Newbie to the forums

Hello all. Doing the newbie thing. About me, I'm 43 been in the military for 23 years, a family man married 20 years with 3 daughters. I am here to be better at making videos and a search brought me here, I have no delusions of making my own movies, but I am currently a YouTube guy(I'm not one of those go crazy look at me guys, I just do family stuff to share with others), but my military unit saw some of my videos of my adventures with my family and asked me to film some stuff for them and I want to do it better than it's been done in the past. Most of my experience is with old camcorders in the early 2000s and recently GoPros and drones. I just want to learn some more about specific shots, color grading and some more of the finite details. Hope to be able to contribute what little bit I know when I can and as I learn give back a little.
 
Hi There!!!!!!!!!

And Welcome!!!!!!!!!!!

First, thank you for your service.

Just for fun, I have two daughters. I feel for ya brotha......

As my handle indicates, I'm an audio guy. Having not seen your videos I don't know if improving your audio will enhance the quality of your videos, but, if that is the case, I'm here. Just post your questions.

Peace,

Uncle Bob
 
Thank you.

My kind of videos thrive off of audio. Lately they've been snorkeling, paddleboarding, kayaking and hiking videos. I've done a couple events for my unit as well, obstacle course, shooting range, gas chamber and with the COVID teleworking I've been filming some training videos. I"m not claiming to be anything more than an amateur, if that, but now I've been tasked to film our Best Warrior Competition next month, which has some key events and they want a video production and our team that usually does this stuff does not have a video person, only a still picture. I'm going to be doing some underwater stuff, obstacle course, rifle range, ruck march and a few other things, already have a million ideas in my head driving me nuts watching others videos and trying to decide on a shot list, 3D printed a cable trolley and playing with that for a gopro so I can do an overhead shot of the range and the ruck march. My money makers are my GoPros, I have several(3, 3+, 3X 4, 5, 7, fusuion) as well as some cheaper ones. Got a decent DSLR 1080p/30fps with multiple lenses, couple older camcorders that do 1080 and old DVC for night vision shots and a few drones, which I can't really fly for most of it because we are on a military base. I do everything on PowerDirector and have an audio recorder as well. RIght now I do 3-5 minute videos and hope to get better. This site focuses on movie making it seems, as most of them do, but I can learn more about shots as I go, like establishing shots and angles. Luckily I'm one of the patient ones who reads a lot before I ask a question, I'm just glad this is an active site, there are a few amazing sites I've found but all the info is outdated and no one posts anymore, found this one through reddit and read up on some of it, apparently I signed up for it months ago, but never posted and found it again today.
 
Thank you.

My kind of videos thrive off of audio. Lately they've been snorkeling, paddleboarding, kayaking and hiking videos. I've done a couple events for my unit as well, obstacle course, shooting range, gas chamber and with the COVID teleworking I've been filming some training videos. I"m not claiming to be anything more than an amateur, if that, but now I've been tasked to film our Best Warrior Competition next month, which has some key events and they want a video production and our team that usually does this stuff does not have a video person, only a still picture. I'm going to be doing some underwater stuff, obstacle course, rifle range, ruck march and a few other things, already have a million ideas in my head driving me nuts watching others videos and trying to decide on a shot list, 3D printed a cable trolley and playing with that for a gopro so I can do an overhead shot of the range and the ruck march. My money makers are my GoPros, I have several(3, 3+, 3X 4, 5, 7, fusuion) as well as some cheaper ones. Got a decent DSLR 1080p/30fps with multiple lenses, couple older camcorders that do 1080 and old DVC for night vision shots and a few drones, which I can't really fly for most of it because we are on a military base. I do everything on PowerDirector and have an audio recorder as well. RIght now I do 3-5 minute videos and hope to get better. This site focuses on movie making it seems, as most of them do, but I can learn more about shots as I go, like establishing shots and angles. Luckily I'm one of the patient ones who reads a lot before I ask a question, I'm just glad this is an active site, there are a few amazing sites I've found but all the info is outdated and no one posts anymore, found this one through reddit and read up on some of it, apparently I signed up for it months ago, but never posted and found it again today.

sounds like you’ve got a full plate!
Try to work in some character and human moments if the video allows. Too much b roll and ppl will start to lose focus
 
sounds like you’ve got a full plate!
Try to work in some character and human moments if the video allows. Too much b roll and ppl will start to lose focus

Thank you for the advice. I do plan on walking during the ruck and asking Soldiers why they are competing as well as other events after they complete something asking them how the felt they did or their plan for doing something and during certain things like the equipment layout and inspection having one of the leaders speak of why we do the competition with a voice over. There is also an interview they do and a formal board where they answer questions. I've watched a lot of others videos on this and honestly my biggest issues I see are going to be color grading multiple camera types, logos and words of any kind, if we go that route, and time. The competition is two days and on the third we show the video. I can do some of the stuff if we go logos and names before it all starts to have them ready and I can work on pieces each night, but getting done after 6 pm on Tuesday and having to have the video ready by 1pm on Wed is going to be a bear, but I've done it before on a smaller scale.
 
Thank you for the advice. I do plan on walking during the ruck and asking Soldiers why they are competing as well as other events after they complete something asking them how the felt they did or their plan for doing something and during certain things like the equipment layout and inspection having one of the leaders speak of why we do the competition with a voice over. There is also an interview they do and a formal board where they answer questions. I've watched a lot of others videos on this and honestly my biggest issues I see are going to be color grading multiple camera types, logos and words of any kind, if we go that route, and time. The competition is two days and on the third we show the video. I can do some of the stuff if we go logos and names before it all starts to have them ready and I can work on pieces each night, but getting done after 6 pm on Tuesday and having to have the video ready by 1pm on Wed is going to be a bear, but I've done it before on a smaller scale.

this sort of situation is why people hire editors. If you had someone starting fresh at 6pm and then delivering a product 8 hours later it would be clear that time was invested.
Money sure does solve a lot of problems right? Do you have any video help at all? A production assistant?

I don’t envy your position. that sounds like a real grind. Hopefully you can get the cameras to match color in advance just by using the right profiles and color balance.
 
this sort of situation is why people hire editors. If you had someone starting fresh at 6pm and then delivering a product 8 hours later it would be clear that time was invested.
Money sure does solve a lot of problems right? Do you have any video help at all? A production assistant?

I don’t envy your position. that sounds like a real grind. Hopefully you can get the cameras to match color in advance just by using the right profiles and color balance.

Thank you all for the warm welcome and advice, didn't mean to turn this into a post about what I'm doing, but thanks.

I have someone who went to and Army school to do this,it's his job, but he has never had to do anything outside of school, he is going to help with a lot of the camera work and stuff I don't know I am a Signal guy, I do this as a hobby. The editing itself won't be to bad and the unit doesn't expect perfection, but I want it to be better than cut and splice video randomly shot during the event. There is no money/budget for something like this, it's an internal thing and more of a cool look what we can do. In past years they did picture slide shows with a little bit of video and were happy with that, but I was screwing around at an obstacle course last year and came up with something simple not even good on my own, but they loved it. I don't think I'm even that good, but I'm better than what they had and it makes them happy and I enjoy doing it so win-win, that and I film the event instead of running parts of the even a lot more fun to be following the competitors than running one of the events and being stuck in one place waiting. This is one of the things I did for them, like I said nothing great, but good enough to make them happy an show off what they do. I'm learning a lot and getting better in certain areas, but it's more for fun for me.
 
that’s awesome you have help for the next one. Listen to advice but Stay in charge and don’t let the army guy call all of the shots. You need to be free to make mistakes, that’s part of the growth and growing is fun.

The biggest feedbacK for the video is the lack of close ups. A few extreme close ups and bring us into the action.you nailed the wide shots
 
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