Dancer Archive
Thread: Videos, videos, videos!
picklesSW
Mon Jul 12, 2004 2:57 pm
#27
I'm the mac person here, and I'll admit it. I use Final Cut Pro to edit videos, which is why my videos are all QuickTime based.
For the record, as you pointed out Tiaga, just about any computer based editor is non-linear. WAAAAAY back when they didn't use computers to edit, you would edit directly to videotape. Meaning you pick your next piece of footage, cue it up, then dub it onto the edited reel directly, doing transitions and stuff by hand using a special piece of hardware. This is called 'linear' because if you then wanted to go back and, for example, add in a clip or a few frames of video near the beginning of your piece, you then had to re-edit the ENTIRE thing over again from that point on. Yuck!
Enter computers. Anytime you can arrange clips onto a timeline and shuffle them around, you are non-linear editing. And thank GOD.
As for Final Cut Pro, that 'Pro' on the end adds to the price. They do have a lower end version with most of the features called "Final Cut Express' which is about $400-$500 I believe.
As stated, I have access to this program because I am involved with an interactive media company that already owns it. The program is amazingly powerful, but when cutting SWG videos, you'll hardly scratch the surface. We're not cutting film here, we're not compositing 20 layers of video, we're not doing high def or any of that other crap. Simply stated, this app is severe overkill and I would not recommend buying it just to cut videos for SWG.
It does come with a neato package called LiveType. The opening credit sequence for Cantina Crawl 6 is a good example of what that app can do with a minimum of effort.
The very best tool for video editing is, believe it or not, what you already have. Your creativity. Take a look at what the Windspire guys did, and the tools they worked with. What makes a good video isn't cuts, fades, wipes, effects and cool titles. It's the ability to touch someone, make them laugh, make them cry, make them happy. Any editing package and any tools can be used to do this. Everything else is just glitz.
For the record, as you pointed out Tiaga, just about any computer based editor is non-linear. WAAAAAY back when they didn't use computers to edit, you would edit directly to videotape. Meaning you pick your next piece of footage, cue it up, then dub it onto the edited reel directly, doing transitions and stuff by hand using a special piece of hardware. This is called 'linear' because if you then wanted to go back and, for example, add in a clip or a few frames of video near the beginning of your piece, you then had to re-edit the ENTIRE thing over again from that point on. Yuck!
Enter computers. Anytime you can arrange clips onto a timeline and shuffle them around, you are non-linear editing. And thank GOD.
As for Final Cut Pro, that 'Pro' on the end adds to the price. They do have a lower end version with most of the features called "Final Cut Express' which is about $400-$500 I believe.
As stated, I have access to this program because I am involved with an interactive media company that already owns it. The program is amazingly powerful, but when cutting SWG videos, you'll hardly scratch the surface. We're not cutting film here, we're not compositing 20 layers of video, we're not doing high def or any of that other crap. Simply stated, this app is severe overkill and I would not recommend buying it just to cut videos for SWG.
It does come with a neato package called LiveType. The opening credit sequence for Cantina Crawl 6 is a good example of what that app can do with a minimum of effort.
The very best tool for video editing is, believe it or not, what you already have. Your creativity. Take a look at what the Windspire guys did, and the tools they worked with. What makes a good video isn't cuts, fades, wipes, effects and cool titles. It's the ability to touch someone, make them laugh, make them cry, make them happy. Any editing package and any tools can be used to do this. Everything else is just glitz.
Tiaga
Mon Jul 12, 2004 3:43 pm
#28
Very well put, Javier! (Can I plagiarize... er... copy some of that?) Mac's aren't a bad platform for video work, really, but there are things easily found, and as you said (And I agree) SWG videos will barely even start to scratch the surface. The effect in my video that most people comment on was, as far as the editing goes, a series of simple disolves - even the most basic program could have done it. Might even have been able to get VirtualDub to do it.
Balgosa, to my knowledge, uses Movie Maker 2. The Solar Flair video I know for sure does. (Recognized the effects from my brief stint with them. Think I remember seeing some MM effects from Balgosa's videos too.) And their videos aren't any less for it.
And Javier, what's this about video? It's all about razors and film! The term "cutting room floor" isn't just an analogy you know.
(Teasing.)
To my knowledge, the things I did in my video I don't think I could have done in MM:
The credit scroll... Very few programs think to let you have a really really really long text screen that you can get it all onscreen at once. And I really wanted to do that little detail that is so rarely done. To do that, I had a layer that was normal width, 10x height, used a titler to do a simple bottom to top scroll, then applied a perspective to it. While I'm not terribly familiar with MM, I can't picture it doing that.
The rapid cross-disolve close-up sequence. Dance With Me had 7 video layers. Of those, 2 were title layers (One regular sized, one super-sized with curley fries and a coke) and a layer I had as just a static image of my logo. Of the remaining four, I believe that all 4 are visible briefly during the cross-disolves. I know for sure at least 3 are. Can't do that without video layers, and I wanted the slight overlap in the disolves for effects.
Some of the transitions, especially the "custom" ones... But... So what? They are transitions. The derez transition I did because I committed an editing faux pas and needed to break things up somehow... The blur I did because I felt a disolve was too "gentle" and a cut too sudden.
Oh yeah, the zoom in the closing shot I probably would have had trouble doing. The pose at the end.. While the dance DOES stop and pose like that... It's very brief. So that's a freeze-frame with simulated zoom timed to match what the camera had been doing.
My next video... Well, I've got a few things up my sleeve for that one, and I KNOW that anything short of a pro package wouldn't be able to do what I want with relative ease. But I like toying with the technical size of things.
Anyway, Javier is absolutely correct... The best tool is your mind. If you just want to express your creativity without reading poorly written stereo instructions, Movie Maker is a perfectly good program, and has proven itself multiple times here. I post the others for completeness, and in case anyone else feels the urge to explore the possibilities. If anyone does.. You're in for one heck of a ride. But I wouldn't recommend shelling out money for anything, that's why I looked for a free alternative.
For the record, I do have a tiny teensy weensy bit of a background to draw on. (Which is why I know I had an editing faux pas.) But I really mean that tiny. I don't do anything like this professionally. The experience comes from my high school, which had a TV studio. I was on the crew for the televised morning show pretty much all 4 years I was there. I started on camera (Freshman always get camera so they can be bossed around) then moved up to CG/effects the next year. (CG = character generator - IE titles, not computer graphics, though technically it was that too.) We had a *gasp* linear editor there, a "video toaster" (Look it up) which was used for CG/effects and a few other things, and other misc stuff you'd find in a studio (Studio quality stuff, not something cobbled together... Well, not something cheap cobbled together.) My last year we got a mac with a whopping 20 gigs of storage (HUGE back then) and Adobe Premiere, thus my brief stint with it. I used it to totally butcher and deface the "Rambo" logo for a creative writing class project, and that's about it. It confused me. (We also had a lot of hiding places there for the videos that if anyone outside saw, many people would get in lots of trouble, possibly expelled/fired. Yes, the teacher running things was in on some of it. No, I'm not talking about pr0n either.)
Balgosa, to my knowledge, uses Movie Maker 2. The Solar Flair video I know for sure does. (Recognized the effects from my brief stint with them. Think I remember seeing some MM effects from Balgosa's videos too.) And their videos aren't any less for it.
And Javier, what's this about video? It's all about razors and film! The term "cutting room floor" isn't just an analogy you know.
(Teasing.)To my knowledge, the things I did in my video I don't think I could have done in MM:
The credit scroll... Very few programs think to let you have a really really really long text screen that you can get it all onscreen at once. And I really wanted to do that little detail that is so rarely done. To do that, I had a layer that was normal width, 10x height, used a titler to do a simple bottom to top scroll, then applied a perspective to it. While I'm not terribly familiar with MM, I can't picture it doing that.
The rapid cross-disolve close-up sequence. Dance With Me had 7 video layers. Of those, 2 were title layers (One regular sized, one super-sized with curley fries and a coke) and a layer I had as just a static image of my logo. Of the remaining four, I believe that all 4 are visible briefly during the cross-disolves. I know for sure at least 3 are. Can't do that without video layers, and I wanted the slight overlap in the disolves for effects.
Some of the transitions, especially the "custom" ones... But... So what? They are transitions. The derez transition I did because I committed an editing faux pas and needed to break things up somehow... The blur I did because I felt a disolve was too "gentle" and a cut too sudden.
Oh yeah, the zoom in the closing shot I probably would have had trouble doing. The pose at the end.. While the dance DOES stop and pose like that... It's very brief. So that's a freeze-frame with simulated zoom timed to match what the camera had been doing.
My next video... Well, I've got a few things up my sleeve for that one, and I KNOW that anything short of a pro package wouldn't be able to do what I want with relative ease. But I like toying with the technical size of things.
Anyway, Javier is absolutely correct... The best tool is your mind. If you just want to express your creativity without reading poorly written stereo instructions, Movie Maker is a perfectly good program, and has proven itself multiple times here. I post the others for completeness, and in case anyone else feels the urge to explore the possibilities. If anyone does.. You're in for one heck of a ride.
But I wouldn't recommend shelling out money for anything, that's why I looked for a free alternative.For the record, I do have a tiny teensy weensy bit of a background to draw on. (Which is why I know I had an editing faux pas.) But I really mean that tiny. I don't do anything like this professionally. The experience comes from my high school, which had a TV studio. I was on the crew for the televised morning show pretty much all 4 years I was there. I started on camera (Freshman always get camera so they can be bossed around) then moved up to CG/effects the next year. (CG = character generator - IE titles, not computer graphics, though technically it was that too.) We had a *gasp* linear editor there, a "video toaster" (Look it up) which was used for CG/effects and a few other things, and other misc stuff you'd find in a studio (Studio quality stuff, not something cobbled together... Well, not something cheap cobbled together.) My last year we got a mac with a whopping 20 gigs of storage (HUGE back then) and Adobe Premiere, thus my brief stint with it. I used it to totally butcher and deface the "Rambo" logo for a creative writing class project, and that's about it. It confused me. (We also had a lot of hiding places there for the videos that if anyone outside saw, many people would get in lots of trouble, possibly expelled/fired. Yes, the teacher running things was in on some of it. No, I'm not talking about pr0n either.)
Tiaga
Mon Jul 12, 2004 5:47 pm
#29
Ah! That's where I remembered seeing it from. As I recall you posted in either the thread for Ice Man, or in Javier's thread where he mentioned he'd be doing a CC video (The first time). Knew I'd seen yours somewhere but couldn't place WHERE.
Is there some preferred name you have for it? I'm guessing La Video is not it.
Is there some preferred name you have for it? I'm guessing La Video is not it.
bawler14
Mon Jul 12, 2004 7:08 pm
#30
You forgot the old Safety Dance video... it is somewhere deep in these boards... I think it was the first of it's kind, as in entertainer videos. It's classic.
Message Edited by bawler14 on 07-12-2004 07:33 PM
Groovymarlin
Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:23 pm
#31
The way you listed it (Fingertip/For Faz) is fine. I'll be more creative/inspired next time out.
Tiaga wrote:
Is there some preferred name you have for it? I'm guessing La Video is not it.
Balgosa
Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:58 pm
#32
wow that vid even "looks" old haha. Is that actually a NPC town medical center too?!
ArgentWulf
Tue Jul 13, 2004 4:47 am
#33
Thanx for updating the initial post Tiaga! Great information there. I have an idea I've been toying with and I'd like to do it as inexpensively as possible til I find out if i like doing it or not. Thanx again for the great tips.
kirah_ashlin
Tue Jul 13, 2004 4:59 am
#34
I've been toying with some ideas too, but don't know if I have the nerve or the spare braincells to tackle any of them!
Shyloche
Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:07 pm
#35
I don't have a timeline for my first video debut....but I use Adobe After Effects 6.0. I'm a 3d animator and this is what I use for my productions. Its an NLE. Not sure how much it costs....but I think its pretty good.
picklesSW
Thu Jul 15, 2004 4:01 am
#36
After Effects, far as I remember, is a compositing and special effects tool. It's fantastic at what it does, but it's not meant to be a NLE. Premiere is Adobe's NLE. Together, After Effects and Premiere make a killer team.
Xyrdre
Thu Jul 15, 2004 5:12 am
#37
You can easily use After Effects or Combustion for cutting. Really, for this kind of thing, Premiere/Final Cut Pro offer no real advantage over using the compositing software that I'venoticed. Also, both of these packages have vastly superior titling options than the editing softwares.
I too am a 3d animator, and funny thing is that even though I'm fully proficient with Premiere, I haven't actually used it in quite some time now. It's been far easier to just do my cutting in After Effects than to do any compositing/titling/effects, then export, then import into editors, only to recut.
I've got a little video project in mind now as well, but I'll have to practice some camera moves for a bit before really formalizing any preproduction. Any of you in-game video vets have any tips for getting good camera moves?
Balgosa
Thu Jul 15, 2004 6:09 am
#38
unless your broke like me . . and then you stick with MM2 actually tried the premiere demo and didnt like it though.
actually tried the premiere demo and didnt like it though.oh btw. .my new vid is in the Can. Editing it now..
picklesSW
Thu Jul 15, 2004 7:07 am
#39
After Effects is a special effects package focusing mostly on visual effects. It's a great app, and I personally wish I owned it, and I'm not bashing your software choice. I'm trying to prevent misinformation for those who may be looking to purchase a package. If people want to simply cut video, Premiere is a better choice. If they want to craft special visual effects and do advanced compositing, AE is a better choice.