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John Dickow: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome back. Another episode of your drone questions answered. I'm John Dicka with the drone launch Academy here to answer your drone questions. And today's question is a pretty good one. It is what are the best, or what are the recommended editing software when it comes to drone footage today I have with me.

Kendall Marcourt, and he is a certified golf course superintendent. He's a founder owner of Precision Drone Mapping Services and a drone videographer. Kendall, thanks for joining me today. Thanks, John.

So before we get into the meat of this question, I'd love to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself, talk about what you do with drones. what kind of work do you do?

Kendall Marquardt: Sure. so I've been a photographer all my life. got into video when it came out and, You know, use those interests when I was out in the golf course. like using, um, photography work with whatever I'm doing. I've basically been a photographer since I could hold a camera. I got interested in drone work during the pandemic, when I was looking for something further because the business I was working on as a piano [00:01:00] technician, nothing was happening.

So. Being a photographer, I saw, Oh, real estate, good idea at the time. So what did you have to do? What was the best, equipment to have, or skill set to have was flying drones, doing 360, virtual tours. So I decided, yeah, drone, that sounds great. So I got into it. took my 107 prep course through drone launch Academy.

Thank you very much. Passed the first time, and went out and I made some artistic videos. Which were fun. I made a couple videos, one real estate and, another promo video for church which were paid jobs. So it did pay and then it kind of went from there. I got into mapping and that kind of thing.

And so I decided to couple that with my experience in golf course management and just see where that took me. So that's where I'm at right now.

John Dickow: Very cool. Very cool. And you'd shared some of the, footage, that you've taken in the past with me before we, started this interview and I'm, pulling some of it up right now.

And you mentioned your church job. I believe that was the Fulton church. beautiful footage there. And [00:02:00] then, moving over to this Zen of the golf course. I mean, it's, we're watching this and it's beautiful. fog rolling in through the trees and the sun coming up.

It's, beautiful footage, I gotta say. So I just compliments to you on that. The

Kendall Marquardt: Fulton church one was actually the first video I shot. with the drone. I was, really taken aback with the way it came out.

So you don't have to practice a long time to get something good. Just follow your instincts. Nice. I like

John Dickow: that advice. Let's get into the meat of this question and that's the best software, for editing your drone footage. can you just kind of share which software you

Kendall Marquardt: use? I got started video editing, actually doing sermons for Fulton Church. the software they were using was KdenLive, which is an open source product, so that's what I just started working with and having to line up the audio track with the Handycam video footage was quite a, skill building process, shall we say.

I used Kdenlive for quite a while, including doing, like daily videos at a Bible camp, [00:03:00] shooting images and, editing them, you know, power sessions, 400 images and videos for the next day's production. it is not without its, its glitches and things, but it worked pretty well.

along with that in the open source realm, I also use OpenShotGL, which is very similar, they're all. Non linear, video editing programs, but a simpler interface, not quite as busy because some of those interfaces, like in DaVinci Resolve, there's a lot of stuff going on and, you know, way more than I would ever use.

so I use those two. And then, as I got more involved in the Apple ecosystem, I just started using iMovie because it was really simple, really easy, and really fast, for me personally, I did download DaVinci Resolve, took a look at it a little bit and thought, yeah, that's too much for me to deal with right now for what I was doing.

So I've stuck with iMovie. All of these softwares, you know, YouTube is full of how to's and chips and tricks and things like that [00:04:00] to kind of cut your learning curve. I've gotten really great results, using iMovie. I don't see paying Apple to do Final Cut Pro. At least at this point in time, there's less expensive and, and simpler ways to do things.

John Dickow: Well, could I, would it be fair to say, you were not doing much video editing before you started doing this drone work? Is that correct?

Kendall Marquardt: No, no. I had, I started editing, doing the sermon videos in 2015. I had experienced, it was mostly just trial and error, experiment, what works, what doesn't work, and was able to carry that forward because doing the church and the Bible camp videos, I mean, those were power sessions and I had to learn not only, you know, doing the image manipulation and all that kind of thing, but getting the darn tech to work as we, well know.

John Dickow: Absolutely. So, I mean, you're saying this is open source. did you have to pay any money or do anything specific to acquire these, these softwares or this, some of the time you, you kind of were able to just download straight to your device.

Kendall Marquardt: Right. Straight to my device.

Trying to [00:05:00] keep costs down. Yeah. Kdenlive and OpenGL are both, free and, you know, iMovie comes with an Apple product. If you're using an Apple product and it can be on your phone, on your tablet or anything, I run Linux systems, so. those video editing and all kinds of, of stuff is available usually in the repositories of whatever distribution you're using, but, no cost, no cost.

John Dickow: that's good. And that's, that's perfect for somebody who's just trying to get into this space and, and really just get some experience under their belt and, to learn from there as you have, as if it was a video editor to another, are you the kind of editor who, sits down at your, computer, whether it's a PC, desktop, laptop at your desk, and moves the footage over?

Or are you the kind of person who likes to edit on the go and, and sometimes might edit on a phone or a tablet?

Kendall Marquardt: I prefer to do it post, image gathering, because photography, videography, whatever it is, is all about timing, just like. In the Zen of the golf course, the timing was right and you had [00:06:00] 15 minutes to collect it. but every other thing I've done in that realm has been go out and shoot, go out and shoot, and then come back and put the puzzle together and see what you come up with. there's a couple different philosophies of shooting video and a bunch of clips and then putting them together.

Or. Are you going to go out and shoot longer clips like three or five or maybe eight minutes? sure. It's a pain to sort through a long video clip like that, but I've found that there's been magical moments that have just popped up that, even if I'm doing stop video, start video as I'm flying, you never know.

You just, you just never know that the Fulton church video was the same way. You know, I was shooting clips there and flying around and shooting clips. I didn't have a big storyboard in my mind of what I was going to do. I just knew that the pastor wanted to get as much of that river in as he could.

That's what I did. And I flew through and flew around and I was like, wow, this is great. The way it came together. And then I, inserted the music track after I did all of the [00:07:00] video the way I wanted to, my son, the new pilot. does the opposite. He finds a soundtrack and then he makes the videos to fit.

So we were having a spirited discussion on that on the way down here. but no, that's pretty much the way I do it. I developed a workflow, when I was doing the Bible camps because I was coming up with for 400 images, videos, and, still shots a day. That I would then have to edit and produce a video for the next day's, group meeting.

So, I found that, six of them in a row. Six days of that. that got me into my workflow of, okay, you've got all these clips. Let's make a folder over here that's like a pre production and stuff I like goes in there. And I look at that folder and say, oh yeah, this one fits here and this one fits there and then start dropping them into the timeline and seeing how they stitch together.

that's one reason I really like what I've been doing with iMovie, because that's a really simple process. to shrink clips, make everything fit and the way you can drop in, text or messages or, still shots into some of the video clips.

It made [00:08:00] it really simple. I'd like to say I'm the laziest guy I know, so. I'm trying to find simple ways of doing things.

John Dickow: Yeah. Well, I mean, and sometimes it's, it's time saving too. and like you said, when you got a project, you got to turn around quickly. That's only to your advantage.

I'm with you. I'm the kind of editor who likes to lay it all on the table. not necessarily going in with, Shot by shot specifics of how something's going to be stitched together until it's all laid out there on the table. but the neat thing about a lot of the applications that you brought up it gives you the, option either, or you can sit at your computer and there's a computer desktop version of that software.

and you can, you know, use your multiple monitors or what have you, or if you're in the cab home or on the train home or something like that, you can already start selecting clips and ingesting them and tinkering around with them on your phone or any other mobile device. So, great suggestions.

Kendall Marquardt: Yeah.

the thing about editing is say you've got a clip that you really like, but there's a little bit of it that was, a movement or whatever. you can blend that in and use transitions to make even marginal shots look fantastic. But you're right, it's [00:09:00] all about, trying different things and finding out what works best for you, what makes the most sense for you.

John Dickow: Absolutely. what advice do you have for. People within the DLA community, our audience, our listeners who, want to do what you did apply drones to not just the work that you're already doing, but make it into your own business, make it into your own enterprise.

what advice would you have for, for those individuals?

Kendall Marquardt: the way I did it was kind of, I don't know if you want to say happenstance, but, I was just interested in flying drones. So I got a drone, I followed the steps, and then made it my own. I flew and photographed, videoed, and I just followed what my heart was telling me.

and the biggest thing is, is to not be afraid or intimidated by the process. Other people have done it. You can do it. if your interest level is there, the process will just work itself out. You just want to take, okay, did that. What's next? What's next? What's next? And follow it through. I created a vision in my head of how I wanted this drone business to work.

And Realized, okay, I [00:10:00] can see what's going on in my golf course management background and see how the two can connect. So I was taking something I already knew about golf courses and then applying something else that I knew about drones. it's a very personal thing. Very cool.

John Dickow: And that's valuable you obviously took all the right steps. You got your certifications, you, found a niche, but also, even in some of the conversation we were having before starting a recording, you find little ways to. Do yourself a favor here and, you're going to be heading to a conference and you're even, strategically position yourself, to meet the right people and talk to the right entities, to open more doors for yourself.

Kendall Marquardt: Yeah, exactly. once we made the decision to go to the conference and then I had to select a booth. I thought, oh, I'll do this one because it's right across from the international community. And then I saw, oh, there's some booths over here. And that group is really one of the target audiences I want to hit.

but that, that vision, I cast that a year ago and I thought, wow, this would be, the ultimate ESPN highlight to go to this conference. And then You know, the stars aligned and the projects [00:11:00] came together. That's like, okay, this is what we need to do and this is gonna give us a launch. I'll have my oldest daughter's a social media manager.

My other son, is a pilot. So the three of us are gonna be there, family of a business, and what can go wrong with that? the question you have to ask yourself, and answer honestly and thoroughly is why not? And you can apply that wherever in your life, why not?

John Dickow: I really appreciate that, that sentiment.

I appreciate the advice and also congratulations on getting as far as you've already gotten. and of course, lastly, thank you for coming out of this podcast and answering this question. I think, in this conversation, we've scraped the services of other topics. And so I'd love to have you back on at some point.

when maybe things are a little less busy and, maybe we can tackle another one of these related topics. Well, thank you, Kendall. And Hey, if you're watching, you want to submit your own drone question, please do. We will find the answer to it.

You can submit your question at YDQA. io, or if you're part of the drone launch connect community, go ahead and type in your question there. We'll see it. We'll find someone who can answer it in the meantime. We'll see you in the sky.