I lost everything...
Given I have a bit more time in my hands than I’m usually accustomed to, I decided that it was time for a general facelift across my platforms and social networks. As part of that facelift, I wanted to update my video reel, a short compilation showcasing some of the work and my style. The one I used for almost 2 years as a backdrop on my website and as a “welcome” video to my YouTube channel, was pretty dated.
My approach to making this short video was to include scenes and footage from travel, short film, and b-roll videos that I’m most proud of, but at the same time tell a cohesive story. I took a pen and a paper and started building a high-level storyboard, listing scenes and footage off the top of my head that would compliment and fit with the story I wanted to tell.
Everything looks great on paper. When it’s time to edit, it’s a different story.
It took me a day to list everything I wanted to include. It seemed like a pretty straight forward editing workflow, so I didn’t think it’d take long. I set up my hard drive, monitor and peripherals from the night before, and I had even picked the theme song so I’d be ready to start editing the next day.
The next morning came and I jumped right in. I opened my editing software, created a new project, imported my theme song and powered on my external hard drive to extract all the great footage I had in mind, only to find out that everything dating April 2019 and earlier was gone…
That’s it. To photos, no clips, to songs, nothing. Literally, a year’s worth of footage vanished in thin air.
And then it hit me. I had made the conscious decision back then that once I edited a video, I’d delete all the footage I captured, just because I never thought I’d use it again. After all, unused footage that didn’t make the first edit, was worthless, right? At least that’s what I thought back then. I even remember making this argument to one of my good friends who was trying to convince me to invest in a 10TB cloud storage system. “Nope, I’m good with my 1TB external hard drive. I’ll delete everything I didn’t use.” I proclaimed.
I couldn’t be more wrong. I just found myself with a need to leverage all of the “useless” footage I had once capture to tell my story. And I’m talking about footage that didn’t make the first cut. The result was that I was now limited to pick from less than a year’s worth of work, and I had to make it fit the story.
Needless to say, it took me an entire day digging through up the remnants of a stupid decision early on in my cinematography journey, ensuring that had enough content to make it look like a worth-watching compilation of my work, even though it meant I had to use footage from just a handful of projects.
Thankfully, I was able to put together something that accurately represents my style and work and I feel proud of. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!
The moral of my story? Some things are worth saving, even if it seems unnecessary at the time. Investing in something that can securely store all your memories, work and life, isn’t an unnecessary expense. I now know from experience. Never the same mistake twice.
Till next time…
Check out my other videos here.
