An Adventure in Video Editing – Part 1
As I said in my previous post I recently bought my first camcorder and have been playing around with it and various video editing products. The camera I choose with the Sony DCR-HC96 it is a modest standard definition MiniDV camcorder. Since I had no idea if I would even like video editing (I do I find it to be a great deal of fun, not to mention relaxing) I decided to go with a modest camera to start with. I suspect I will be moving to an HD grade one soon.
My plans were to use it and my Pentax K10D dSLR still camera and then combine the video and still images together in to… well as it turns out documentary type videos. For my first documentary I went to the Wings Over Wine Country Air Show at the Sonoma County airport (Northern California, about 65 miles north of San Francisco). I went with a good friend of mine and this was my first time going to an air show. I shot video and still images, but wasn’t able to stay for the entire event. So my first documentary isn’t complete.
I spent a few days with Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 learning how to use the video and audio tracks as well as key frames and other video and animation related technologies. Overall I found this whole thing easy to get my head around. The hard part is having the creativity to use these features in creative ways, there are nearly endless possibilities and that can seem a little daunting at first.
I got my video transferred to my computer, went through the 1247 still images I shot and picked out the best 100 or so, got them color and exposure adjusted and cropped (I love creative cropping and because the images for video are such low resolution compared to print you can do some really great creative cropping.)
I also decided to include a photo of the front of the airport, the airports logo, a scan of the air shows program cover and my admission ticket (before they tore part of it off) so that it would set the stage for where this was happening.
While I will freely admit that my first attempt is far from perfect, it was still a lot of fun and I already have ideas on how I am going to go back and make it even better. I can’t stress this enough. Just because the first go round with something, especially when you’re learning doesn’t turn out to be all you had hoped for. Don’t give up. Do some more research by looking at what others are doing this includes TV shows, TV commercials, YouTube videos (though a lot of these are not all that good, they can give some ideas that can be spiced up). Look for web sites with free video tutorials. My last post talked about the DJTV videos from Digital Juice (http://www.digitaljuice.com) which I have found to be incredibly helpful and they have given me a lot of ideas. All of these sources and more can help you improve. Just keep working with it making adjustments here and there, try new techniques, etc. and soon you will be surprised at what you are able to do.
In this spirit I am going to post links to each new version of my Air Show video. I have only gotten the first go around done and you can view it at:
http://www.archive.org/details/RobertBarnettWingsOverWineCountryAirshow2007
The above link will take you to a small flash video encoded version. If you want to see the full resolution version look at the top left of the screen under the thumbnails option and you will find a link to the full size (361MB) Mpeg 4 file (you will need Apple QuickTime to play the full size video back.)
A couple of things about this video, first it was done with Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 on a Windows Vista machine. I only used two other programs Adobe Photoshop CS3 and that was to create the section titles and to prepare the still images, airport logo, program cover, and the admission ticket. I also used Sonic Desktop’s Sonicfire Pro 4 software to generate the background music as I didn’t want to use the audio recorded with the video. Sonicfire is great because it allows you to generate music to a specific length quickly and easily. Everything else was done with Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0, no third party plug-ins were used. If you would like more information on Sonicfire Pro 4 you can visit the web site at: http://www.smartsound.com.
So keep checking this blog, once I get my next version of this done, I will post information and download information about it here.
Free Video Tutorials on Video Editing and More…
I have recently bought my first camcorder and have been spending more time playing around with video editing and other video related techniques. I was suprised that there is actually more to learn about video editing than there was about still photography (something I love to do). I started to look for tutorials that would help explain this complex yet fun process.
One of the best I have found is on the Digital Juice web site. Digital sells video related products like background animations, sound effects, music and more all for video editors. They also have their DJTV tutoiral videos that are just incredible. They cover a wide range of subjects the videos are free and are available in several different resolutions including ones for iPod that will also work with the AppleTV unit. If you would like to check out DJTV you can, there address is:
Very Cool Bridge CS3 Add-in Called “RapidFixer”
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could make Adobe Camera Raw adjustments right from inside of Adobe Bridge CS3 without ever having to go in to the ACR dialog box. Simply select the images you want to adjust and then have the most used ACR features show right up inside of the Bridge CS3 interface?
You can RapidFixer for Adobe Bridge CS3 lets you do this. It provides Bridge CS3 level access to the most used features in Adobe Camera Raw. For more information on this cool Bridge add-in and a video demonstration go to:
http://www.damuseful.com/pages/rapidfixer.html
Yep More IPod Touch… Apple Guided Tour… Very Cool!
Apple has posted on their site a very nice and informative Guided Tour of the new Apple iPod Touch. You can view it at:
http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/guidedtour/
I have to say the interface and feature set is quite impressive and just makes me want one even more. Since the iPod touch is only available in 8GB or 16GB versions storage space can become an issue. However, a nifty program called ShrinkMyTunes (Windows Only!) can compress (usually with very little loss of quality) your music files to half their original size or smaller. I have not tried this program but it sounds interesting and I have read at least one article on the program.
The Software: http://www.shrinkmytunes.com/en_gb/
The Article: http://www.wired.com/software/softwarereviews/news/2007/09/shrinkmytunes
Apple iPod touch Announced! Yes!
Well the Apple iPod touch has been announced and will ship by the end of September 2007 and I have to say I can’t wait. I bought my first iPod last year a 5th generation model and quickly fell in love with it. Not only is it like the ultimate juke box but with the video playback feature it is actually a portable entertainment system.
The new iPod touch besides having a larger screen is going to be able to handle widescreen videos better because when you turn it on its side the picture on the screen rotates just like it does on the iPhone.
With the new wi-fi capabilities getting music and video to the iPod touch is going to be a snap and with the new iTunes wi-fi update they just released iTunes 7.4 you can now shop, buy and download music and videos right from the iPod touch, this is going to be so cool (iPhone supported too.)
My only disappointment is the capacity of the two models of iPod touch. 8GB and 16GB are pretty good, but not nearly as nice as the larger capacities of the 5th generation of iPods. However we must understand a couple of things that help explains why Apple ended up with these capacities.
- The new larger screen on the iPod touch takes more power. LCD screens be they on a digital camera, cell phone, laptop, etc. are probably one of if not the largest power consumers on the device. So this had to be considered.
- A mini-hard drive like the 5th generation iPods have also consume considerably more power than the flash ram that the iPod touch uses. This power consumption coupled with that of the larger screen would have meant an iPod touch with very poor battery life and an iPod touch that was thicker and heavier too.
- To keep the iPod touch small, thin and light plus the need to address the power consumption issues meant that flash ram was a must. Otherwise we would have had a large device with poor battery life.
- Oh and lets not forget about the new wi-fi capabilities. This too consumes power and the hardware to pull this off also takes space in the unit. BTW a new version of iTunes is now available 7.4 adds wi-fi online shopping support for the iPhone and iPod touch. You can download it here:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
In the end Apple went the only route they could to offer the features and capabilities that they did with the size, weight and battery life they did. I for one think they made the best choices possible. Not perfect choices but the best they could with the technology we currently have. What we have to hope for now is that flash memory continues to grow in capacity, the prices keep dropping and that by the time the second generation of iPod touch comes out we will have 40GB and 80GB versions to choose from for less money than we are paying for the first generation. I think this could happen. I hope it does happen. Oh, there is one more advantage to the flash memory and that is no moving parts. This should mean the iPod touch is more reliable and impervious to storage damage and skipping if it is jarred hard, this was not the case with the hard drive based ones.
However, none of this is going to stop me from getting my hands on a iPod touch. I love my current iPod and fully expect to love the iPod touch even more.
