This week was week two of Phase three in Praxis.
What am I doing? Video editing.
Video editing is a subcategory in my overall goal of growing my business. It can help grow my business by increasing online engagement and, in turn (hopefully!), sales.
Here are two of the editing tricks I learned:
Object Appear
To make this happen, there are two shots you need to capture with your camera.
First you need a shot of you standing next to the item (not overlapping it at all!). Then snap (or whatever motion you want to make to make the object appear), and then interact with the object.
The next shot needs to be of the area where the object is, but without the object. Do this by simply not touching your camera in between shots, removing the object, and letting the camera roll. Once you have shot that for a few seconds, you can move onto editing.
Here is the editing process you would do in CapCut (desktop):
You layer the shot of you interacting with the object below the other shot. You then use a mask around the blank area (where the object will “appear”) to make it look like there is nothing there. When you get to the part in the video where you snap, you remove the mask. It will look like you snapped, an object appeared, and then you interacted with it.
Tip:
If the shot you took of the blank area is not long enough to cover the shot of you interating with the object before you snap, you can either just adjust its speed, or you can freeze one frame and make it whatever legth you want.
Make sure to not cast any shadow on the bank area (when filming the shot without the object), or else it will look out of place in the final edit.
Clone Yourself
This one is actually pretty simple!
You use a mask, just like when you make an object appear. All you need to do is take a shot of you on one side of the frame and then take a shot of you on the other side. The most tricky part about this is making yourself interact smoothly with your clone. If you and your clone want to look at each other at the same time, you have to get the timing perfect. You can always splice it together in the editing, but it won’t look as seamless.
Next, take it into CapCut to edit. It is simple. Just layer one clip on top of the other and add a mask right down the middle. This will make it look like there are two of you in the same scene. Edit any lighting issues, etc. as necessary.
Tips:
Make sure to plan these out. If you don’t know exactly what character is going to do when, editing will be a nightmare.
Be careful of lighting changes. It is a pain when you go to edit this and realize that one side is brighter than the other. Fixable, but a pain. Make sure to film the shots back to back and to lock your lighting settings.
Watch for shadows. One video I tried to film of me cloning myself was outside in the sun. When I went to edit it and added the mask down the middle, I realized that I had cut my shadow in half! It wasn’t that noticeable, but the video wasn’t seamless.
Make sure you know where the middle is! The mask won’t work if you are overlapping yourself. It will cut you out (or part of you) and the video won’t look seamless. You can leave markers on the ground while you are filming to make sure you don’t cross into the other’s side.
Final tip on masking:
If it looks like there is a hard edge between two clips: increase the feather. All this does is blend the two clips a little so you can’t see a line down the middle.
I learned several other editing tricks this week, and I hope to test them soon! You can see an object appear video and any new videos as they come out on my Instagram.
Until then,
Serena
P.S. Here is a video I made using masking: