editing/cutting video question

hi fran

just saw your comment about how you've so far managed to cut down the lucy footage to 30min.

my question is do you ever cut out any substantial smoking footage when you edit videos down?

also what is the main reason you do it? is it to keep the price and download size down, produce a better video, or both?

any chance you could ever release cut footage of several models in one video for a price?

Hi Tounge10. Below I state some of the basis of my edition process:

- Remove long moments (over 5 seconds) when nothing happens, i.e: moving or setting the camera to a new angle, conversations with the model when she has any question.
- Manage the multi-camera angles: I usually work with 3 cameras shooting at once from different angles. The selection of the camera is done during the edition.
- Removing some scenes that, in my opinion were faulty, perhaps a not so nice, or when the models is not comfortable with the pose or the situation, then I prefer to stop the scene and search alternatives before she continues smoking.
- Also, I usually remove the very first scene of the session. The reason is that the model feels on an unusual enviroment with a lot of backlight and in front of a camera. It is usual that they start to play with the smoke to see how it looks, but not inhaling at all or enjoying it, the model just enjoy the visuals of see her smoke backlightened and starts asking questions about how it looks everything, models say: 'wow, how beautiful the smoke looks', it remembers me to youtube videos with amateur smoking girls playing with the smoke, so I usually let the model play for a while to get used to the lighting, then I cut and start again, asking her to forget to look how the smoke looks. My experience tells me that is better that the model gets used to the lighting before starting, she asks all the questions, and when she is ready we can start. That's why many videos start with a cigarette half smoked.
- Also during the edition I try to give the video a pace, using as resource the multicameras to make more pleasant transitions, removing the moments when she wants to ask, and try to shorten it to deliver a nice pace.

I usually compile for each session from 90 to 140 minutes of footage coming from 3 cameras that were shooting the same scenario from different angles, so the model was in front of the camera from 35 minutes to 50 minutes. If you see this raw material, you will understand that is mandatory to remove those scenes when we talk, when she asks if her position is right, to change a light that is burning her face, camera shakes. I focus on a pleasant image, lighting and angles with a comfortable model rather than produce a 50 minutes boring video. I enjoy when I read those comments that say that a 25 minutes video was too short. Think that 25 minutes is a lot. 50 minutes will be boring except for those like to see how much a model can smoke in a raw. I know that many of you enjoy it. But I sacrifice this for the sake of the beauty of the images. I've seen several producers that made those looong videos of a model smoking many cigarettes in a raw without change the angle. My personal taste is that those videos are boring, of course is a personal taste.

Many people asked me to have access to the non-edited scenes, including the multi cam material (that's nearly two hours of material per video), but I don't see the way to host this big amount of data on the server. Also this raw material is backed up on an external hard disk that I keep, and since the cameras shoot in a raw non-compressed format, I'll need to compress this material and upload. Seriously I don't see the way to offer it as an alternative option, but if you are really interested in a special video to have access to the full session, please contact me and I'll try to help.

wow very, very informative. thanks for all this info and now i understand the process.

have just sent you an email with a request that i hope you could fullfill =)