Editing Tricks for Amateur Vacation Video #110

China 2001:  Wanxian

The ninth chapter of my China vacation DVD takes place in Wanxian, another port-of-call on the Yangtze River.  A colorful welcoming committee plays drums and bells as we climb up the Yangtze riverbank.  The guide's name is "Red Army" and there are nice clips from an open-air market.  "Ya wanna' buy a duck?"  No?  Then let's go to the acrobat show.

This is a nine-minute video, much longer than the the first eight chapters.  Half of it is edited from the acrobat and magic show.  Is it too long?  I guess that's individual taste, but I couldn't cut it because one of our friends was called on the stage to assist the magician.

Lessons Learned:

Editing follows the usual pattern of establishing location, variety of entertaining shots, humor, and good background music.
Be prepared to make tough choices when deciding what scenes should be shortened.

Suggestion:

This would be a candidate for two separate edits.  One version for friends who know the person in the magic show, and a shorter one for YouTube.

FYI:

All of the China trip vignettes are already loaded onto YouTube.  They may be viewed on one of my YouTube channels: HENBCtravel

I have three other channels that might be of interest:  HENBCvideo (miscellaneous videos that try to look professional, with particular respect for copyrights), RAGEAIR (advertises the licensing availability of my newsworthy videos), and this YouTube Channel of Shame (an odd collection of stuff, not respectful of others’ copyrights).