How is your video editing workflow?

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Jim & R Neal > Thanks a lot for sharing

I see you both are referring to the "Warp stabilizer" when it comes to stabilizing footage. I almost never use that (especially not the one in Premiere. The one in After Effects have way more options to get a nice track) I use Mocha Pro 5. It's a paid plugin, but worth every penny. I almost never lock my camera down (i like camera movement in my shots) 80% of the time I use my gimbal so stabilizing is a must if I want to get rid of the micro shakes that comes with that technique.

I also use stabilizing to smooth out slider motion since my slider is manuel and not motorized. So sometimes I have a hard time getting an even speed/motion across the slider. For that the build-in stabilizer in After Effects works perfect. I also use the motion tracker for removal of dust and so on as shown in the end of this little video I did https://vimeo.com/198739800

I have just done some experimentation and think that I'm gonna stabilize my clips after the rough cut and render them out as new files and replace the original clips. That way I don't have to spend time stabilizing clips that I end up not using, and also don't have any playback problems like I have with replaced After Effects Compositions.

/Per :-)

Welcome, Per!

Spent three days "on  the island" back in '84, on a trip to visit family in Norway and take a three-week look-around. Coming from the US west coast (Oregon), Copenhagen is the normal place to fly to and from there travel into Norway. Didn't make it to "mainland Europe", just traveled about the island some. Beautiful, all of it.

I shoot primarily a GH3, with some from Nikon D600's or other cams. Jim's workflow is a pretty solid one. I tend to mix a bit of color in a bit earlier, but I don't say it's smart to do so ... just that as impatient as I am to do what's fun to me (which is the color/tonality play-time!) I tend to look for any excuse to check out how it would look if ... 

I do some of my projects with both separate and cam-created sound, but if so, typically I'm planning on the separate sound being the main sound ... at times, I'll actually lay that out and cut the sound, then start laying out the clip sections to fit. Or a couple times I've laid out the separate sound on a track, then laid the video clips 'above' it, mated by sound, then started cutting the whole thing to what I needed or wanted to see. Sound is rather crucial to video, and was the part that at first caused me the most distress.

I tend to get the cutting done, then go to Audition to polish the sound, as Jim says.

I've been a portrait photographer as a living for over 38 years now, used to have a full custom printing lab besides our studio, and did printing for other portrait photographers who were as picky about skin tones as we were. So when we switched from our RB67 Pro-S cameras in the early 2000's, the wife and I (both photographers) got good at Lightroom and Photoshop. When first coming into video 5 years back, I wanted a Lightroom-style color correction control. Having spent a lot of time in video post working on learning video correction, I understand why that tool-layout isn't as fast and usable as a true video-post colorist workflow would want. The Lumetri panel has some good tools especially if you're working with an external control like Tangent's Ripple or Elements panels. Otherwise ... can be a bit slower. At times I use an app created by Patrick Zadrobilek of Austria, a user of SpeedGrade, to mod PrPro project files to use them still in "Direct Link" mode in the last SpeedGrade version Adobe released, do my color thing, then go back through Patrick's app to get the project back into PrPro 2017.

I prefer the greater tool-set and shot-matching capabilities of SpeedGrade to the Lumetri panel ... but for many smaller projects, I can blast through in Lumetri using the Ripple or Elements quite nicely. It's when you've got a lot of clips, or just need tight shot-matching, that Lumetri just doesn't cut it.

Jim is using Resolve quite a bit these days, which I've got on my machine also. Awesome app, but ... round-tripping or even just export-out to Resolve using EDL/XML/AAF file type work is enough time and pain I'd rather not ... mostly. So I still use Lumetri & SpeedGrade for the color.

As to Warp Stabilizer, video noise reduction, such effects ... they are such hardware hogs that I tend to identify if/where I'll need them, but leave those to near total last of the job. I will check after running vid noise reduction as to any changes I may need to do in color, but mostly, it's good to go.

The best tip for video post I've got? Work where you can control both light and background sound. Especially if you're not working 10-bit or better color media ... nail exposure and White Balance in-cam for "neutral" as much as humanly possible. Record the sound on multiple devices for backup and ... too often, 'primary' needs.

The less you leave to 'post', the faster you'll work, and the better your work will look.

Neil

I've also used the GH4.  Here's how I manage projects.

I transfer the entire card to an external drive as my first step, which I use for backup and archiving.  I then transfer that data to the internal Media drive for use in editing.  I will either start with a basic template Project, or start a new one.  My first step is to set the Ingest settings to create Cineform proxies, and I import, allowing the proxy media to be created.

I will do a rough cut of the project, syncing audio as I go just because the clips on which use dual-system sound are fairly few.  The majority of the footage uses only the camera-audio.  Doing it this way allows me to trim both video and audio at the same time.

I do my stabilization when I shoot, never afterwards.  I use a tripod, monopod, lenses with OIS, and this year I'll be adding a gimbal.  Having seen far too much bad "warp stabilizer", I strongly recommend avoiding it entirely.  Shoot it right so that you don't need to fix it in post.

Once basic editing is done, I do my audio work next.

I haven't needed After Effects on a project in a while, but if I did, I'd do this after audio.

Once audio is done, I do my color corrections.

I then export a review copy for viewing on a calibrated 50" plasma with 5.1 surround.

I make any necessary corrections, then export the final copy for delivery.