Cut and Cut Some More

Slowly but surely, I'm getting better at editing my videos.

When I look back on some of my earlier YouTube videos, I sort of cringe and tell myself that many of the clips are too long. I literally speak out loud, saying, "All right, we get it. Move on."

Fortunately, I'm not the only one who shows clips in their videos that hang on just a bit longer than necessary: sometime, much longer than is required. Because I've been watching countless videos of Portugal for DW's and my upcoming vacation, there are times when the videographer hangs on just a bit too long or overexplains something.

If it happens too much through a video, I'll stop watching and move on to the next video. No one wants that. We make videos to be viewed to the very end, or at least until the signoff.

I'm hoping that viewers of The Brown Knowser YouTube channel are entertained or informed, and that they want to watch the video to the very end. And to that end, I'm trying my best to be critical of my footage, to pull out parts that are unnecessary.

Last month, DW and I took our kayaks to Mississippi Mills, about a half hour west of home, and put in along the Mississippi River in Almonte. We've paddled the Mississippi both upstream and downstream from Pakenham before, but have never kayaked in Almonte, one of the prettiest towns in the Ottawa Valley.

As with most kayaking adventures, I mounted my 360-degree camera to the deck of my craft and captured video throughout the trek. By the time I had covered the five kilometres or so of the river, I had more than 30 minutes of video recorded.

For a kayaking video, that's too much. And on this trip, there was not a lot of action in the video footage (we still say 'footage,' don't we, even though it's all digital?). I captured the Mill Falls, a small brook that fell into the Mississippi, a few paddleboarders and a kayaker, and the rapids that forced me to turn around.

Of course, DW appeared in the video clips, too, but because she was more interested in photographing wildlife, she took her time and fell behind. I didn't see her again until I was on my way back.

When I first looked at all of the footage, I wondered if there was anything really worth sharing. I considered deleting all of the clips—we had recently paddled on Lac la Pêche, in Gatineau Park, and I deleted all those clips because there wasn't much worth capturing.

Editing footage is the most time-consuming element to creating videos and with our Lac la Pêche trip, it seemed like too much work for too little gain.

Back to my Mississippi Mills video, I decided to cut out any clips that seemed repetitive, and then I cut down the remaining clips even more. I played back the whole thing, from beginning to end, and any time I felt like I wanted to see the next clip, I'd stop the video and cut at the point that I wanted to move on.

The result is a three-and-a-half-minute video that gives the essence of paddling along this portion of the Mississippi River. Have a look:

What do you think? Too long, too short, or just right?

As always, if you did like the video, please hit that thumbs-up button and I'd be grateful if you subscribed to my channel.

I'm continuing work on my video from last summer's camping trip in Algonquin Park, which I hope to have ready in early September. I'm also planning to shoot lots of video in Portugal, so I hope to have more content to share in October.

Happy Friday!