I enjoyed watching Brandon Li’s Hong Kong Strong. It is a film about the madness and beauty of this seemingly incredible city in the days leading up to Chinese New Year. Recently, Brandon joined YouTube and started posting cinematic vlogs. If I had to describe what kind of editing skills I’d like to learn in the future, this video would be a perfect example.
His Baja Vlog starts with a beautiful beach drone shot. At 0:06, an L-cut let the audio leads the picture and continues playing over the beginning of the Mexican Music band sequence. Through the first 10 seconds, we acknowledged where he was, what he did and what is his vlog about.
Start from 0:28, he cuts one shot to another where he uses flip and zoom transition to make the sequences change dramatically and smoothly. I saw a lot YouTube tutorial about how to make this particular transition. We can definitely use it when we switch locations from point A to point B.
A 0:43, he filmed his girlfriend from the back (medium shot), flip-flops in her hand (close-up shot) and arriving at the beach (wide shot). In his tutorial video, he explained how he does the fast zoom effect by using Beholder gimbal. From 0:57-0:58 is a perfect example of his signature zoom-in effect.
At 1:03, Action / Reaction shots heighten the action of the scene, as the camera shifts POV between Brandon’s camera and the tortilla making process. If you listen carefully, Brandon added Whoosh Transition Sound Effects when the tortilla was flying/flipping.
At 1:09, he slows down the speed of throwing and flipping the tortilla. At 1:25, he cuts back to the Mexican Music Band. With the acceleration of the music, the film becomes more rapid and compact. At 1:34, the music suddenly came to an end, the video flips to another sequence.
Instead of using slow-motion, he chose fast motion to speed up the road trip with fast zoom/swipe effect. I have to say, “wow, so cool.” However, the fast motion did cause some dizziness.
From 1:53, he cuts between the running and a variety of different scenes (roof, goats, cactus and sunset). At 3:58, with further accelerate the rhythm of the music, the film becomes faster and faster with fast zoom-out effect.
Brandon uses a lot of editing techniques that are not always needed for a simple video blog or a low budget documentary video. However, those stunning effects could help us to create a beautiful cinematic effect video.
More about Brandon’s editing style and gears:
What frame rate he used in his cinematic vlog:
Hong Kong Strong: Director’s Commentary:
This si awesome Winnie! Thanks for introducing him to me! I fund everything to be really informative and clearly explained. I especially liked video one of Brandon’s editing styles because he really hit on something I’ve been doing but didn’t realize I was doing: analyzing the conditions that make for a really awesome shot. Angle. Time of day. Weather conditions. Natural vs. Augmented light.
Good stuff! Thanks for sharing! Imma subscribe.
Thank you, Winnie.
I agree with Tiara, Brandon’s videos are really informative and well explained.
I’ve also subscribed and spent some time watching more of his videos. I especially enjoyed the one about how to choose the right lens for a shot – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7m9rpp-dYw (before I didn’t even consider filming with 10-18mm because of distortion)
and the one about 5 fast tips to fast-cut editing – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgEWNHVbk3U (great tips, check them out!)
His videos are awesome!