Flying Machines

Today's video is from an unmanned aerial robotics competition at Fort Benning and offers a few ideas for festival/event coverage. First, and foremost, focus your attention narrowly and only try to tell one story. It can be overwhelming to arrive at an event and figure out your first step. A good approach is to not start shooting right away. Walk around, talk to people and determine whose story you want to tell. Then, spend your time doing that. Next, in this case, although I shot the entire flight from the Cal Northridge team, I didn't need to use it all. Once their chopper lifted off, I used cutaways to show other team members doing their part and then cut back to the landing. It saves your viewer's time and makes the video more interesting. Finally, I once again chose to do voiceover but this time mixed in natural sound from the event to help better put the viewer there. It's pretty easy in iMovie to get the right balance between the two audio tracks. Another tip. Do your audio editing in Audacity(freeware). It's, in my opinion, easier to edit precisely in Audacity and then re-import the audio into your video editing software.