I have a love/hate relationship with post work. It's where all the magic of the final product comes together, but it can be oh so mundane and tedious. One editor is making it both more fun and more efficient by trading in his mouse and keyboard for something a bit more interesting: a video game controller.
If you think about it, at its core, a good editing plan has two aspects: control and efficiency. And really, video game controllers are built for just that. They're ergonomic, with all their buttons and joysticks within easy reach, they're designed to have a multitude of controls that enable different functions, and they're often highly customizable.
In the video above, Casey Faris walks us through how he set up and uses a $25 Logitech controller to edit. It's a particularly clever setup; Faris evades the issue of having fewer buttons than a keyboard by using certain trigger keys that instantly remap the controller on the fly, allowing him to have a completely different set of functions depending on the context. I'm always looking for new ways to speed up my editing process and to make it more interesting, and this seems like a particularly great solution to both those conundrums.