I’ve stalled on this video compilation for too long, especially since I have another waiting in the wings that now has far too many clips to add to it, but here it is, anyway: more of what goes on at the pond edge, mostly at night, but there are a couple day clips in there.
Now, I’m well aware that a video this length will cause a certain percentage of people to simply skip it, unable to maintain interest that long or choose to ‘spare’ so many minutes from their busy social media schedule to watch the whole thing – as you can tell, I’m not terribly in favor of such attitudes. I have toyed with the idea of making single clips with brief explanations, that I upload more frequently, but I remain undecided on this approach, for multiple reasons.
The first is, it will likely mean that I have a running backlog of clips, something hard to keep track of as I sit down to edit these (“Wait – I haven’t actually shown the behavior that I just referenced, have I?”) The second is, it’s easier to feature new activities or behavior immediately following the previous, for contrast and explanation and simply drama. The third is, as mentioned before, that nature photography/videography is about patience; some nights you’re waiting for something interesting to happen, tracking your subjects around as they display much the same behavior that you’re seen (and featured) many times before; some nights there’s very little activity; some nights there’s none. These clips have been edited down to the interesting bits – just not the ultra-sparse, 1.8 seconds of immediate action that gets featured elsewhere.
Then there’s the editing. For sure, I’m more likely to edit a shorter collection of clips, or a single one, faster and not stall on them as I do. It also makes the voiceover easier – at least, to a degree. Very often, what I have to show and what (I think) should be explained are two entirely different lengths. You’ll already find portions where I change what I’m saying as something happens, courtesy of putting together the clips and then playing them back in edited form to record the voiceover. There are several ways around this (perhaps more if I actually researched doing proper editing,) and I’m considering the merits of these.
Meanwhile, I’m also tossing around potential or active improvements to both video and audio, which will remain an ongoing thing I expect. Every change comes with its own challenges or issues, to the point that some are simply not worth making, but I have to find that out first ;-)
So, what will happen in the future? Not sure just yet. But you’ll definitely see it here (if you’re actually asking the question, care about the answer, or even exist – you know, that definition of “You.”)