Over time I have come to understand the different things that people are looking for with a free video editing tool.
They basically want something that will help them make a good video, quickly and at reasonable or zero cost.
To that end I am detailing here my top 5 tips for making your video look really good.
1) Start with good footage The old adage of "Garbage in: Garbage out" applies doubly so with video.
At some point along your journey to making a video you are going to end up compressing the footage to a codec (such as when you upload it to Youtube).
The result of this will be a loss of quality.
It is thus vitally important that you start with the best quality footage you can.
This means taking footage directly from the source.
This should be your camera/camcorder.
Don't be tempted to extract footage from a DVD, or copy footage from something on the internet.
The chances are that this will already be compressed and will put you on the back foot to start with.
Make your source footage as good as possible.
This also means making sure you shoot under the ideal conditions.
Make sure your footage is well it, the audio is as good as possible and you've framed your subject well (No cutting off the tops of heads or having someone slide out the side out the frame!) 2) Work out a storyboard first then edit it together When you bring the footage into your PC make sure you have some idea what you're going to do with it.
Create a storyboard first.
A lot of today's free editing tools have storyboard functions built in where you can drag and drop clips into a sequence to 'tell the story'.
This is the point where you find out whether you are missing any footage.
Did you get the footage of the family driving away for the vacation? If this is a wedding video did you get the bride throwing the bouquet, leaving the church and cutting the cake? If you missed any shots, the storyboard will tell you that.
Sometimes you can go back and pick-up these shots later, but with something like a wedding that's not going to be easy.
The storyboard will, at this point, allow you to specify how you want to move the story to bypass the clips you haven't got.
If you didn't get the shot of the bride and groom leaving the church in the limo, can you - instead - add a clip of people waving and then insert a photograph of the happy couple leaving from the official photo's? Or what about picking footage from some of the other folks who were there with their camcorders and making a 'montage' of them leaving.
Storyboarding is an excellent way of doing this.
3) Don't go overboard with the transitions We all like Star Wars.
It was seminal movie.
R2D2, C3PO, Luke and Leia etc.
Good vs evil.
Light vs dark.
Excellent.
But when you watch it have you ever noticed that there isn't a single shot where the transition between two scenes is straightforward? The screen 'swipes', or 'wipes' or 'blends' or 'swoops' between the two scenes adding some really impressive transitions.
Back in the late '70's these were all 'optical effects' (which meant they were done using lenses, optical printers and film rather than by computer).
Impressive though they were, I found them distracting.
Here's why: Too many fancy transitions spoil the effect and take the audience out of the movie.
Modern editing software usually comes packed with different transition effects.
Windows Movie Maker alone has 60 of them with such exotic names as "Whirlwind", "Sweep out", and "Wipe, narrow down".
It is very easy to add these and there is a temptation to put a different one between each cut.
DON'T! This will only detract from the quality of your footage.
Most transitions can be dealt with either as a straight cut (One scene goes directly to another with no obvious overlap), a dissolve (One scene slowly appears over the top of the last one as the last one disappears) or a fade (One scene disappears to black and a new scene appears from black).
If you start to use too many transitions they will distract from the movie and 'get in the way' 4) Keep it in the original form as long as possible (don't compress) I talked earlier on about how compression will cause you a problem.
This means that if you can avoid compressing your footage at all, please do.
In the normal course of events you will compress your footage when you take it out of a camera, re-compress it when adding titles and effects, and re-compress it again to write to DVD or to Youtube.
Each compression will lose quality.
If you can avoid any of these steps it will be better for your final output.
Does your editor allow you to do titling or simple effects? (This avoids one compression) Can your DVD authoring tool accept uncompressed input? (that saves another generation).
Things such as this will always improve your final result.
5) If shooting for YouTube use plain backgrounds and little movement YouTube has it's own specific problems which need to be addressed.
The nature of the small file size and high compression mean that anything on YouTube which has lots of movement will look quite blocky.
(You only have to look at the opening 2 seconds of Nickelback's "Rockstar" video on YouTube to understand what can happen to even a professional video when it get's compressed).
The best quality YouTube videos generally have the following things in common
The compression causes artifacts.
Minimising movement and keeping things simple allows the compression to work more efficiently thereby improving the file size.
Summary A bit of pre-thought and a few simple tasks will ensure that your video is optimised to be the best it possibly can be.
Don't try to cut corners because things like that will always catch up with you.
They basically want something that will help them make a good video, quickly and at reasonable or zero cost.
To that end I am detailing here my top 5 tips for making your video look really good.
1) Start with good footage The old adage of "Garbage in: Garbage out" applies doubly so with video.
At some point along your journey to making a video you are going to end up compressing the footage to a codec (such as when you upload it to Youtube).
The result of this will be a loss of quality.
It is thus vitally important that you start with the best quality footage you can.
This means taking footage directly from the source.
This should be your camera/camcorder.
Don't be tempted to extract footage from a DVD, or copy footage from something on the internet.
The chances are that this will already be compressed and will put you on the back foot to start with.
Make your source footage as good as possible.
This also means making sure you shoot under the ideal conditions.
Make sure your footage is well it, the audio is as good as possible and you've framed your subject well (No cutting off the tops of heads or having someone slide out the side out the frame!) 2) Work out a storyboard first then edit it together When you bring the footage into your PC make sure you have some idea what you're going to do with it.
Create a storyboard first.
A lot of today's free editing tools have storyboard functions built in where you can drag and drop clips into a sequence to 'tell the story'.
This is the point where you find out whether you are missing any footage.
Did you get the footage of the family driving away for the vacation? If this is a wedding video did you get the bride throwing the bouquet, leaving the church and cutting the cake? If you missed any shots, the storyboard will tell you that.
Sometimes you can go back and pick-up these shots later, but with something like a wedding that's not going to be easy.
The storyboard will, at this point, allow you to specify how you want to move the story to bypass the clips you haven't got.
If you didn't get the shot of the bride and groom leaving the church in the limo, can you - instead - add a clip of people waving and then insert a photograph of the happy couple leaving from the official photo's? Or what about picking footage from some of the other folks who were there with their camcorders and making a 'montage' of them leaving.
Storyboarding is an excellent way of doing this.
3) Don't go overboard with the transitions We all like Star Wars.
It was seminal movie.
R2D2, C3PO, Luke and Leia etc.
Good vs evil.
Light vs dark.
Excellent.
But when you watch it have you ever noticed that there isn't a single shot where the transition between two scenes is straightforward? The screen 'swipes', or 'wipes' or 'blends' or 'swoops' between the two scenes adding some really impressive transitions.
Back in the late '70's these were all 'optical effects' (which meant they were done using lenses, optical printers and film rather than by computer).
Impressive though they were, I found them distracting.
Here's why: Too many fancy transitions spoil the effect and take the audience out of the movie.
Modern editing software usually comes packed with different transition effects.
Windows Movie Maker alone has 60 of them with such exotic names as "Whirlwind", "Sweep out", and "Wipe, narrow down".
It is very easy to add these and there is a temptation to put a different one between each cut.
DON'T! This will only detract from the quality of your footage.
Most transitions can be dealt with either as a straight cut (One scene goes directly to another with no obvious overlap), a dissolve (One scene slowly appears over the top of the last one as the last one disappears) or a fade (One scene disappears to black and a new scene appears from black).
If you start to use too many transitions they will distract from the movie and 'get in the way' 4) Keep it in the original form as long as possible (don't compress) I talked earlier on about how compression will cause you a problem.
This means that if you can avoid compressing your footage at all, please do.
In the normal course of events you will compress your footage when you take it out of a camera, re-compress it when adding titles and effects, and re-compress it again to write to DVD or to Youtube.
Each compression will lose quality.
If you can avoid any of these steps it will be better for your final output.
Does your editor allow you to do titling or simple effects? (This avoids one compression) Can your DVD authoring tool accept uncompressed input? (that saves another generation).
Things such as this will always improve your final result.
5) If shooting for YouTube use plain backgrounds and little movement YouTube has it's own specific problems which need to be addressed.
The nature of the small file size and high compression mean that anything on YouTube which has lots of movement will look quite blocky.
(You only have to look at the opening 2 seconds of Nickelback's "Rockstar" video on YouTube to understand what can happen to even a professional video when it get's compressed).
The best quality YouTube videos generally have the following things in common
- The have minimal movement in the shot (Talking heads work very well)
- They are fairly plain in design (No flashy, multicoloured backgrounds)
- They are simple (Nothing complicated about the shot - minimal camera movement)
The compression causes artifacts.
Minimising movement and keeping things simple allows the compression to work more efficiently thereby improving the file size.
Summary A bit of pre-thought and a few simple tasks will ensure that your video is optimised to be the best it possibly can be.
Don't try to cut corners because things like that will always catch up with you.