Blackmagic Forum

Hello guys ,

Well , I've just took my first step of learning DaVinci resolve's most basics in each page. I've taken their online exam and thankfully passed. Now I'm wandering & wondering, What's next to do ? I can't stop thinking about just practicing what I've already learned enough to amp up my skills , and increase my subconscious sufficiency. Do you guys know any source of projects that I should head onto next ? What will you do in my place ?

Looking forward to your advices,
Cheers

For me, the point of doing the Beginner's Guide was that I had projects to edit and I wanted the work to go smooth.

You don't have any such work?

Sherief wrote:Hello guys ,

Well , I've just took my first step of learning DaVinci resolve's most basics in each page. I've taken their online exam and thankfully passed. Now I'm wandering & wondering, What's next to do ? I can't stop thinking about just practicing what I've already learned enough to amp up my skills , and increase my subconscious sufficiency. Do you guys know any source of projects that I should head onto next ? What will you do in my place ?

Looking forward to your advices,
Cheers

I can only tell you what I would do in my personel situation.
Two things, colorgrading and audio.

Colorgrading still is Resolves best function, and still is so difficult to do well.

Audio because a video/movie with bad audio is just, well, bad, and I really do not enjoy dealing with it. But it is soooo important. Sometimes you find a clip on youtube that seems interesting, and you play it. Then the audio is so bad, you click it away ...

Don't forget, audio is 50% of the viewing experience. A good soundtrack will bolster a less than perfect video. On the other hand, a mediocre soundtrack will drag a good video down with it. Unfortunately YouTube is full of great videos with lousy soundtracks.
Yes, there are a lot of YT videos with both bad video and audio, but that's another story.

If you are looking for practice projects: https://editstock.com

If you are looking for further training to expand your skills, consider pushing on with the additional certifications BMD offers?

Just a little thing, but you might want to put some time into learning the keyboard shortcuts. Using J, K and L to play, stop, reverse, or play faster for example, or use shift F12 to append at end, using q to switch between source and timeline, will speed up editing a lot. Not having to switch from keyboard to mouse all the time really makes a lot of difference.

Jim Simon wrote:For me, the point of doing the Beginner's Guide was that I had projects to edit and I wanted the work to go smooth.

You don't have any such work?

Unfortunately, no. I even had to download some random youtube videos in order to put them on my timeline and just practice my trimming ,ripple delete, etc.. but it got bored out quickly, since there was no outcome to look forward to.

Wouter Bouwens wrote:

Sherief wrote:Hello guys ,

Well , I've just took my first step of learning DaVinci resolve's most basics in each page. I've taken their online exam and thankfully passed. Now I'm wandering & wondering, What's next to do ? I can't stop thinking about just practicing what I've already learned enough to amp up my skills , and increase my subconscious sufficiency. Do you guys know any source of projects that I should head onto next ? What will you do in my place ?

Looking forward to your advices,
Cheers

I can only tell you what I would do in my personel situation.
Two things, colorgrading and audio.

Colorgrading still is Resolves best function, and still is so difficult to do well.

Audio because a video/movie with bad audio is just, well, bad, and I really do not enjoy dealing with it. But it is so important. Sometimes you find a clip on youtube that seems interesting, and you play it. Then the audio is so bad, you click it away ...

I'm very aware of what you're saying, especially the audio part. I even became more aware of how a lot of media content has just gone from 8/10 to 5/10 due to just poor audio quality or out of sync dialogue, or just a rubbish music soundtrack that doesn't fit the story. I've actually started to learn Color grading from scratch using the company's color correction book, But I'm starting to get a little bit anxious early on, It's not as much fun for me as editing , & trimming. I would enjoy a good combination of applying some grading on an image, but the learning mechanism is just too tiring. Maybe, it's just the beginning ,until we get to that juicy part where we have our project and do all the creativity by ourselves, so Until then.. I'm going to hold tight during this learning process.

Frank Engel wrote:If you are looking for practice projects: https://editstock.com

If you are looking for further training to expand your skills, consider pushing on with the additional certifications BMD offers?

One of the things I was looking forward to , is a website like this. So thank you so much for that. Don't forget, My inbox is open for more recommendations.

Charles Bennett wrote:Don't forget, audio is 50% of the viewing experience. A good soundtrack will bolster a less than perfect video. On the other hand, a mediocre soundtrack will drag a good video down with it. Unfortunately YouTube is full of great videos with lousy soundtracks.
Yes, there are a lot of YT videos with both bad video and audio, but that's another story.

I always feel like it's more than 50%, more like 70%, Especially when the audio has like some SFX that transfers you to a whole new dimension, What do you think ? I mean to put it out on a test, I had one of the trailers downloaded the last week, It was really amazing. But just for the sake of the test, I decided to hit the mute bottom..the result was obvious, I didn't get 1/10 the hit of that commercial that I took when the audio was on.. Even tho it was visually very appealing, and very well put on.

Wouter Bouwens wrote:Just a little thing, but you might want to put some time into learning the keyboard shortcuts. Using J, K and L to play, stop, reverse, or play faster for example, or use shift F12 to append at end, using q to switch between source and timeline, will speed up editing a lot. Not having to switch from keyboard to mouse all the time really makes a lot of difference.

It made a day & night difference for me, so yeah I'm trying to tone up that drill.

Sherief wrote:You don't have any such work?

Unfortunately, no.

Do you have a camera? Friends? Imagination?

If you don't have any paid work to do, be creative. Make your own.

Jim Simon wrote:

Sherief wrote:You don't have any such work?

Unfortunately, no.

Do you have a camera? Friends? Imagination?

If you don't have any paid work to do, be creative. Make your own.

I'll probably be having some raw canon shots by next month, one of my friends is making a music video with this. I'll make sure to toy with this footage a little bit.

There you go, that's perfect.

One tip: If there are any "performance" shots in the video, people actually singing or playing along to the song, have you friend feed the on-set audio playback into all cameras at the same time. Having that audio in your shots will make sync sooooo much easier.

Jim Simon wrote:There you go, that's perfect.

One tip: If there are any "performance" shots in the video, people actually singing or playing along to the song, have you friend feed the on-set audio playback into all cameras at the same time. Having that audio in your shots will make sync sooooo much easier.

I will , thanks for the advice.

Going back to the question of soundtracks, the two main objections I have regarding audio on so many YT videos is wind noise and totally inappropriate music at too high a level.
So many have wind noise which triggers the automatic gain control lowering the volume of the sound you want to hear to an inaudible level.
Choosing music is something you have to think about. These are some of the criteria I apply.
1. Does it fit the mood and content of the visuals?
2. Does its tempo fit the rhythm of the edit, and if it has one, the pacing of the voice over?
3. Is the instrumentation in keeping with the time period of what is in the visuals?
4. Does a sequence need music in the first place?
5. Do I actually like the piece of music?

I can say that in the decades that I have been scoring using Production music, I've not had a single complaint as to the choices I've made.

Charles Bennett wrote:Going back to the question of soundtracks, the two main objections I have regarding audio on so many YT videos is wind noise and totally inappropriate music at too high a level.
So many have wind noise which triggers the automatic gain control lowering the volume of the sound you want to hear to an inaudible level.
Choosing music is something you have to think about. These are some of the criteria I apply.
1. Does it fit the mood and content of the visuals?
2. Does its tempo fit the rhythm of the edit, and if it has one, the pacing of the voice over?
3. Is the instrumentation in keeping with the time period of what is in the visuals?
4. Does a sequence need music in the first place?
5. Do I actually like the piece of music?

I can say that in the decades that I have been scoring using Production music, I've not had a single complaint as to the choices I've made.

Sounds like a very wise approach, very good questions. I would love to see..or maybe "hear" this time some of your work.

I can't share any of the commercial projects because of copyright, but you could have a look at the videos on my YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF2WRgI-aMHjOttp-7TdQBQ

Charles Bennett wrote:I can't share any of the commercial projects because of copyright, but you could have a look at the videos on my YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF2WRgI-aMHjOttp-7TdQBQ

I watched a video, and ofcourse was focussed on the sound. It sounds so good you almost think you added the trainsounds in post? If you really recorded the sound live, it sound pretty amazing.

Yes, all the sounds are live and not added afterwards. All the sync audio is recorded on a Zoom H2n in M/S stereo. The camera receives the same audio from the line out on the H2n and is used for syncing later. It's also handy if I forgot to press record on the H2n.
It always pays to record audio properly in the first place before you get to post.
I do all my sound work in Pro Tools, not because there's anything wrong with Fairlight, it's just that I have used PT since 1994 and have my own rig.