to tell the story of someone doing what they love. Winston has a love affair with food so I thought that his story would be a right fit for this video.
The interview was impromptu but I’m glad that I did it. It was through this that I was able to learn more about what food meant to Winston and the kind of culture that he’s trying to cultivate in the food blogosphere. The goal of the video was to communicate Winston’s food philosophy and to capture a precious moment of food bringing people together. Hopefully I was able to just that.
