Young Editor-Next Move?

[Ryan Mast]

Transcode and edit in ProRes or AIC. No big deal.

—
Meteor Tower Films
We make music videos, design video for live theater, and build interesting contraptions.

[Kelton Corc]

Ok thank you, I edit in ProRes now anyway. I was just wondering if my computer had the horse power, you know. Also if anyone could give me some feedback on those videos please tell me.

[Mark Suszko]

Sorry I’m late to the party. My technical advice for now is, stop using the system drive of the macbook for your scratch drive, that’s killing you. My suggestion for your next step is an outboard storage drive that spins fast enough to work for editing. I am told that some of the USB-2 based pocket RAIDS are adequate for this now, but I personally would still go with a firewire-based RAID. Live on the edge, set it up for RAID-0, which gives you fast read/write speed at the cost of losing everything on the drive set if one of the drives fail. The drive will not go to waste once you upgrade; storage is always useful for many things.

Camera-wise, perhaps you can grab a used iphone3 and join in this crazy movement of high-def phone vids. And hey, it’s also a phone.

Amazon.com has tons of used books you can get cheap. I would suggest a couple of college video textbooks, even the older editions are great for teaching all the fundamentals. Herb Zettl is the author I would look for there. Also, pick up any of Walter Murch’s books on editing technique. Watch a lot of TV and movies with the sound turned off, try to figure where the cameras are and then to predict where the cuts come. Soap operas and talk shows are actually good for this, if you turn the audio off.

Talk to us more about what kind of videos or films you want to eventually make as your living.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Kelton Corc] ” Also a G5 is great, that actually would run FCP better than the 13″ MBP I have now, from the graphics POV”
I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Pretty much any first gen intel Mac (even the Mini’s) can hang, and even beat, a G5 tower when it comes to CPU heavy tasks. The last G5, the quad-core, is the lone exception to this. Add in the fact that FCP doesn’t use the GPU hardly at all and more and more things are coming out as intel only and your current laptop is looking at lot more appealing than a G5, IMO.

3.2GHz 8-core, FCP 6.0.4, 10.5.5
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (6.8.1)

[Kelton Corc]

Ok well I can’t buy a external drive right now. I just picked up a as fast as the MBP takes drive for editing and my life. MY LIFE, I use my computer not just for editing and for right now I don’t care what people are saying. At this point it will be a month or so before I can pick up any gear. Camera wise the iPhone 3 does not shoot HD videos and plus the iPhone does not have good enough audio or movement. Plus the iPhone 3? Or do you mean iPhone 4. And hey it’s a phone that costs 2-3 grand a year in terms of plans. Books I think that I have quite enough having a father that is a video editor for a whole company of video production. As far as videos I try to replicate, if you can’t beat the best try to be the best. I watch a movie a few times. Of course one that I enjoy, then I take notes. Then me and my friend think of a plot that would utilize the same elements used in that movie. For example I am currently making a chase video. One of my favorite chasing videos is the Bourne Trilogy. I took my notes including the types of shots they use, the look of the image, the number of shots. I would really like some people to view this video to give me some tips, but also tell me what you liked. One thing that is hard is making it possible in the tightest configurations, I think me making videos that by other professional video editors have been loved, is one thing that really makes my videos shine. My modo is: How kick-ass of a video can I make with me and my friend in 3 days with a flip video camera and a plot off my head. Creativity kicks in-I will be posting the video in this category tomorrow after I finish some audio. Thanks for all the help!

[Richard Clark]

okay kid, yep I can call you kid because that is what you are, a 14 year old kid. as a 14 year old you need to be out playing, exploring, reading, having fun. It was 10 years beyond you, age 24 that I found film and became a film editor, first in Australia, then New York, Hollywood and then my homeland New Zealand where, as I type I am ingesting 220 hours of my own doc into my 5 year old Mac desk top, I am writing on a 17″ macBook Pro. It took me 43 years to get to where I am and if anyone asked me if I would do it different I would honestly reply “NO!” Maybe I would have read more, especially the classics but then again with ADD it wasn’t easy to concentrate, I was a classic day dreamer. I am right where I am meant to be doing what I am doing.
Based on my own experience, this is not given as advice, I try not to do that, your life is your life to be lived as you experience it, not as someone else’s expectations.
Live your life, experience life and in 20 years, if you are lucky, you will have some life experience upon which to draw. Until then you are in learning mode. Mind you, I am still in learning mode. Do what you can with what you have. At your age i worked at all sorts of income producing work, milk runs, paper runs, etc,. Also, and this has been key to me, I read books. I was a book worm. That is where our story comes from. There is nothing new in life, there is nothing original, everything is a copy of something that has gone before, it’s simply people sharing their experience, strength and hope, period. In the meantime, get outside and live your life. It’s not without a certain irony that today I am editing a Documentary about the American West that I took two years to shoot in 2004 &5, as a kid I read westerns, especially Zane Grey. He was my muse as a child. That is what we need, something or someone who touches us deeply, we may not know it at the time but that is setting in motion our life’s work. I would highly recommend photography, writing, and some form of art, one where you use your hands, painting, drawing, sculpture, it may give you an unique voice if you do it well. What is your best subject in school, pay attention to it. Mine was comprehension and that is the basis of a good story teller, a good film editor.
Fell free to ask anything you like. All the very best for a good life.

Richard Clark’s kiwicafe.com
Film | Photography | Writing
http://www.kiwicafe.com/
Aotearoa New Zealand