Video Editing Questions....

[Verb]

I need some help folks....

I am completely lost in this Video Editin Biz...

I am planning on video taping a Wedding for my best friend. I got one of those Digital Camcorders but I have no clue how to piece things together. What I want to do is combine a music video with clips of their wedding. Can Someone please let me know how to do that???


My computer is pretty updated so I think it can handle video editing.

I got a

Pentium IV 3.2
1024mb ram
Nvidia 6800GT Video Card
200GiG Hard Drive


PLease HELLLLPPPPP>>>>

 

[hitrack]

There is no way I could tell you how to do this in a step by step tutorial. But can give some advice of what I've found to work.

GOOD: Use windows movie maker and just add some transitions and titles aswell as your music.

Better: Ulead video studio. Comes in 2 flavours...standard and pro. Standard is like Windows movie maker but not as hurtin and can save it out in avi, or mpg.

Best: Adobe Premire coupled with Adobe After Effects. You can fukk with everything 7 ways from Sunday.

Grab Microsoft plus digital media edition and play with "photo story" really adds some kick ass effects to stills.

Ultimate: Get a G5 mac, dump 2 gigs of memory in it. Beg borrow or steal Final Cut Pro and you are good to go.

You can go here for xtra help.

 

[Dark-Shdz]

I need some help folks....

I am completely lost in this Video Editin Biz...

I am planning on video taping a Wedding for my best friend. I got one of those Digital Camcorders but I have no clue how to piece things together. What I want to do is combine a music video with clips of their wedding. Can Someone please let me know how to do that???


My computer is pretty updated so I think it can handle video editing.

I got a

Pentium IV 3.2
1024mb ram
Nvidia 6800GT Video Card
200GiG Hard Drive


PLease HELLLLPPPPP>>>>

Just my 2 cts... video editing isn't something one can just pick up and have a go @ it.. especially when it's such a huge event like a wedding where EVERYTHING important has to be recorded - best advice is for you to experiment with your camera a couple times BEFORE u record the wedding, get a feel for it, understand it's functions and have a 'storyboard' layed out of what you want your ending video to look like- that way u have an idea of what u want to film as you go in

equipment wise, your 'digital camera' well, i'm not sure what you have, but if it's one of those low end $1000 jobbies, i'd advise you to invest in a onboard light, least 10-20w- and maybe even a boom mic- most low end digital cameras mic's are good for mebbe 3-4 feet, and then you're hooped- remember, audio is 70% of what you see

lastly, good luck with the pc *grin*, i've seen some great proj's edited on a pc, but i'm a mac guy myself... if ya have any questions, feel free to msg- cheers

 

[MrDaty]

Experience Neccessary

The following website is known to be one of the best for the video editing hobby....

http://www.videohelp.com

For video editing I started by using Windows Movie Maker which is easy for beginners and will get you started.

I obtained music tracks by ripping songs from my own CD collection.

You will find that after about 10 hours of playing around with software and reading threads from videohelp, you will start to get a feel for the editing process.

I graduated from Movie Maker to a Kassa license of Vegas 5 which I have found to be a powerfull and easy to use video creation tool.

As far as hardware goes, your machine is good but should add a second hard drive.

Good luck.

 

[LonelyGhost]

couple other things:

#1. back-up, back-up, back-up!!! Never do the editing work on the original. Make copies and if you screw up you can start with one of the back-up copies. NEVER use the original!

#2. see #1 except in this case, have more than one person video-taping and taking stills. one dropped camera, one botched processing, one professional photographer going out of business can lose the whole works.

#3. for most guys this is a one day event to make a life-time commitment ... for most women, this is a life-time of planning for a one-day event! This is typically THE biggest day of their lives and they take it seriously!

Screw-ups are not appreciated.

This is also the day the bride officially starts thinning the herd of friends the groom has enjoyed and some assram with a cheap camera screwing up the memory of HER biggest day will quickly move to the top of the list to be removed from their social circle.

If this is your idea of a gift or you are the 'official' video recorder for this event, best to kiss your buddy good-bye now ... or ask for the #1 item on the bride's gift list and cough up the cash!!!

oh yeah ... good luck with this ...

 

[Venture70]

from my experience...

A few years ago I spent some time video taping and editing wedding videos for friends and family. The one thing that always makes the bride and groom VERY happy is to have people speak directly into the camera and:
-wish them well
- tell a favorite story about one of them
- [for older guests] have them share their 'secret' to a happy marriage
- etc.

Seriously, if you can get most of the guests off in a private corner and have them speak directly to the camera, I guarantee that the bride and groom will be thrilled with the video. In fact, at one wedding I went to smoke a J with a friend, lost track of time, and missed the bouquet toss, garter toss, and cutting of the cake. I knew the only way to make up for this was to get EVERYONE at the wedding to speak into the camera. I cajoled and bullied every single guest into saying something, and the bride and groom were THRILLED with the video - no mention at all of all the things I had missed.

Good luck [and for the record, windows movie maker will more than do for your needs - just keep the transisitions simple [crossfades are always best.]

 

[longing for Lisa]

I have been editing video for a few years ( Pornos not weddings ) and I taught myself by using the software that comes with Mac... however if you do not have access to a Mac, Adobe Premier only takes a few hours to figure out the basics and wedding videos don't require much more than straight cuts and a few titles. It is also very fun to play around with and very user friendly.

 

[Verb]

Thanx guyz for the tips...


I am lookin into some programs right now...




And Damn Lisa....Can I get a copy of your Work???

 

[deke]

I think before you invest in Adobe Premier, try and mess around with some free software. I think Premier goes for $700 USD. I have been looking around for a copy of premier for awhile.

 

[Verb]

I think before you invest in Adobe Premier, try and mess around with some free software. I think Premier goes for $700 USD. I have been looking around for a copy of premier for awhile.

I already downloaded a copy off a news server...

 

[WC Drifter]

Just a follow to Hi-Track who gave some very good advice.

A critical point is how you get the movie into your computer. You should be able to connect the camera to your PC via a 1394 firewire cable. They cost about $2 wholesale, but you can get one at many stores for only $29.99.

Make sure, and this is critical for quality, that you import the movie into your computer uncompressed in .AVI format. It uses about 10 Gigabytes per hour of movie, so you do need the hard drive space.

Using Microsoft Movie Maker, (I think you can work with AVI files with it) will get you used to basic editing features. It's when you can't do something that you want, that you look for other programs. I started using Sony Vegas Video 4, and just upgraded to version 5. This program is fantastic and does everything that I have ever wanted to do. From there you can get Sony (formerly Sonic Foundry) DVD architect to compile your DVD.

MyDVD does it to, for cheap, but like Microsoft Movie Maker, it's very basic.

Once your movie is done, you can then create the MPEG compressed file that you will need to create a DVD, or you can go low quality and compress it to SVGA.

For a wedding, the movie editor software will simply grab the pieces it needs from the original source files without actually damaging the source. So you can actually work on the original footage and have the movie created to a separate file when you are done. Then you can always go back and change the movie as you need to.

Alot of fun, but ALOT of work.

WCD