Finding editing efficiencies

Originally published Apr 11, 2008 at Bonnie Blink Productions

Looking at the number of weddings that I have this year and the time it will take to edit them, I realized that unless I change the way I edit, there will be a big backlog and some unhappy clients by the end of the season. So here are a few things to do that will help cut the number of editing hours:

1. Capture while doing something else. As I use a tape based workflow, capturing video from tape takes from 5 to 10 hours, depending on how many tapes there are to capture. As I have two computers to work with, I can capture to one while editing on another (savings 5 to 10 hours).
2. Color correction. I can be more efficient by doing basic color correction up front. Then only tweak color to achieve a particular effect. Also getting the white balance right while shooting will cut lots of time out in post.
3. Right now I spend about 20-25 hours working on the short form (Highlights) video. I spend a lot of that time looking for the right footage and the right audio (sound bites etc). If during the first pass, I mark the best stuff, it will be right there to drop into the timeline.
4. DVD authoring. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel. Create some nice templates and stick with them.
5. For the Deluxe Package I used to create an entirely separate long form edit. No more. Now the ceremony, main dances, toasts, cake, bouquet & garter are extras on the DVD. There is no need to make them into a single video when the short form highlights video tells the story.

Now if I can just stick to these ideas, There will be a lot more time spent not editing.