Filming and Editing a Parkour Video Properly

Have you been making a lot of videos lately and it seems like every on gets bad reviews on the forums? Well theirs probably a reason for this. A: your filming techniques aren’t what they should be, B: your editing techniques aren’t what they should be, or C: your parkour isn’t what it should be. Well this article is for A and B .. I can’t really help you with C that’s just good-ole practice and reading up on the basics or maybe another article

   Filming: Chances are most of your problems lie here. Most people when they go out to film a video all they do is have someone hold a camera from a distance and capture there run or they set it on something so that everyone can take part. Well sometimes this is ok. but most of the time its not.  Just sitting it down somewhere you can’t get that perfect angle that you might want. And having some one just hold to camera usually leaves the footage choppy and shaky and unless it goes along with the theme that you are trying to give your video .. like a chase theme .. you don’t want that. So investing in a Tripod is probably a good idea. They are cheap, you can set them up every where so you’re not looking for a wall set the camera up on, and they allow the person filming to film with out being shaky.

Now to some filming techniques. If you want to have a scene in you video where your the traceur is being followed but you want it to be smooth there are a number of things you can do to make this happen with limited resources. one is to have a friend pull you on a skateboard which might be a little noise but you can edit that out later. You can be pushed in a wheelchair which is probably the best. If possible driven in a car. Pretty much anything with wheels .. except bikes because you need both your hands for good balance and your risking falling and breaking your camera .. but then again your call.

  Angles are key in filming .. a good angle can bring more intensity to your video especially if the angle corresponds to the move that you are doing or environment.  The most common angle is probably a low angle looking up which gives the illusion that what ever you are doing is bigger then it really is making it seem that what ever you are doing is just that much harder. Other angles you can use are ones where the sun might be in the way giving a silhouette kind of feel. Just play with a butch of angles and ask your friends what they think .. then when you all agree on an angle that looks cool. Then everyone else who sees it will more then likely feel the same. 

Planning is key. Plan everything you are going to do be for you do it. The more effort you put into it and the more planning the better it will turn out. Don’t just go out and film you and your friends doing move after move over a rail while your camera sits there. It gets very boring very fast for the viewer. Try to put as many runs as possible with as much variety of movement as possible into your video. It just makes the video more interesting. And remember videos are supposed to be so that people may see how good you are that means all of your BEST footage should be put into the video .. not just every random vault that has already been in the video or your previous videos 1000 times. With all of this in mind .. your filming should be pretty damn good.


    Editing: I’m going to be very brief about this subject and only give basic do’s and don’ts  on account of there are so many editing programs and i do not know all of them and how they work. First thing is first taking the .. GO that someone yells when the camera is filming. You can usually do this by just putting the clip into the time line and just clicking at the very beginning of the clip and dragging your mouse to the right to take that part out. 

  Something you don’t want to do is load your video with useless effects. When you do this you might think it looks cool because you filmed it and you know what’s going on But the person who is viewing it wont be able to tell what is going on and will very annoyed with all of the nutty effects that you put in there that don’t even correspond to the video.

    A nice effect that is done often in a lot of videos but not always done right   is the angle change in the middle of a move. A lot of people attempt to do this effect in the filming stage of there video .. by having someone run up and do a move then stopping the camera in the middle of the move, moving the camera then attempting the catch your friend in the middle of the same move. I know some you have enough sense to not actually do it like that. But occasionally you get that one group of kids who don’t know any better and spend about 10 minutes going back and forth trying to capture that move. Don’t do that. All you have to do is film the move .. then film the same move again from a different angle. The rest is done while editing. Simply put both of the clips onto the timeline. Then cut the first angle to where you want to change .. lets say in the middle of a vault. Then take the second angle and simply just cut it where the first one leaves off.

   I have also noticed that a common effect is to have a move be done normal then played back in slow motion to caption the greatness of it... Note the greatness part. do not go through and do that with every little move you have it is very frustrating to the viewer. Only do it for extreme drops , gaps, kongs, etc.

   Lastly when your all done with your video, play it back a few times and watch it. Don’t think of yourself as a person who took part in this video but as someone who is watching it for the first time .. and see if it would be interesting to you. If you have a hard time doing this maybe find someone who has not seen it like ..  parent maybe. Have them watch it .. if they seem to like it and are into it the whole time .. then that’s good and that means a majority of other people will feel the same. But if it looks as if they don’t really want to be watching but just forcing them selves because their son or daughter had a part in it .. then ask them what they thin should be changed to make it look better .. and take their advice to a point .. because you have to understand they more then likely don’t know the first thing about parkour.



  So with all of this said, go out and make a video of your best parkour and I’ll be looking forward to seeing it on “Pics and Vids.”

    If i didn’t make something clear enough or you have a question P.M. at
deadpool or e-mail me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . or aim me at 
iamjacksbittersn

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