Editing Blog Lesson

Today we had a lesson about editing and how to use a camera. The first thing we learned was how to connect a camera to a tripod. For this specific tripod  there is a plate that you can connect to the camera and the tripod interchangablly. Flick a lever and the plate pops off. There is a knob on the plate to tighten or loosen it to take it off. Finally the very cool thing I learned, was there is a lever to change the camera height. This is special because it doesn't need to extend the tripods legs and is its own special thing.
       The next thing we learned was the editing process. We have to use pinnacle studios to edit our videos for everything we do this year. On our computer we can create a folder on the desktop. This will be used for inserting the SD Card information into the folder for use. After this, we can search for our footage as it is sorted by date and time. If the footage isn't in DCIM, it is probably in AVCHD so I have to remember to check both. Dumping is the term to dump footage onto the computer, which is an important keyword to remember. Importing is bringing footage from camera to computer which we do with the SD Card. Always remember to import all of your footage as you might need other ones later. This raw footage is the clips you will use to create your film when editing. Once you put your clips in the editing bar, wait for them to render in. If you do not wait it could cause massive issues so this is a good point. If I want to create effects, there is an effects panel which includes transitions, special effects, and more. Right clicking a clip also gives special features like the ability to speed it up. If I want to add text, there is a button with a capital "T" which will add text to overlay my editing. I think this can be useful because it can be a title during my commercial. By using multiple tracks I can change which clips are over another. This is used to create useful effects like split screen and other things!           
           Editing takes up the bulk of my time, so learning how to do it efficiently will be very useful. There are a variety of keyboard shortcuts I can use to make my life easier. For example, using ctrl z to undo an edit and k to start watching. Once I finalize my edits I will start exporting the project. Exporting is taking footage from Pinnacle Studios, and moving it to the desktop. Using Mp4 format with best possible quality and high render, are the best settings. Than you can start rendering your footage which is the final step before you can turn it in. Rendering combines all your clips and makes them smooth out, which is imparitive for the final product.