Hi all,

What would you reccommend for editing gopro footage?
Prefrerably something affordable, Ive got nothing left after buying the camera 😉

Cheers

What platform are you on? Mac, Linux or Windows?

Gopro have their own editing suite but I didn’t get on with it.

Whatever is suggested or you end up using be prepared to spend a long, long time getting to grips with it. If you sign up with Vimeo they do a series of how-to videos to help you with both filming and editing.

I’m on a Mac so use the free (pre-installed) iMovie. Decent enough for me now – I’ve probably only used 5% of the features.

You can make something perfectly acceptable with the free go pro studio software. I bought premiere elements but keep going back to go pro studio.

As above GoPro’s own suite is pretty good, it’s complex, but then video editing is a complex thing until you’re used to it.

Microsoft Movie Maker is free, but last time I checked doesn’t have the option for HD output – which is a bit shit in 2015.

My Advice, edit as much as you can whilst you’re filming – I.E. don’t leave in on for a whole ride, think about what you want to film and just film that, you just need to trim the ends and put it all together then.

Some, well many, years ago we did some adventure filming for HTV so went along to their studios to get a few pointers about how to film -and it was film in those days. So:

start shooting several seconds before the action is to begin and stop several seconds after – gives the editing team something to set the scene if they need to.
try not to follow the action around – frame the shot and let things happen.
Don’t zoom – if you do then again leave a few seconds either side of zooming (not something to worry about with the GoPro)

Editing wise:
Try and tell a story so that the action is in context.

Generally unless something really interesting is happening long continuous shots get boring pretty quickly.

Don’t use lots of fancy transitions (or indeed any feature) just because it’s there: most films just use a straight cut or cross fade.

Watch lots of professional videos and try and analyse them to see what works and why.

https://vimeo.com/91496760

Adobe Premiere Pro. Theres a 30 trial version to see if you like it. Can render out to any res/aspect ratio or file type.

Microsoft Movie Maker is free, but last time I checked doesn’t have the option for HD output – which is a bit shit in 2015.

I saved my video file at 1080p this week using MM.

I use Lightworks, which is free and very comprehensive, much more so than the Apple/Microsoft stuff. It can be use to edit actual movies so is more than capable of doing a GoPro film. It takes a while to learn it as it is quite complicated but has a good online community where most questions are answered and, most importantly, you can really bugger about with the exposure and colours so the footage looks halfway decent.