Workflow for video editing – sorting system

As I have alluded to in previous posts, one of the things I do on occasion, is edit video. Among many others, one of the communities I am happy to belong to, is that of YouTubers. Of my two YouTube channels, the one I spend the most time on, is my shooting sports channel; D20 Shooting Sports. In order to reduce the time I spend on video editing, I have spent some time building a workflow which works for me. It comprises the following elements:

• Sorting system for input files
  • Videos that I may or may not edit sorted in folders by year, month, day, and camera
  • Other source files (title splash, end splash, map zooms and so on) sorted by type
  • Music files sorted by public domain and licensed (with license information in the folder)
  • Sound effect files sorted by public domain and licensed (with license information in the folder)
• Sorting system for output files
  • Finished edits sorted in folders by year, channel, month, then day

I combine this with notes on when I’ve been at the range, to know where to look for specific files. It has worked well thus far. Perhaps most importantly, it is system agnostic, and – although it does require some time spent sorting (and yes, I do this manually) when I download my source files to my hard drive, it also means I never have to spend time looking through a large number of different videos before getting to the one I’m looking for.

As someone with a background in DAM, it might seem odd that I have chosen such a low-tech, manual system. The reason is simply that, great though a DAM is, it requires some level of critical mass before you can start to reap benefits. My operation is myself and my cameras, and even if I’ve got every camera with me (which I almost never do), and set them all up to shoot (which I almost never do), the resulting output is still so low that sorting manually is good enough.

My sorting system is helped greatly by the fact that I meticulously log all my trips to the range, meaning that I can look up when I was at the range to find the footage I’m looking for (and I only need to do so rarely, because I usually edit my videos within a few days of downloading the files from my cameras).