Using the exercise files

- If you're a premium member you have access to the Exercise Files used throughout this course. These files can be found on the Exercise Files tab on the main course page. I'll be providing several pre-production documents. You can peruse those in your own time since we won't have the opportunity to go into them in much detail in the course. I'll also be providing you some of the footage that we shot during the shoot. As you can see, I've organized it into different categorized folders. You can bring it into any editing software and edit your own version of the video if you like. In this course, we use the software HitFilm Express because it's a free software for both Mac and PC and has a lot of really great features that surpass other free editing solutions. Also, it's very similar in layout to many other editing software so you'll be able to learn the concepts here and apply them to so many other platforms. Now, we go into detail of how to use the software in the post-production chapter but let me give you a little bit of a primer now in case you want to set yourself up. Okay, so there are actually two downloads for this course. There's the regular Exercise Files and then there's a file called Demo Learning HitFilm. So let me first talk about the Demo media. This is simply a folder of media that you can use to practice with either in HitFilm or in any software that you like. It has some music. It has an interview. And it also has a bunch of b-roll of a chocolatier making truffles. Okay, and this interview describes the truffle making process. So you can use this however you like but I will say that in chapter four of this course I demonstrate how to use the software HitFilm Express, as I've told you before, and I use these assets in that demo. Okay? So this is here for you if you'd like to follow along with me but, again, if you're working in a different software you can feel free to use it in whatever software you like. So then there's the Exercise Files folder. And I'll just open that up for you here. There's some pre-production documents. Things like the script and equipment lists, the schedule, the shot list. So you can take a look at those as I go through them in the course. And then I also have Media and Project. Inside the Media folder is the collection of assets that we shot for this course. I do talk a lot in this course about how we shot the video in 4K which gives us a maximum flexibility in our resolution. It did come out to a little over twelve gigabytes, though, so in order to give you a more reasonable download size for your Exercise Files I did compress that so you will be working with 1080 HD media. So here I have my b-roll and then interviews, and music, screencap and stills so again you can use this in any software you like. Just import it and go. But again, because we are using HitFilm Express in this course due to it being a pretty robust, free and multiplatform option, I have provided you with the HitFilm project right here. You simply double-click on this file to open up HitFilm as long as you've downloaded it and it's ready to go in your system. Now I am going to do something here really quick before opening it which you may want to do to and that is to duplicate the project file. I'm just going to click on it and then press Command-D or CTRL+D on a PC and that's because in HitFilm you can only have one timeline at a time so if you want to retain the project that I've given you and then also have another project for you to start from scratch, go ahead and duplicate. So now I'm going to open up the duplicate so I'll double-click. And the first time you launch you may need to relink which is very easy. Go ahead and just double-click the top file which, in this case, it's looking for the First Interviews clip, and then once you find that it should find the rest. So I'll double-click and then I know it's in my Media folder and it's looking for Interviews. And I'll go ahead and select that one and open. Alright, and now everything is online here in the Editor and then also over here in the Media window. Alright, so I mentioned that you can only have one timeline going at a time within the Editor so, because this is duplicate, I'm just going to select one of these clips and then press Command-A or CTRL+A on a PC and then delete. Alright, and now I have a blank slate if I want to start from scratch. If you don't have access to the Exercise Files you can still follow along in the course to learn how to make a high-quality video with your smartphone.