There is a problem with how hunting videos are edited.
I thought I’d discuss how to edit hunting videos because I’ve come across some of my favorite YouTubers struggling with showing off their awesome videos. So I thought I’d toss out one of my techniques to edit hunting videos. Hopefully, you'll find it useful!
This cool technique applies to anyone using a GoPro but mostly bird hunters and specifically upland game hunters. If you hunt upland birds the best option to film your hunts is with a GoPro.
Duck hunters that hunt from a blind do have the option of setting up some really nice stationery filming systems that could bypass the need for a GoPro. But not all duck hunters hunt from a blind. The Versatile Hunter hunts from a Kayak. How cool is that! But his only option is to use a GoPro.
Background discussion
For those of us that go out into the field by ourselves to film our own hunts, we have no option but to wear a camera. Please leave a comment if you’ve found a better solution, but I couldn’t come up with one.
The problem
The thing about a GoPro is that it has a super wide-angle lens. And this makes sense. A GoPro is an action camera meant to capture someone snowboarding, riding a bike, or surfing, where most of the action is within 10 yards.
The problem is that most bird shots are out at 15-35 yards if you are bird hunting. And as you can imagine, with that wide-angle lens, that honker at 35 yards looks like a fly on the wall now.
Another problem
If you were to get a GoPro to zoom in as a bird hunter, the problem now becomes that most of the action is out of the shot. If you’ve seen my unedited film clips, you’d see that there is action bouncing around all four corners of the scene. So, in that sense, you do need the wide-angle lens of a GoPro. ROCK [BIRD HUNTER] HARD PLACE.
The solution is the Ken Burns effect
Background on Ken Burns
Ken Burns is a documentary filmmaker. He has made several series, but one of his first was on the Civil War. Now, there wasn’t much filming from the civil war, none to be exact. But there were pictures. In a film, a stationary picture really isn’t visually pleasing. So to create movement Ken Burns panned in or out on a picture giving the picture movement and making it much more pleasing visually. We are going to do that, but with video.
Adding the Ken Burns Effect
I highly recommend watching this video to see how I use the Ken Burns effect in editing my hunting videos. A picture says a thousand words. A video says a million.
These are the basic steps to remember when editing.
1 DuckDuckGo how to create a Ken Burns effect with (your video editing software).
2 Select the clip you intend to edit.
3 Move the pointer to the start of the clip so the first frame is in the editor
4 Select the START frame.
5 Crop the START frame to what you think is the correct size.
6 Move the START frame to center the action in the first frame.
7 Do the same for the END frame.
8 Playback the clip to proof
9 Change edits as required to make the most of the clip
**Note: Depending on the resolution of the clip, if you crop too much the clip will start to look grainy. This gets into a discussion of camera resolution, frame rate, and disk capacity. I will save that topic for another day.
Conclusion
Using the Ken Burns effect when editing clips from a GoPro or any other wide-angle lens can help put the viewer in the action of your hunt.
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