Test Yourself - One Hour Challenge!!

Trying to get better at editing includes a variety of skills. First of all speed and precision get you a long way.

Try to test yourself by making a movie in two hours. Choose a subject, for example, your pet or the park, something simple. Then choose a piece of music so that you have that in your head for inspiration when you start.

Then give yourself one hour to film, get the best shots you can using a variety of positions. i.e. Point-of-view, close-up, mid-close, slow-mo, time-lapse. But, whatever you use, you can only use what was shot in the hour. Then go home, upload your footage to your chosen editing software i.e. FCP or AVID. Then give yourself one hour to edit together your shots, add the music, fine-tune the cuts, and colour correct and add some transitions and filters and even gradients if you have time.

The idea for this is to successfully reduce the amounts of clicks of your mouse to make your video. The less clicks you use to do the same processes reduces the amount of time it takes to make, therefore increasing the amount of post-production flare you can add with the time you have left over.

Try this on each of your cameras and with different genres of music and you can really get to know you software and tools and get the best out of them and stretch your abilities.

Time made: One hour filming in the park

Edit time: One hour FCP

Movie time: One minute five seconds

Camera: Canon G12 Powershot

Avitar HD 16x DVC

Music: 'Born to Die' Lana Del Ray