Footage String Outs: An editing technique I learned,that can work for skate...

[suckmadeck]

 videos that I have implemented into my work flow, and you could too for big skate edits/videos)

A useful workflow when editing a documentary is to create string outs of all your rushes. Say you have footage shot on Day1, you'd create a timeline of everything you shot. In that timeline you'd put all the cutaways, interviews and anything else shot on that day in there. That way if you need to find a certain shot from a certain day, you can quickly scrub through a timeline instead of clicking on hundreds if not thousands of little file names and scrubbing through them individually. This way you can speed up the editing process.

I thought that I could implement this into a skate video/edit workflow.

This is how it goes for me:

1: After I get home from shooting, I'll immediately start capturing my tapes/transferring my media over to the computer
2: I open up Premiere Pro (or whatever you use to edit) and immediately create a bin with the date at it's name, like this "280723"




3: I then drag all the footage from that day into the bin. I then create a timeline and organise the footage from makes to b-roll. That way I can quickly jump to makes. I also do this by timecode where possible so that the beginning of the timeline should be the earliest make/b-roll I shot. Usually that means if I need b-roll of someone after a make chances are the clips will line up in the order of their section



4: I will then export a low res video of all the makes and upload them privately to YouTube so that the skaters once they're done burning one off and have settled in at home can watch the days clips, and start thinking on what they can do to improve, things they'd like to re-do or just inspire new ideas.



And that's basically it. I will then refer to those dated bins for my footage and if I need to rename the files within the software, I will.

Of course renaming files makes it easier to see the trick in the bins, but for someone like me where words simply start making no sense after staring at a monitor for hours, having something visual to stare makes life a ton easier.

[radcunt]

Makes for a nice, clear workflow.  Good one.  Only improvement is your date system should start with the year, month then day.  Makes it much easier for your brain to decode on the fly as you're not reading new numbers up front all the time, but mainly when you hit sort, it'll sort by year, month then day if you have years or months worth of clips.  I use it across all my video & music projects.

[Burton Ernie]

great organization technique

[CossRooper]

I read this last year and have subconciously migrated to this exact workflow over time. It rocks.

As an added benefit, instead of low-res stringouts, export in decent quality and upload to youtube. That way you have all of your days logged and backed up to youtube, and in case of a hard drive or laptop meltdown you have full quality backups of only the best of each day's footage.

As i play through the clips, I've also started doing lands/a-roll in Video Track 1 and b-roll in track 2 so it's even easier to find the lands.

Also a BIG +1 to this comment:

Only improvement is your date system should start with the year, month then day.  Makes it much easier for your brain to decode on the fly as you're not reading new numbers up front all the time, but mainly when you hit sort, it'll sort by year, month then day if you have years or months worth of clips.  I use it across all my video & music projects.

this practice has changed my life

[radcunt]

I read this last year and have subconciously migrated to this exact workflow over time. It rocks.

As an added benefit, instead of low-res stringouts, export in decent quality and upload to youtube. That way you have all of your days logged and backed up to youtube, and in case of a hard drive or laptop meltdown you have full quality backups of only the best of each day's footage.

As i play through the clips, I've also started doing lands/a-roll in Video Track 1 and b-roll in track 2 so it's even easier to find the lands.

Also a BIG +1 to this comment:

Expand Quote

Only improvement is your date system should start with the year, month then day.  Makes it much easier for your brain to decode on the fly as you're not reading new numbers up front all the time, but mainly when you hit sort, it'll sort by year, month then day if you have years or months worth of clips.  I use it across all my video & music projects.

[close]

this practice has changed my life

So funny was reading this thread and getting ready to do the post that I had already previously done lol.  Glad it helps!

[CossRooper]

It helps a ton!

Also, one more tip on the topic of clip management, an epiphany I just had... Just format your card after you dump it to your computer so it is clean. I used to dump the footage and film until the card gets full, but It gets too confusing when you have too many sessions worth of stuff on a single card.

[CossRooper]

ok bumping this thread

I stopped doing string-outs/daily edits. if you film 3 days a week you are creating hours and hours of extra work making timelines of each day. skaters just want to see their clips ASAP, they don't care if they're unedited or ungraded.

I realized the priority should be a) backing up clips (in multiple places, not just your computer, ideally on the PC and in the cloud) and b) getting clips to the homies ASAP so they can see them and decide if they like them

 my workflow in dumping clips now is like this:

1.) Dump files off the card into folders by day (named something like 2025-12-20 Brooklyn Banks Steve)
2.) Go through each clip in Mac finder quickly playing (Spacebar on mac) and scrubbing through each clip to see if its a bail.

• if the clip is a make or b-roll, i rename it in finder, keeping the root file number(so filename is 0146 - steve doing frontflip.MTS)
• If the clip is a bail, I move it to the trash (Command-Delete)

This leaves me with folders that are filled with only makes or good b-roll. It saves hard drive space and makes it easier to find stuff. Trust me, you DO NOT need 600 clips of your homies kicking tricks out or rolling up not committing.

3) upload the makes and best b-roll to a google drive folder for backup and sharing with homies

4) Optionally - if you are working on an edit, open that timeline and put all makes and b-roll in there so they're waiting for you when you go to start arranging and editing to music. but this is optional because personally i see logging and editing as different headspaces.

Also, as you are working on an edit, another good backup strategy is to occasionally do an export with the music track muted in ProRes (max quality), and uploading that to a few places Google Drive/Youtube/an external harddrive. that way you have a 2nd or 3rd backup of your most precious clips in case of a doomsday scenario (stolen laptop, lost access to google drive, etc)

curious to hear if any PALS have any workflow ideas that have made their lives easier. I personally this process of logging/organizing fucking annoying so anything to make it less ass is very appreciated

[rawbertson.]

since i am just using iphone, my approach is a bit more limited and simplified

I have my iPhone set to auto upload everything to google photos

I usually trim my clips the same day. and also will grab the bail in a seperate clip. then delete the battles once my phone is getting close to full storage (but i have the entire "original" clip still saved on the cloud just in case) and then its easy to see "OK, here is the 8 second one, this must be it, and the 24 minute one is the battle".

once i finish the edit, i delete everything off my phone and start again.
i usually add clips to the timeline once every 3-4 sessions that i get clips