Taking your footage into the editing bay is always a little nerve racking. Especially when you have shot something that cannot be re-made, something that was a one time only deal. Luckily for me my hard work this past weekend payed off. My worries of having not enough footage were put to rest as I eventually left a few clips on the cutting room floor.

One thing you struggle with in the field is coverage. Making a good interview is not just about good video of someone talking it is also about the B-roll. B-roll shots are those that are not of the subject of the interview but are almost stock footage that you take and then editing in, overlapping the audio throughout.

For me the wet weather of the weekend made me worried that I did not have my camera out enough to take great footage and that when I went to edit that I would not be able to have enough coverage to make the interviews and the entire segment flow the way I had wanted it to. Luckily for me my small Kodak Playsport saved the day. This small waterproof rugged camera that shoots 1080p was a life saver while hiking. I didn’t have to worry about the weather damaging it and it took some great footage.

Another problem that I ran into was exposure. The ever changing light in the rainforest valley caused me to have some over exposed interviews. I would set up the camera and then step to the side to record audio and also take the subjects focus off of the camera. This caused me to not notice when exposure had changed due to the sun emerging from behind a cloud.

I did some reasearch and found this tutorial that taught me all about how to do color and exposure correction in post production. This proved valuable when it came to salvaging the interviews and keeping the look of them as spectacular as I saw them while I was there.

4 Hours of editing for a 7 min segment. And I still want to fine tune it a little more to make it perfect.