Media Management, Paper Edit, and Process

Anyone who has created a video -- even a short one -- knows that organizing and managing the media (video and photos) is an essential step in preparing to edit. It can be a behemoth of a task, depending on how much media you have.

If you're me, you overshoot everything, and you end up with about 4,000 video clips and photos from Korea to organize and manage. I've had to break this into a few smaller chunks so as not to get overwhelmed. 

The first step was to create Albums in iCloud. I organized these by the locations of my pilgrimage trip: Seoul, Seosan, Ulsan, Eonyang, Incheon, and Returning Home.  This was fairly easy to do, as everything is automatically date stamped, and I knew from looking at the images where in my journey they were from.

Haemi Martyrs Shrine

I also had to prep my computer for editing. This meant several steps: clearing off non-essentials, backing everything up, and upgrading my OS to run Davinci Resolve (DR). 

I looked up the minimum required system requirements for DR and upgraded only as much as my 2020 MacBook Air could run. (Yeah, this got a little hairy, but I think I got it. We'll see how it goes when I start editing!)

My editor Derrick gave me great advice for this process, including buying a T7 Samsung solid state hard drive (about $200) on which to copy all this media, and from which I will work on my edit. Although I had a LaCie that was only a few months old (and was made for backing up the computer in general), Derrick said a solid state will do better in editing.

As I write this, the media is being copied from iCloud to the T7, and when that's done, I'll be doing the same thing from my miniSD card that came from the Osmo camera. 

After that's done, I will create sub-categories to further organize the clips for easy access. I've already marked several clips from the iCloud batch. 

I've also created a very rough outline/paper edit (which needs more detail). The first phase of that paper edit is to figure out how to structure the film. For example, I could do it geographically according to my travels; or I could string it according to dates in Korean history (thus jumping around geographically); or I could create a thematic approach that focuses on ideas, applying images accordingly.

What I've come up with is a little bit of a hybrid approach, where I follow my pilgrimage route with explanations about Korean Catholic martyrs and history, interspersed with the experiences of friends old and new, my reflections on life in Korea from 2002 and 2024. 

My goal for the end of March (this weekend) is to finish organizing my media. Then my goal in April is to start arranging a very rough assemble edit and get at least a draft of the script written. That may be a bit ambitious with the two jobs I'm working, but now that my other film SOULED is finished and will screen April 13, I anticipate a chunk of my brain will be freed up for this project.

Once I get to May, however, I will have to start notching up the work in preparation for summer, which will be largely focused on editing (with Derrick doing the actual edit along with color grading), recording the narration, and hiring a composer for music. 

I'm chomping at the bit, but first thing is first -- finish my teaching job for the year while I prepare to edit!