When looking back at 2019, it is incredible to realize just how much footage I captured and all the amazing things I was so privileged to experience in the year prior. However, putting all of footage together into a single video of watchable length turned out to be no simple task. Sorting through hundreds of hours of footage searching for fondly remembered 10 seconds of video cost many many late nights. The whole process taught me valuable lessons to carry with me in the coming year.
#1. Stay organized throughout the year.
I’m still paying the price for nearly a decade of poor organization of my photos and videos, and even my new and improved system is really quite lazy and could be much improved. It’s awfully tempting to expend as little time as possible on organization, but take it from me that such slothful behaviour only delays and exacerbates such necessary work. The more organized your videos and photos are the easier every project you undertake will be. Whenever you load your photos and videos onto a hard drive, make sure at the very least that they are sorted by date and by what they are of.
#2 Invest in ample storage space, and make sure to back everything up.
You can never have enough storage space for your photos and videos if you shoot regularly. Not just for simply storing them, but for backing them up as well. Ideally you want every photo and video on two separate hard drives. Even better, have a third kept at a remote location that you backup your library to on a regular schedule.
#3. Start editing your year-end video in January
You can save yourself a lot of hassle when making a year-end “best of” video by beginning the editing process with your first footage of the year. As you’re sorting it out, take the best clips and put them into your compilation project. Then, in December all you need do is arrange everything, set it to music, and you’re pretty much good to go. This will save you the headache of scrambling to sort through a mountain of video that will consume your holidays!
#4. Be picky!
It is difficult indeed not to fall in love with every awesome cinematic shot you capture, but a 5 hour compilation of even the most amazing footage would not hold your audience's attention for long. Often, quantity is the enemy of quality, and that is nowhere more true than in a year-end recap video. The exception is for storytelling purposes, where sometimes an inferior shot can really engage the attention of the audience.
#5. Tell a story
This advice is true not just for creating a year-end recap video, but for any video. It has to tell a story. You can have the best footage in the world, but without the framework of a story that footage will struggle to stand on its own merit. When I’m shooting and editing a video, even if it’s nothing but scenery, I’m thinking of the story I’m trying to tell. It can be as simple as in my video here, where I start with dawn and work my way through the day. The clips may be from almost random seasons and locations, but they all were carefully arranged to chart the course of a single day from sunrise to sunset. You may also notice that I told little stories within the video. For example, the Sedona footage of rock formations only includes three clips, but still I arranged them into a miniature story where it starts with a wide establishing shot to an orbiting close up to a triumphant finally. Stories and stories within stories are how you capture and hold the attention of your audience.
