Video for Urban Gateways

My first video with non-profit Urban Gateways posted today. I edited together footage they have collected from volunteers and staff over the past several years into a promotional video. Urban Gateways is dedicated to bringing the arts to K-12 students.

While I didn't film any clips used in this piece, I feel it's not a bad example of my skills as a video editor. I went through three versions of the video with Urban Gateways, and they only requested minor revisions.

Like any good relationship, it's important for you to always communicate with your client. Creative freedom is a wonderful thing, but you won't be able to keep clients if you cannot give them a product that they like.

In this particular case, Urban Gateways knew they wanted a video featuring photos and video they've taken over the past few years, but they weren't really sure what they wanted. They picked out the media they liked best and I copied it over to a drive and began reviewing the footage.

As an editor, it's always important to keep your space organized, so I quickly sifted through the files and split them into video/photo groups before dividing them up by art discipline, student work, educators, and pre-made client videos. I then subdivided as necessary. Organizing your media can be one of the one of the longest tasks you must finish before editing can begin, especially when there's no documentation on what was shot, what the client really liked/didn't like in each clip and so on. I was sent about seven hours of footage, and it took about that long to get it mostly sorted out.

Organizing your media is incredibly important. By the end of the process you'll know what you have and you'll know where to find it. Being organized meant that I could quickly assemble my footage based off core requirements and then drop in alternatives when I used something Urban Gateways wasn't that excited about.

Once I finished organizing, I selected a student African drum and dance performance because I felt that was a better representation of Urban Gateways' identity than using random public domain music. I then laid out photos, video, and quotes over the base clip as necessary to cover video portions of the clip I didn't like. Once I had finished my rough draft, I sent it to Urban Gateways and we started review and revisions. The final product is above.

Don't forget to visit their website www.urbangateways.org