(chiming music)
- You and I can both agree that right now,
you should probably be
editing your travel video,
but you're here right now.
So, let's make the most of your time,
and let me show you how
to make a travel video
that absolutely slaps.
(bouncy rap music)
Two weeks ago, I posted my
video, Japan, in three minutes,
and by all means, it is
a video with compromises,
with cut corners, but as
of today, it's probably
the video that best
represents my cinematic
storytelling abilities.
I want to show you guys
a bit of a walk-through
as to how I built that video.
I want to make this video as
short and concise as possible
so that you guys can
learn as much as possible.
Let me show you the final
timeline here by opening
up Final Cut Pro.
Whether you use Adobe or
Final Cut, it doesn't matter.
This video will be extremely
applicable for you.
This is the final stage, and
it may look overwhelming,
but as we go step-by-step, it's
gonna make a lot more sense.
That's the point of today's
video here, is to get you
that first five steps to get to this.
I think it's fives steps, we'll see.
We'll count as we go.
We have 16 days worth of
footage, plus a few extra folders
from my buddy, Michael.
This Japan folder, in
total, is 1.75 terabytes.
I hope for you that your
project is not nearly as
overwhelming, because
this took me about a day
and a half just to cut through
and choose the best shots.
What you're gonna do is,
you're gonna open up your
timeline, whether it be in
Final Cut or Premiere Pro,
or whatever else you're using.
If you're like me and you
can't handle the thought
of thinking, "what if I
missed that shot that could
"have made my video just
that little bit better?"
Then you're gonna drag
just about every shot you
have into this here timeline.
From there, if your project
is anything like mine was,
you'll have about four to five hours worth
of footage to start cutting through.
That would not be feasible
for today's video,
so I've basically taken
about 14 minutes of footage,
and I'm gonna show you
how I cut through this
sort of footage in step number one.
As you've noticed, today's video
not really gonna go through
how I shot the footage, but if
you would like to see a video
about how to shoot it,
then request it down below.
This is your typical shot.
We got about 10 seconds of
high quality footage, but we
gotta pick our moments, so
for me, I think the best
moment here is the spin
around action, the hair whip,
because the way I see it is,
once we get into the next step,
that little whip of the
hair could almost act as a
quick, natural transition
where we can speed ramp
into the next clip.
I also use the "L" key
very often to basically one
and a half times the speed
of my playback, so that I can
quickly cut through my footage,
otherwise, I would be here even longer.
These shots where it's
really dark, I don't need.
I also don't need all of
these parts 'cause they're
quite similar.
So, I'm gonna look for the
part that's the most stable,
and from what I can see here,
this part is the best shot.
I like when it starts to move
into the colorful LED ropes.
I'm just gonna keep that one piece here.
For a walking shot, I might do
a little bit of a speed ramp,
so I'm gonna keep a bit extra,
but I don't need anything
super long.
You gotta make cuts as much
as possible, and that's step
number one, to try to get it
down to a manageable size.
I'm gonna take a quick shot of the LEDs,
take a shot of Kathy's
head, that looks cool.
What I'm seeing here is we've
gone from being LED lights
futuristic, kind of like this
crazy sci-fi Japan, to now
hopping into our next set
of footage, which is more of
the laid back, traditional, organic Japan.
I'm gonna make a mental
note of the different styles
of footage that I'm seeing.
I'm seeing this shot, and I
can tell that from the very
moment I took this shot, I
shot it with the idea of doing
a time lapse.
One of the things I'm gonna
do to try to condense the
timeline is I'm gonna go ahead and just go
times eight on this clip.
It's now become two seconds,
and it's made our entire mess
of a timeline a little
bit more manageable.
I also know I need to stabilize
that, so I'm gonna go ahead
and do that and move on to the next clip.
This shot here, I believe
was actually taken by my
buddy, Michael, and you can
see there was a rotation
shot in camera, and I
think there's something we
can do with that.
I'm gonna go ahead and trim off the fat.
I'm gonna cut right to the
part where we have a rotation
of the camera, and that
part right there, with a bit
of manipulation, can be
turned into something pretty
cool later on.
With the camera, I'm often
doing a movement at the end
of the shot.
The reason I do this is
because if I do something like
pressing Shift + B here, we
can do a speed ramp, and now
if we speed it up, this could
be a transition into the
next shot.
I'm gonna go ahead and
keep cutting through all
this footage, and we'll get to step two.
Here we go.
So, back at it, I'm almost at the end now.
We're down to five minutes,
and I wanna show you this
one clip here because there
was a few moments I could
have chosen.
As you can see here, there's
a moment where Kathy's staring
at the camera.
For me that's okay, but
it doesn't convey emotion.
What I wanted to take was
that one moment, that even
for a split second, felt
like there was something
more going on, and that's
what I found right here.
You kind of get this feeling
of like calmness, of serenity,
and for me that says a whole
lot more than somebody just
modeling for the camera.
This might be a little
untraditional to recommend
speed ramping in phase
one, stage one, but I think
it's a good idea, and I'll show you why.
How I always cut my drone footage is this.
I look for continuous movements.
If the drone pivots at all, it's done.
It's not a good shot anymore.
If it turns a little bit to
the side, or anything that's
no longer continuous, then
that is where you make the cut.
I've hit the "L" key here,
we're speeding our way through.
I'm gonna hit the "L" key
again to speed it up even more.
Continuous, continuous, continuous.
Everything's look fandiglyastic.
And boom! See that?
See how the camera just turned?
Right there.
I'm gonna go ahead and hit
the back key a few times.
That is where the continuous
motion ends, so I'll cut
off the end of the clip.
I know already one of the
best moments of this shot
is right as this little boat
is getting near the edge
of the frame.
I'm gonna go ahead,
right before that occurs,
and hit Shift + B.
Shift + B on Final Cut is
how you do a speed ramp.
If it's Premiere Pro, you've got similar
controls to do that.
I'm gonna go ahead and zoom
in a little bit, and I'm
gonna go ahead and drag this bad boy in.
I'm gonna be going from
1,100% to normal speed.
It's gonna go really fast
at the beginning and then
go to normal speed.
This drone shot before this was probably
about a minute long.
This has now become a
three second clip, which is
something that will probably
be within the useful
range on my final project.
It just makes the timeline
that much more manageable,
and if you get good at speed
ramping, you'll typically
know exactly where you
intend to speed ramp.
Lets keep that for now.
That's no where near what the
final version will look like,
but we gotta keep moving.
Stage two, we have started
with about 50 minutes
of footage, we're now down
to two and a half minutes,
two minutes 50 seconds.
The first thing that I
want to do now is I'm going
to rearrange the footage in
the order in which I believe
will best tell the story.
For me, I like the idea of...
Let's start the Japan video
with traditional Japan.
I'm gonna go ahead and take
the footage, which kind
of feels like that traditional
Japan, and I'm gonna
drag it to the beginning of the timeline.
Dogs are more silly Japan,
I'll put that more in
the miscellaneous category.
This is traditional Japan, drag on top.
Traditional, traditional, kind
of natural traditional Japan.
Gonna drag that to the
beginning of the timeline.
I'm going to look for
everything that falls under kind
of like sci-fi category of Japan.
One thing that I like to do is
to set dividers to basically
help me organize my footage.
In Final Cut, typically I'll
just take a custom bar here,
and if it's a big project,
I'll just drag it out
so it's huge, so I can
visually see it no matter
how much I zoom out.
There is the divider.
That right there is the
separation of what I believe
to be the very dominant
categories of the footage
that we have right here.
The reason I've done
that is because the most
important part of your video
is not gonna be how well
you used your zoom transition,
it's gonna be how well
you told the story.
In my case, I wanna be able
to the different styles,
the different sides of Japan.
Basically, my cinematic
story telling should
follow in order.
The first minute of the video
is all from the different
sights that you can see
around Tokyo, while still
maintaining that feeling of
the sakura season, and we
do cover a little bit
of the Tokyo food scene.
Coin inserted, this kind of
signifies the start of the
second chapter of the video.
This right here is the fun
and playful arcade, colorful
neon signs, and goofy Japanese culture.
As you can see here, we've also
mixed in the kind of unique
sci-fi side, and just
like that, game over.
End of chapter two.
Chapter three is basically
entering into the traditional
and natural side of Japan,
and Kyoto in particular.
You'll see a lot of
shrines, a lot of temples.
You'll see the beautiful mountain scapes.
This is Mount Fuji, not
in Kyoto, but still part
of that natural feel.
You've got the koi, you've got
the beautiful shrines again.
Some of the wildlife, the bamboo forest.
If we go back to our quick
little example here, arranging
the story, this is what
we're essentially doing here.
We're putting together the
shots that feel cohesive,
that can tell a story together.
That's something that I
really challenge you to do.
It's definitely not as easy
as just piling cool shot one
after another, but it's what
will separate your video
from the rest.
Stage number three of five.
We need to find the music
that will tell our story.
I swear to you, this is
just as important as finding
the shot as telling your
story in a beautiful way
with cinematics and color
grading and transitions.
You need the right song.
I wanna give you a quick
little example here, and you
tell me what feels better.
(happy music)
(energetic music)
I don't know about you
guys, but one of those songs
really made me feel
something deep, and it wasn't
the first one.
If that isn't a powerful
example of the power of music,
then I don't know what is.
Sometimes I can spend hours
looking for the perfect song
for a project that really matters to me.
I was so lucky 'cause I
found that Epidemic song in
no more than 10 minutes
'because, just like I found the
song to the intro track to
this video here, I often
just go to Epidemic Sound,
and I go to their staff picks,
and every week here they
bless me with new bangers
for the upcoming videos.
Today's banger...
(bouncy rap song)
Epidemic Sound is no joke,
the most go to tool for any
videographer, any visual
storyteller, Instagramer,
YouTuber, whatever you call yourself.
Copyright free music is hard to come by.
Good copyright music is
almost non-existent until
Epidemic Sound came along.
They're part of 99.9%
of my videos on YouTube.
They're the reason I'm able
to monetize my videos and not
have to worry about copyright issues.
So guys, if you are ready
to start using really really
awesome music, just check it out.
I've got an affiliate link
down below, and it does make
a huge difference to this channel.
I want to think you if
you do decide to use it.
I also want to show you
how I found my other music,
because it's not always
going to be in staff picks.
In this case, I was really
feeling creative that day,
and I typed in Japan.
That is where I found this
song right here, "Paths
"of a Samurai."
(ambient oriental music)
It makes my life so much easier.
The last song that I used
for the video was, "Epoch,"
by Dye O.
This song right here, when I
listened to it, and I watched
my video together, I feel
like they dance together.
I know that it's my video
and I'm biased, but it makes
me feel emotions, and
I'm not just saying that.
This video means a lot to
me, and 50% of it had to do
with matching it to the right song.
Find the right music, it's so important.
Number four, the best part.
It takes two to tangle.
It takes a song and it takes some footage.
Now, we get to do the fun
part, which is making the music
play with our footage.
In this case, I'm gonna go
ahead and start it right here
where the beat becomes very prominent.
(ambient oriental music)
As you can hear, there
is this percussion sound.
By the way, I have no musical
bones in my body and I can
still do this, so can you.
You can even see it here on the timeline.
That little peak right
there, that is likely going
to be a very pronounced beat,
and in this case it was.
If we go ahead and listen (ambient music)
It's that loudest sound of
the drum, and that for me
tells me that's where I should make a cut.
(ambient music) one, two, three
But I didn't make a cut here.
Why is that?
That's because every
now and then you can do
a shot that doesn't cut right on the beat,
but cuts on the second
beat, or the third beat.
In this case, I waited two
whole beats to make a cut
for this shot, because it
was a shot that benefited
from running longer, as you can see here.
(ambient oriental music)
In the case of most of my
clips, they've been very
strategically placed to tell a story.
Usually, I'm trying to match
the motion so that if the
camera's pivoting left,
the next shot is also going
to the left.
That way, there's a feeling of continuity.
Even if the camera motions
don't line up, I make sure
that the storytelling at least does.
We have a wide establishing
shot here of the sakura season,
and then we have a close up
showing a little bit less,
but very intriguing, because
we see this beautiful dress.
We see this sakura still.
We can still see the pond,
and then all of a sudden we
reveal the subject of the shot.
The next shot goes on to
another girl in another scene,
and from there, we kind of
transition our way into a
different place in Tokyo,
continuing on with this fun
chasing scene, Kathy
running down an alley.
Then from there, more of
a wide establishing shot
of that very same alley, and
then more of a close up shot
of the very same alley of
Kathy looking up and just being
in awe of her beautiful surroundings.
That's the storytelling
that's going on here,
but I want to show you
that not everything is
just cutting to the beat.
There's something else I like
to do, and if you go ahead
in Final Cut hit Command +
R, you can open up the speed.
Right here we see that
it starts off at 182%
and slows down to 100.
If I wanted to, I could have
just gone and made this normal
speed the entire way through,
and I could have just cut off
this beginning part here to make it fit.
The shot still would have been
good, but it was way better
to have this moment of speed
at the beginning to make it
feel more immersive and throw
you into the clip a little
bit more emotionally.
I don't know if that makes
sense, but I'm going with it.
Just feel it.
If ever you have a clip that
is a little bit too long
and you're like, "Oh, I'm
just gonna go ahead and place
"a cut," think to yourself,
"Would it be better off if
"I had speed ramped it?"
In this case, I could just hit
Shift + B, and like that, I
could speed up the end of the
clip, and now we're going to
have a speed ramp out of the clip.
Let's try it.
Let's go ahead and render that.
(ambient oriental music)
I think the last little part
was a bit too aggressive.
I probably would slow it
down to 135, but I do think
that it actually was a
nice edition to the shot.
When it comes to editing, you're
going to be doing hundreds
and hundreds of these little
things that are very subtle,
but when you add up all these
things together, it makes
a huge difference.
Another thing I want to mention
is that many videographers
shoot so much footage, as I
did for this Japan trip, and we
feel like every shot is special.
We can't remove a lot of
shots because they're so
special to us.
That is a tough mentality
to get past, but you need
to do it because at the end
of the day, you can have an
excellent shot that doesn't
tell your story, and you're
gonna have to go without using it.
Maybe you'll use it another
day, but it's not meant to be
in this project, so leave it behind.
The same can be said with
having 10 shots of the same
incredible place.
You may have changed your
angle, you may have changed
your location a little bit,
but if it's just two many
shots, it doesn't tell a better story.
I know it's hard to get past that feeling.
It can sometimes be more
powerful to use one or two good
shots instead of using the 10 good shots.
Don'tjust try to rush through
as many shots as you can
go through.
Try to feel the sense of timing
and a lot of that will come
from the music you choose.
The last thing I wanna talk to
you about in this section is
keyframing, and it's
something that'll make a huge
difference in your travel videos.
It's something that you
need to start doing now.
To start off, I want to show
you a shot that's keyframed.
Basically, you can see
here that the borders are
overextended past the frame,
and that's because we're
starting in cropped in on the shot.
As we go to the end of
the shot, more of the shot
is coming into view, and
it gives you the feeling
as if the camera was slowly
moving backwards away
from the subject, when in
fact the camera wasn't moving.
(ambient music)
You see how we're revealing
more of the sky and the sides here?
That is all due to keyframing.
(ambient music)
Now, to give you an example
side-by-side, I duplicated
the shot and removed the
keyframes, just to show you
what it looks like without it.
(ambient music)
No doubt, still a beautiful
shot, but the difference
made by the keyframing
is just outstanding.
It really brings you into
the moment, as the human eye
starts to see more of
the shot be revealed.
Or, you can run it the opposite way.
You could go ahead and
start the keyframe at the
beginning here like this,
and then you could go to the
end of the shot and zoom it in.
The final step, step number five.
This is where we make it beautiful.
We make the final touches
that will make this video
stand out from the rest.
The first thing that we're
gonna do is, we're gonna tackle
what are known as transitions.
If we were working on the
Japan in three minutes
video, we would be done
now, because I personally
do not use transitions, at
least I use them very sparingly.
I do want to show you,
however, what is not quite a
transition, but something
that I've started using a lot.
It's something that I got
from Ryan Nangle, who's this
awesome creator and a total
Final Cut Pro gangster.
He has free plugins and
awesome transitions and awesome
motion blurred packs that
you guys definitely need
to go download.
By using his moderate motion
blur, I'm able to take
a shot that before looked
like this, where the train is
completely in focus, and
by adding the motion blur,
it takes everything that's
moving in the shot and it
applies motion blur.
This was a fantastic
thing to have for these
shots in particular, where
we have the quick moving
movement of people and train.
If I play it back with
these motion blurs disabled,
I will show you the difference.
See how everything is in focus?
It does not look nearly as
dreamlike as when everything
was out of focus that was in motion.
One tip for motion blur,
is to only use it when your
clip is accelerating or decelerating.
Basically, it's those moments
when the speed ramp kicks up
that you want to apply motion blur.
If you take a look at this clip
here, I've actually started
off with minimal motion blur,
because as we enter into
the speed ramp, things are
just starting to speed up.
As we get to the end of the
clip, that's where things are
really taking off and accelerating.
By applying the moderate or
even extreme motion blur,
if you're really feeling
extreme, you're increasing the
amount of blur as the video excellerates.
Here's an example with
the moderate motion blur
enabled and disabled.
You can see how big of a
differene it makes in a
shot that has movement like this one here.
One of the amazing tools
that's offered in Premiere
and Final Cut, is the
stabilization, and one of the things
that I like to do is go and
stabilize the clips that have
any shake that's noticeable.
In fact, I stabilize probably
about 80 to 90% of my shots.
One thing that I've been
finding is extremely useful in
Final Cut that I wanted to
mention to you, is not just
stabilizing it, but also
playing with the method
of stabilization.
Sometimes Automatic works
perfectly, but I've been finding
a lot of luck by using InertiaCam.
InertiaCam has literally saved some shots
that I at first thought were unusable.
Every now and then, it's good
to leave a shot unstablized
where it fits because it
does bring the viewer back
into a moment of reality,
a moment of grittiness.
Maybe you're chasing a
beautiful sunset on a beach,
and you're following your subject.
Leaving that shot unstabilized
might actually be a very
nice cinematic touch
I wanna show you the beginning
of my Japan project here.
You'll see the color
grade by disabling these
adjustment layers.
If you don't have
adjustment layers installed,
then you need to get them
because you shouldn't color grade
directly on the clip.
It's way easier to be able
to toggle on and off with the
"V" key, your color grade.
Work with adjustment layers.
You can see here that before
the clip was kind of dark,
a little bit washed out, but
when I applied my color grade
here, it gave it a much more lively purple
and pink hue to it.
This is a color grade that I
kept for the first few shots
of the video.
You can see the same was applied here.
Before it was kind of white,
not a whole lot of color,
but by adding that color grade,
we've got a nice pink color.
Before it was gray and white,
and after it was given this
beautiful purple look with
motion blur to blur the train
passing by.
Then from here, still kind
of continuing on with a bit
of a purple, orange tint.
I tried to keep it consistent
throughout the video
to reflect the scenery.
Moving forward even a little
bit further in the project,
you'll see that we've got more
sakura season, so I applied
a bit of a blueish purple
look here, again keeping
on with that pink theme.
You see that reoccurring
color of pink and purple
in the beginning chapter.
As we progress past chapter
one here, you'll notice
that the scenery changes,
and so does the color grade
a little bit.
Entering now into the weird
and wacky Japan, we've got more
use of blues, more use of neon
colors, really pushing the
saturation to pop some of
these more extreme moments.
To really be able to color
grade, you need to look at each
clip individually and a chapter
or a sequence of the whole,
and ask yourself, "How do
I think I can best portray
"this moment?"
Was it a moment of warmth
or was it a moment that was
cold and harsh?
Or, was it a moment of LED and neon signs
and extreme saturation?
You need to be able to
figure out what will
best represent that.
Long story long, do not color
grade your entire project
the same way.
Each clip needs a bit of love.
The very final note I want
to make is sound design is
something that's often overlooked
because by the time you
get here, you're exhausted.
You're so ready to hit the
"Publish" button on this video,
and you just don't want
to spend anymore time
on this project.
I implore you to spend
the extra hour to do
some sound design.
I want to show you a quick example here.
This is with the sound design disabled.
(gentle techno music)
Now I'm gonna go ahead and
quickly re-enable those
same sounds and retake it from here.
(gentle techno music)
What we would have otherwise
missed out on is the
arcade sounds.
We missed out on the sound of crickets.
A stream that we can see
flowing right behind Kathy.
Naturally, I did catch some
of the sound of the train
going by, but I doubled up on
the sound by taking another
train sound effect from
online because it made it feel
more robust, more real.
That right there is the
work that goes into making a
cinematic video.
Most people will go through
this video and never
explicitly notice that they
heard that sound effect,
but what they will notice
is how they felt throughout
the video, and they might
not be able to explain
why to you.
It all comes down to the
color grade, the keyframing,
the stabilization, the
choice of song, the choice
of footage, the sound design.
It's all of these things
together that will ultimately
decide how the viewer feels
when watching your video.
I feel very proud when I read
through some of the comments,
because there's so many
people that did feel the way
I felt when I watched this
video, and that's what it's
all about.
Three minutes and 47 seconds
of somebody's time took me
about two and a half days to make.
And the incredible thing about
it is, it was worth every
single minute of my time.
That right there is how
you edit a travel video.
Just a few tips of many that
I have to share with you guys.
If you guys wanna learn from
my full course, check out the
link down below.
It's a six and a half hour
screen recording, along with a
tutorial on how I did everything
to make one of my favorite
travel videos.
With that being said, I'm
actually also gonna be releasing
a full creator's course
teaching you guys...
I'm still here, by the way.
Teaching you guys how I
make a living, how I edit,
how I take photos, videos,
the entire business behind
what I do.
If you wanna check it out,
I'll be giving a special
discount to everyone that signs up.
You'll be notified as soon
as the course is ready.
So guys, check out the links
down below, hit the subscribe
button, and let's get lost
again in the next one.
