Almost 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every single day! Of course, it doesn’t mean that these are all informative, hilarious and entertaining. Needless to say, there are many that don’t worth watching at all. A lot of this has to do with not only the content itself but also the shots and how they are edited. There are hundreds of millions of videos that are so slow-paced and sluggish with the camera panning left to right or the shots slowly fading from one to the next.
On the other hand, there are many others that really stand out from the crowd and more often than not become viral generating millions of views in an extremely short period of time. These montages tend to be faster pace and usually show some unique editing tricks. Take YouTuber Rory Kramer as an example. His videos have generated over 3.5 million views thus far whereas each piece typically reaches 100K views with ease.
One of the reasons why Kramer’s work is so popular on the social video platform (besides the content) obviously is closely related to the way he handles video editing and particularly shot transition. Instead of a simple cut or fade, for instance, the avid YouTuber uses multiple creative transitions one of which being the “Quick Whip”. Kyler Holland has put together a handy video tutorial that explains how to pull off this technique in a few easy steps.
To get started, you need to shoot your footage correctly in the first place. To do so, start Shot A by quickly moving from one direction and then to your subject. Float around the subject and then end the shot by moving away from it. In Shot B, start moving in the direction you left off from Shot A. For instance if you ended the first clip by moving the camera down, start the second one by going from up then down to your subject. The direction in which the two shots flow is up to you, but it’s usually best to shoot the beginning of Shot B in whichever direction Shot A ended with.
The next step is to take your clips and add them side-by-side into the timeline of your NLE. Find the point in Shot A where you start to pull the camera away and make a cut. Still looking at the same video, find the point where the motion begins to slow down then cut and delete the footage after that point.
In Shot B, find the point at the beginning wherein the camera is moving fast. Create a cut and delete any excess footage before that point. Then look for the moment where the motion starts to slow down and make a cut.
Afterward, adjust the clips so that they’re all next to each other. You should now have a total of four clips (three cuts in the middle). The next step is to combine the two middle clips (through nesting or using pre-comps depending on your editor of choice). Once this is done, increase the speed by around 1000 percent. That’s how literally you’ll add the “quick” into the “quick whip” transition. Finally, adjust the clips so that they are again in sequence one right after the other.
If your videos don’t blend well together, a useful tip is to animate them further by using a Gaussian blur. Add the filter to the first clip before the quick whip takes place. Just as the movement is about to happen in the shot, add a keyframe with the blur at 0. Move forward in the timeline to the point just before the shot ends and increase the blur to a value of your choice (around 25 is recommended). This subtle touch will help the quick whip transition occur more seamlessly in your composition.
Lastly, if you want to really sell the whipping motion consider adding a woosh sound effect during the transition. This should help to sell the rapid movement between the two shots more easily. Thankfully, Kyler Holland has also included a link to a woosh sound which you can use to complete the effect.
[source: Kyler Holland]
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