Master Underwater Video: The RAID Action Camera Course with Jeff Goodman (Part 9 of 9)

Published 3 weeks agoon July 17, 2026

Over the coming weeks, Jeff Goodman shares in part some key sections from his RAID Action Camera Video Course. Jeff has selected 9 extracts from the Underwater Video Course which will be published here at Scubaverse.com.

Part 9: An Introduction to Editing

Although for this course we are not delving too deeply into editing, it is important that you know some basic principles. I go through some basics of editing just to get you started, but I advise you to consider a separate course or some instruction to develop greater editing skills.

Editing is the other half of filmmaking and is equally as important as the filming itself.

At first, one may think that if the video footage is really good, then that’s the hardest part done and the rest is just a matter of going through the motions of putting it all together into sequences. Not quite!

action camera

Throughout my career, I have very occasionally seen great footage absolutely ruined by unsympathetic and bad editing. Conversely, I have seen terrible footage ‘rescued’ by a skilled editor. Not that editors can put in shots that simply do not exist, but they can manipulate sequence order, content and style to miraculously create a very watchable product from otherwise poor original material. You could put numerous editors in a room, all with the same video footage, and at the end of the day they could easily each make very different end products. It’s a bit like giving a cook a table full of ingredients without any recipe to follow and seeing what gets made. In all probability, it won’t be what you expected.

action camera

If you are doing camera work and editing, then you need to talk to yourself about what it is you are trying to achieve. Not so easy. As a camera person, you are in great danger of using a shot in a sequence simply because it took a great deal of effort to get in the first place. Try not to be precious about it. Once you get to the edit stage of your production, you need to mentally remove yourself from the filming memories and look at the ‘rushes’ (original clips) you have in the cold light of day, using only the material that is going to look good and fit well within the sequences you are about to create.

But even then, the story is not over. There is still all the fun of music, script, narration, sound effects, picture grading, titles and presentation to think about. But not for this course.

Find the full course at diveraid.com/action-camera.

Jeff Goodman

Jeff is a multiple award winning, freelance TV cameraman/film maker and author. Having made both terrestrial and marine films, it is the world's oceans and their conservation that hold his passion with over 10.000 dives in his career. Having filmed for international television companies around the world and author of two books on underwater filming, Jeff is Author/Programme Specialist for the 'Underwater Action Camera' course for the RAID training agency. Jeff has experienced the rapid advances in technology for diving as well as camera equipment and has also experienced much of our planet’s marine life, witnessing, first hand, many of the changes that have occurred to the wildlife and environment during that time. Jeff runs bespoke underwater video and editing workshops for the complete beginner up to the budding professional.