2019-01-02
Automating video editing
Since 2012, i changed my video editing style just by adding a camera for another point of view. First, i chopped the files at positions where it doesn't interrupt the flow at all, and switched the view between them at these particular moments in the timeline. But after having stopped making educational origami tutorials, this don't matter anymore for documentary purposes. Over the years, i improved the way i cut the videos. I developed patterns for consistent repeatable experiences, in terms of production "behind the scenes" and consumption for people on the internet. By doing this, i also made recording, editing and publishing everytime a little bit more efficient.
To a point where i got many thousands of videos made and uploaded to YouTube by myself in the past years. I wrote tools to get these things sorted, although still with some manual work involved, similar to "jigs" in the woodworking world. In the last days of December 2018, i translated my latest "editing style" into a script, completely replacing the need for GUI based Microsoft Movie Maker. And a lot of time is saved. All i need for a fairly finished video is to write the positions where the parts needs to be chopped, merged and processed into a simple text file, including special instructions, if required. And not selected portions will get automatically sped up to target size, among other things. My "video editing robot" is written in Perl, built from scratch and tested in less than two weeks, after years in the field.