Makin' Movies
Lately I've been spending a lot of time fooling with audio and video on my computer(s). Up til very recently, this has been a very complex world, full of arcana such as codecs and containers and file formats. It still is somewhat complex, relatively, but best choices are emerging that make it easier for the average user to know what the defaults are, and not have to be concerned with an extraordinarily steep learning curve.
First and foremost, you're going to need a powerful computer - that much remains the same! Don't even think about editing video if you haven't got a good processor, plenty (and I mean plenty!) of hard drive, and as much RAM as you can possibly manage. Video, and even audio, require lots of power unless you want to spend a lot of time frustrated, waiting for the computer to do its job.
Next, get a couple of monitors. You can edit video (and certainly audio) with one, but you'll find yourself a lot happier if you have plenty of desktop space, and a way to segregate folders and files and supporting programs (like PhotoShop) on your desktop.
If it's video you're interested in, make sure you know the basics of your camera. Recently, I shot some video at a friend's wedding. The camera was a decent Canon pro-sumer model, and I set the audio to 16 bit (which is a decent quality) for the best sound reproduction. I had intended to transfer the footage to my Mac for editing using a little junky camera that played mini-DV tapes. But oddly, the computer wasn't recognizing the playback! I checked all the settings (I intended to import the footage into Final Cut Express), and everything looked right. But as it turns out, this camera, though it had digital out, had to be connected to the computer via USB (USB evidently taking precedence over FireWire in this instances). Once that mystery was solved, the next one was why did the audio not come through? In this case, it turns out that the camera will only handle 12-bit audio.
Actually, part of the point of this article is that if you make the right choices from the beginning, at least for the time being you're not going to have to worry about things like this! That is to say, use a newer model camera, the newest version of iMovie (Mac) or MovieMaker (Windows), (or some big brother software, like Final Cut for the Mac, and Premiere for Windows), and most of your settings will be default and everything will just happen the way it should - trust me!
As far as software is concerned, for most home movies - and frankly, for many corporate applications - you're going to have all the horsepower you need with the "included" software for each platform. iMovie and MovieMaker will both import your files, and let you drag and drop clips to a very easy-to-understand timeline. They both give you a selection of commonly used effects, and allow you to add titling. (Effects are things like fades and dissolves).
Many video cameras for sale today will be "high def," and offer the 16x9 format (wider than they are tall). The video quality is gorgeous, and if you use some simple rules of photography (don't shoot into the sun, frame your subject so that it's the most important thing in the frame, zoom to the point of emphasis, and so on), your footage should be more than adequate for most projects. It's always a good idea to plan ahead, shoot more than you think you're going to need, get lots of angles, hold your shot a little bit on either end, and don't talk while you're shooting! If you're going to use a tripod, if you can afford one, get a quick-release model - otherwise, you'll miss a shot that comes your way while you try to unscrew the camera from the plate.
Having said that, if you're going to need some very close shots, or if you're going to be zooming in from a long distance, seriously consider a tripod, because event he best "anti-shake" compensation won't make up for the normal movements you'll make while trying to hold the camera still.
Now that you've shot your video, it's time to transfer your clips to your editing platform. The important thing to note here is: transfer short clips that start a little before and end a little after the shot you actually intend to use. Otherwise, you spend a lot of precious time shuttling back and forth to find your in and out points - even with digital video - if you have big, long clips downloaded. And name your clips! If you have 10 of them, it's not a big deal to keep them tracked. If you have 50, it's another story.
When it comes to editing, less is more. A lot of crazy effects (just cause you have them) won't enhance your project. While breaking a long project into chapters is a good idea, and you can burn your project to DVD this way, a lot of transitioning and tons of effects rarely do anything to add to your story. Usually it's a good idea to choose a couple of transition types, a couple of fonts, and a single background, and let it go at that.
The next computer-based challenge is outputting your finished product. This has traditionally been one of the most problematic areas of home video production: what on earth are all those formats, and when would I use one?
First, know what you want to use your project for. If you plan to distribute it via DVD, keep the quality as high as possible. The limitation here will be what your processor can handle. In general, the larger the video size (720 480 is considered high quality at a 16 x 9 aspect ratio (movie style); 640 x 480 is a large 4 x 3 window (regular "TV"), and the higher the quality, the larger the file size. Your computer will work a lot harder to render a larger file than a smaller one, and may even bog down. So if you have a less-than-ideal computer, or a very long project, you may have to sacrifice some quality.
Save your project for DVD as a .mov (Quicktime) H-264.
If you plan on making a YouTube video out of your project, go with a smaller video window (320 x 240), .mov or .mp4. YouTube will be re-encoding, but at least you will be sending something decent quality, and not too big a file size.
I know there are video pros who will have better suggestions, and I also know I'm probably committing a Big Sin by looking for a one size fits all - but I am! It's very difficult to keep up with all the aspect ratios, file sizes, file types, containers, what will play back on what. So I just try to find something that works well in *most* cases, and hope for the best!
First and foremost, you're going to need a powerful computer - that much remains the same! Don't even think about editing video if you haven't got a good processor, plenty (and I mean plenty!) of hard drive, and as much RAM as you can possibly manage. Video, and even audio, require lots of power unless you want to spend a lot of time frustrated, waiting for the computer to do its job.
Next, get a couple of monitors. You can edit video (and certainly audio) with one, but you'll find yourself a lot happier if you have plenty of desktop space, and a way to segregate folders and files and supporting programs (like PhotoShop) on your desktop.
If it's video you're interested in, make sure you know the basics of your camera. Recently, I shot some video at a friend's wedding. The camera was a decent Canon pro-sumer model, and I set the audio to 16 bit (which is a decent quality) for the best sound reproduction. I had intended to transfer the footage to my Mac for editing using a little junky camera that played mini-DV tapes. But oddly, the computer wasn't recognizing the playback! I checked all the settings (I intended to import the footage into Final Cut Express), and everything looked right. But as it turns out, this camera, though it had digital out, had to be connected to the computer via USB (USB evidently taking precedence over FireWire in this instances). Once that mystery was solved, the next one was why did the audio not come through? In this case, it turns out that the camera will only handle 12-bit audio.
Actually, part of the point of this article is that if you make the right choices from the beginning, at least for the time being you're not going to have to worry about things like this! That is to say, use a newer model camera, the newest version of iMovie (Mac) or MovieMaker (Windows), (or some big brother software, like Final Cut for the Mac, and Premiere for Windows), and most of your settings will be default and everything will just happen the way it should - trust me!
As far as software is concerned, for most home movies - and frankly, for many corporate applications - you're going to have all the horsepower you need with the "included" software for each platform. iMovie and MovieMaker will both import your files, and let you drag and drop clips to a very easy-to-understand timeline. They both give you a selection of commonly used effects, and allow you to add titling. (Effects are things like fades and dissolves).
Many video cameras for sale today will be "high def," and offer the 16x9 format (wider than they are tall). The video quality is gorgeous, and if you use some simple rules of photography (don't shoot into the sun, frame your subject so that it's the most important thing in the frame, zoom to the point of emphasis, and so on), your footage should be more than adequate for most projects. It's always a good idea to plan ahead, shoot more than you think you're going to need, get lots of angles, hold your shot a little bit on either end, and don't talk while you're shooting! If you're going to use a tripod, if you can afford one, get a quick-release model - otherwise, you'll miss a shot that comes your way while you try to unscrew the camera from the plate.
Having said that, if you're going to need some very close shots, or if you're going to be zooming in from a long distance, seriously consider a tripod, because event he best "anti-shake" compensation won't make up for the normal movements you'll make while trying to hold the camera still.
Now that you've shot your video, it's time to transfer your clips to your editing platform. The important thing to note here is: transfer short clips that start a little before and end a little after the shot you actually intend to use. Otherwise, you spend a lot of precious time shuttling back and forth to find your in and out points - even with digital video - if you have big, long clips downloaded. And name your clips! If you have 10 of them, it's not a big deal to keep them tracked. If you have 50, it's another story.
When it comes to editing, less is more. A lot of crazy effects (just cause you have them) won't enhance your project. While breaking a long project into chapters is a good idea, and you can burn your project to DVD this way, a lot of transitioning and tons of effects rarely do anything to add to your story. Usually it's a good idea to choose a couple of transition types, a couple of fonts, and a single background, and let it go at that.
The next computer-based challenge is outputting your finished product. This has traditionally been one of the most problematic areas of home video production: what on earth are all those formats, and when would I use one?
First, know what you want to use your project for. If you plan to distribute it via DVD, keep the quality as high as possible. The limitation here will be what your processor can handle. In general, the larger the video size (720 480 is considered high quality at a 16 x 9 aspect ratio (movie style); 640 x 480 is a large 4 x 3 window (regular "TV"), and the higher the quality, the larger the file size. Your computer will work a lot harder to render a larger file than a smaller one, and may even bog down. So if you have a less-than-ideal computer, or a very long project, you may have to sacrifice some quality.
Save your project for DVD as a .mov (Quicktime) H-264.
If you plan on making a YouTube video out of your project, go with a smaller video window (320 x 240), .mov or .mp4. YouTube will be re-encoding, but at least you will be sending something decent quality, and not too big a file size.
I know there are video pros who will have better suggestions, and I also know I'm probably committing a Big Sin by looking for a one size fits all - but I am! It's very difficult to keep up with all the aspect ratios, file sizes, file types, containers, what will play back on what. So I just try to find something that works well in *most* cases, and hope for the best!
Comments