How to Edit Documentaries in Davinci Resolve

[@RonniesRambles]

Thank you, lots of good info to reference back to. The first one that perked me up as a standalone was the coloring timeline segments/categories. Best wishes in your career.

[@johanssonfilms]

Yeah that has been a gamechanger for me!

[@RyanWelch-aofilms]

Appreciate the video. I'm constantly trying to find the best system for longer docs. I'd agree the less bins the better, and I've been using this timeline structure for a bit, but even gleaned some good ideas from you here. Thanks for taking the time to create the video.

[@johanssonfilms]

It's the age-old challenge of trying to hold hours upon hours of footage at the front of your brain while you make your edit.... I've began to accept that the process is going to be messy regardless because creativity is ultimately messy!

[@asdfghjklasdfghjklq]

oooh I like your "select timeline" workflow, thank you

[@johanssonfilms]

Soooo much easier than digging through bins in my opinion!

[@StephenBillVideoEditing]

What an MVP, thanks Mark!

[@johanssonfilms]

Haha happy to help Stephen! Good luck on your edits!

[@deepcutsoundtracks]

Excellent tutorial! Thank you Mark!

[@johanssonfilms]

Glad you found it useful!

[@PatrickSpadrille]

I really think you would spend a lot less times using smart bins and perhaps keywords. Much faster and if you change anything after your first selection (assigning a new color to a shot you forgot the first time for example), it's automatically added to your smart bin.

[@johanssonfilms]

I hear ya. And I think that's a totally valid point. I just hate bins to be honest. Even if there's slight inefficiencies in this process of using timelines, it just gels better with my brain. I wish I could embrace smart bins more but every time I've tried I've just gotten frustrated. You've convinced me to at least give it another go though!

[@codyandvictoria]

Definitely gonna steal some of this organization workflow! Maybe a dumb question - but I'd be curious to see how, after all of this is done, you go about pulling footage from each of these bins and timelines and what not to add to your actual edit. Currently I'm using stacked timelines with ALL of the footage on the bottom timeline and the edit on the top timeline, but I'd love to get a little more organized.

[@johanssonfilms]

Oh hey guys! Thanks for watching! I totally remember watching your videos like 3 years ago, they helped through a lot of questions I had in the early days of my filmmaking! So cool that you’re still crushing it! That more or less sums up how I end up working with those timelines as well. At the end of the day you do have to still scroll back through your selects to find shots. This process at least helps narrow down the search so I know where everything is. Sometimes what I’ll do is if I know I need a lot of a certain type of footage (say lifestyle for example), I’ll just copy a big chunk of the selects stringout into my edit timeline and mess with it there. But this is kinda where the tidy organisation meets the chaos of creativity 😅

[@codyandvictoria]

The good old days of the camera tutorial boom HAHA. Now I'm stoked to watch other's do the tutorial work as I try to step up my own storytelling abilities. Super helpful though - I think just organizing things a little more will definitely improve our process.

[@johanssonfilms]

@codyandvictoria hahaha yeah I totally get that. Camera stuff is so clickable.. but so dry to make.. If you’re working on better story telling then I highly recommend breaking down your dialog/interviews into themes/ideas/different buckets. Then you get out of the world of boring linear story telling and into creating narrative arcs. It makes the whole process so much faster!

[@codyandvictoria]

@@johanssonfilms you hit the nail on the head. I’m struggling with that boring linear storytelling right now. Like always just hiking in to a location, camping, and then climbing and leaving. You can only make that video 100 times until it becomes a drag 😅 Also tough to make films about yourself tho… Anyway I’ve subbed! Really appreciate the replies and looking forward to more

[@johanssonfilms]

@codyandvictoria thanks for the sub! And totally. Making documentaries about yourself is really tough! Gotta find that balance between letting stories happen and making stories happen. It’s a weird head space! Thanks for the sub!

[@RajanKumar-g1w9u]

I really wanted this Type of Video, Thank you ❤️

[@johanssonfilms]

Happy you found it helpful! Let me know what you think of the template!

[@coachmental28]

Thx for sharing these insights with us!

[@johanssonfilms]

No problem! I remember being so lost with this stuff at one point in my editing career. Let me know if you have any other questions!

[@GlobalShutterNY]

Based on your preference to edit in the timeline and not from bins- have you tried the Cut Page Source Reel approach - I find it very useful to quickly create selects??

[@johanssonfilms]

I have, but I find it’s a bit clunky for larger projects because you end up leaving everything that you haven’t selected in bins, so if there’s anything I missed in my initial selects then I’m back into the bins again. It’s why I like having everything in a timeline then going from there. That way I never have to be in bins again.. as you can tell I’m very bin-adverse 😂 I would love to be able to make the cut page work for my workflow since it has the potential to be so fast, but it just doesn’t quite click with my brain!

[@juancarlos_mt]

Thanks!

[@johanssonfilms]

Glad you found it helpful!

[@jhonesreece4946]

Hello bro you Can make a tutorial on the mixing vocal in DaVinci resolve 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@johanssonfilms]

I’m not the best person to ask about vocal treatment to be honest. But I could point you in the right direction. Depending on the type of vocal, you’ll want to look into a couple different techniques: Compression and EQ. Compression allows you to even out the loud and quiet parts of your vocal make it easier to understand and clearer in the mix, and then the EQ can be used to sculpt the voice to make it more pleasing and less tiring on your ear. For example, you can remove harshness in the high frequencies of the voice or give someone’s voice a deeper quality by boosting the bass. I hope that helps a little!

[@CatitoArce]

Humm. Thank you. I wish you could "show instead of tell". I mean, when you are talking about Timelines, selects, sorting, etc.... I am sure the rest of your video provides value, but ....... I guess your style is not for me. Good luck

[@johanssonfilms]

Sorry you feel that way! It’s a fair bit of ground to cover from an information stand point which is why I included the template for download so you can try out for yourself and see what works for you. But if it’s not for you then it’s not for you.