Editing Tricks for Amateur Vacation Video #29

Antarctica 1998:  Ten Minutes

This was an early attempt to extract the "Best Of" from the original long edit.  I was corresponding with other early adopters of Pinnacle's Video Director, and they wanted to see what I was working on.
Angelfire.com offered free hosting up to five megabytes;  I created a rudimentary site with Microsoft Frontpage.  Then I produced and uploaded a low-resolution RealVideo file using Video Director 200.  "The Ten Minute Antarctica" is the first movie I ever posted to the Internet!

Scenes and sounds of whales, penguins, sea lions, and tourists are still pretty fun to watch.  accompanied by well-selected popular music this is a pretty good attempt at a tightly edited movie.  (See note below regarding copyrighted music.)  The "Cute Little Penguin" makes an appearance here, along with other humorous clips.

I think that this movie has a lot of the elements that create an audience favorite.  A re-edit would utilize royalty-free music but use many of the same scenes!

Note, this YouTube video saw a spike in viewership when our cruise ship, The Explorer, sank in Antarctic waters in 2007.  Thankfully no lives were lost, but the world lost a treasure ... "The Little Red Boat" which also took us to the Amazon in 1999.

Lessons Learned:

OMG!  Is this my FIRST "really good" edit??????

When you know you've done a good job, step away from the computer and celebrate!

Suggestion:

Replace the music with a royalty-free selection.

Good clip selection might benefit from some rearrangement that tells a story.

Music Copyright Considerations:

This is a short excerpt from one of my older edited videos.  It contains some identifiable music that is regrettably used without permission.  But remember the time this video was created; in 1998 the audience for this production was usually sitting in my living room.  "Fair Use" allowed me to use the music without consideration of copyright.

Today, with digital distribution, artists' rights deserve more attention.  Since this video is intended for non-profit illustration and educational purposes only, I believe that valid arguments can be made for its "Fair Use" in this situation.  Please understand that I do not encourage improper use of copyrighted material.