What's your diecast racing content workflow?
The Channel Guide has 50+ diecast racing channels in it and many of them put up new content on a weekly basis. It's really impressive to the point where we're quite possibly seeing the sport/hobby in its prime.
But creating all this content can also be very time-consuming, scary, and discouraging. Whether it's video or written or whatever, it's never just "point and shoot" and you magically have something to show people. I've talked with many folks about how they'd love to share their racing with the community but the idea of having to create videos and content stops them.
So what I'd like to discuss here is the process of creating content.
The process of creating content
I'm interested to learn about the workflows and routines people have created for themselves to churn out content. That's videos, Facebook posts, or anything else you push out related to diecast racing. What's your schedule? What's your order of operations? How do you keep things organized? When do you post your content?
My hope is that by sharing what your work flow looks like, it might give people that want to create, but aren't, a good foundation to try and use. And I'm in that group too...I'm not new to putting together videos but it's so infrequent that it feels like I'm starting over every time, which can be discouraging as much as anything else.
PS: We've talked a lot about video editing software in past topics, so while that's certainly part of your process, lets not just list out the software we use to put together videos - we have a lot of those topics already.
Discussion
I took a break from uploading videos for a while due to the fact that I just got a new camera and a PC, so I'm working out a video editor to use and learning it. I also need a new microphone because my new computer doesn't have one built-in.
While I am uploading videos, I'll find some free time during the week to record one - it usually takes 30-40 minutes to record it. Then, I transfer the files to Google Photos, download them to the computer, and edit them on Friday or Saturday, which takes about an hour. After that, I'll get the video out on Monday. It leaves me a lot of time to do other things while still providing a good amount of content.
As I said, I need a while to get my equipment under control, but I have 2 new tracks that I want to get some videos on - and I have a tournament to finish!
- I'll have to explore Google Photos as a transfer method. I've found getting videos from my phone to laptop quite a chore. — redlinederby
- My phone just autouploads them to my Google Photos account, then I can access the files via my computer's web browser and download them. The only downside is it can take a while to transfer, depending on your Internet speed. — MrFishyFish
From a schedule point of view, I try to have a race out Monday and or Tuesday each week, Stuntman Sam on Tuesday or Wednesday and the DSPN out Saturday (this is all NZ time). I sometimes schedule my YouTube videos if they are all ready, but often they are only just finished as I'm posting them.
At the Canyon, we shoot on 6 cameras (4x goPros, 1xiPhone and 1 Panasonic handycam) which is all recorded simultaneuously and without pause, start to finish (where possible) - meaning we don't stop and start the cameras, we leave them to capture everything. Depending on the race/comp I will also be making notes of which races had big crashes or close finishes etc so I can look out for them when editing
The footage is then downloaded to the computer and named appropriately - in our case by camera location, Chase cam, Carhooner corner etc. This makes it easier to identify what footage I'm trying to find when editing. I can't stress enough the importance of organisation at the start. Trust me you don't want to be trying to find footage that is named GP10000001000201 amognst stack of similarly named clips. Take 5 mins as soon as it's downloaded to your computer and name your videos.
I will sometimes also film some cutaways or filler shots if I feel it's needed for intros etc and add those in during editing.
In my editing program (I use Premiere) I load all the footage into one video bin and get them into an order that makes sense to me so when I'm looking for footage it makes it easier. For instance I have all my chase cam footage at the top, as this is what I use the most, then the next group down is the first corner cam, then jump cam etc (basically following the flow of my track).
Generally I will load all my raw chase cam clips into my timeline at once and start watching it and making my rough cuts them. I use keyboard shortcuts to ripple edit here as it is incredibly fast. What this means is when I get to the first part I want ot start the video, I hit the "Q" key. This deletes everything to the left of the playhead and moves everything in the timeline down to the last cut. I continue to watch till I see where I need the next cut then hit CMD+"K" (I'm on Mac), this adds a cut to the footage, then continue watching to where I want the clip to start again, then I hit "Q" it deletes back to the last cut and moves everything down so there is now now gap and I carry on that way till I complete the firt pass of cuts. Doing it this way, instead of using the mouse to trim and move everything can save you 20+mins depending on the size of your race/event. As I'm watching the footage through this first edit, I also make notes of where I need a particular extra shot (like jump cam etc) as you don't need every camera on every run if nothing interesting happened there.
Then once the rough cut is done, I go back and start to insert the replay footage and different angles.
Once the edit is pretty much how I want it I go and add the graphics, then commentary and finally the music and sound FX. I would strongly suggest not getting into all your music etc too early as it makes editing more messy when you are doing your commentary, as you'll find clips could be shorter to work better (or longer) and it's just more tracks to move. Wait till the commentary is locked down, then add the extras. The last step for me is any colour correction or final fixes.
At the canyon, because of the carnage that nearly always happens around the jump, or cool big air moments, I tend to use jump cam and Carhooner Corner cam in most replays, and only add the others in if there's something interesting.
Now, you totally don't need lots of cameras, they are just nice to haves. It makes editing a lot faster and easier if you only have one, but still name your footage :)
The DSPN report is a bit different as there are way more clips than I normally use and there is a lot more work in assembling the footage. As I'm only looking for highlights, it's a lot faster to load each clip into the Source monitor and quickly scroll throught he footage and select the clips I want to use. I do a rough edit of the whole thing, then as I'm commentating there is a lot more timing adjustments being made so I try to keep the number of tracks to a minimum to make it easier to work with.
Hope that helps.
Key Tips:
See if you can use ripple editing (via keyboard shortcuts), Learn your keyboard shortcuts for things you do all the time (like Reverse (J), Play (K) and fast forward (L) is pretty standard across most editing programs, CMD+K to cut at playhead etc), Name and organise your clips before you start editing
- Love your Chaos Canyon videos. Great insights on your workflow. I am struggling with the graphics. You make it sound so easy. But ive spent hours either trying to find or now im making my graphics to use for transitions/race results etc.,.Any tips on that part of the production? — TomKeegan
- Hey Tom. Graphics can be incredibly time consuming. For each competition where I've needed graphics, I have set up a new graphics template in Premiere - this is where you can load images, backgrounds etc and text boxes and then just load the template and change out the info each time. Even with a template it takes a long time with driver names, them names, positions etc if you have a large tournament. I try to keep that to a minimum now as most people skip through parts that aren't racing. Generally I'll design what I want in something like Photoshop or Illustrator, then split the elements into the parts I want to animate, save them out then load them into the template, add any animation etc. For example, if you look at my Chevy Showdown, I load the start graphics template, change the cars (clearcut in PS first), change the driver and team name text and that's it. All the animations and layout is done and is the same every time. Hope that helps — Chaos_Canyon
- Very good info here. Im working in Premiere too and was trying to find what you mentioned in your reply. Templates. I have my graphics set up from the first race vid I made but had no idea how to make those reusable across multiple video projects. Kept searching for tutorials but was using the wrong terms. — derherrmannator
- derherrmannator - Check out the "Video Revealed" Channel on YT. They do some excellent Premiere tutorials — Chaos_Canyon
I just started making videos of races but here is what I do so far:
I use:
-4 Cheap $20 cameras in fixed locations for start, top section, middle section, and camel humps, see my review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_YFyqGnTsk
-1 Gopro Hero 5 Session for the Finish Line close up, for close races.
-1 Samsung Galaxy S6 phone for the overhead of the 540 curve
-1 Samsung Galaxy S9 phone for my follow camera on the lower section
Takes me about 30 minutes to record 2 Groups of cars, so about 6 to 8 races or so.
Take me 1 hour just to download the files from the 7 cameras. For the cheap cameras i pull out the microSD card and put it in my pc and download direct from memory card.
Gopro, plug in usb and download file.
Phones, I just use www.wetransfer.com and email myself the files, up to 2GB in size. If larger, just plug int with the usb.
I hit record on all the cameras manually, and let them all record the full 30 to 40 minutes, except for the follow camera on my phone, which i start and stop for every race, as I always record with that in slow motion, it outputs the entire recording in slow mo, so i can do the stop/start of slow motion at any time, and i adjust that with the VSDC software.
I use VSDC software, cost about $20 for the year as it was on sale.
Takes about 6 hours of editing to get the final video, I am sure I can reduce the time as I go, as I've made some template videos for introduction, ending, transitions, etc.
I plan on doing 1 video per week, 2 max. during the summer as it's super hot outside. During cooler temperatures I should be able to do 2 videos per week with no problems, maybe more.
It's a lot of work, but the final outcome of the videos makes it worthwhile to share and enjoy with my kids and the rest of the world.
For me, as I'm track-less right now, my daily/weekly routine is mostly managing content. Since the heart of RLD is a message board, I'm constantly monitoring posts and trying to keep up with what's going on. My big job is making the stuff you share looks good and gets highlighted.
Then on Sunday night I take a look back and see what was trending the previous week and will write the Redline Rundown if there's enough to warrant highlighting. I also plan out the coming week's social media posts. I use Buffer to schedule FB and Instagram so everything happens automatically. Of course, if some hot topic pops up during the week, I'll push it out on-demand, but otherwise scheduling saves a lot of worry.