Learn Digital Video Editing

You can be told how to do a task, read about it until your head aches, and even watch someone do it right in front of you, but you’re not really learning unless you try it yourself! No matter what your skill level, playing around in an editing program for a couple of hours is likely to result in learning how to do something useful (or how not to do it!). There’s no need to be afraid of breaking your edit. Simply save it, or even save another copy under a new name, then start messing around.

Some Things You Can Try

• Try out different menu items at the top of the screen.
• Right click various places on the screen. Right clicking will bring up a menu and give you options you might not have known about.
• Try alternate clips or effects in a montage to see how it changes the feel of your video.
• Browsing the help topics (GASP!) and trying out some techniques described there.

Take yourself as far as you can, and if you think of something specific to try that you can’t quite figure out go ahead and tell me what you’re trying to accomplish. Maybe I can help.

Adding titles in Windows Movie Maker is simple.

1. Click “Tools” in the top menu.
2. Select “Titles” and “Credits”.
3. Choose where you want to add your title.
4. Type in the text.
5. Click “Done. Add title to movie”.

This is a quick way to add a title, but truth is, it looks horrible (Sorry. I know you were proud of yourself). Most Windows Movie Maker based edits will have the same title with the same fade in on a blue background.

These are the default options and most people leave them as is. They completely overlook at the customization that the program offers.

First, you have the option to change the title animation. Before you get carried away with these, take a second to consider whether you’re creating effects or adding distractions. Many of the animations included are cheesy. In my opinion, the two most useful ones, besides the default fade, are Basic Text and Subtitle. Basic Text isn’t an animation at all. It’s plan text on the page. Sometimes that’s all we need. Subtitles is similar. It’s smaller text in the lower portion of the screen. The centered text in Windows Movie Maker gets a little boring after awhile. It’s nice to be able to have static text in the lower part of the screen. This is also more useful for title overlays, since they don’t cover as much of the content of your video.

Your other title text options are for the font and color. This is also where you change the background color. Test out different font types from the drop down menu, choose your own color for the text, resize it if you want, and set the background color. For my example I’ve gone with gold text and a black background.

It’s not the most amazing title ever made, but we’re working with what we’ve got here. For Windows Movie Maker I think it’s pretty good. Definitely a huge improvement over our previous blue and white default title. It only takes an extra few clicks to customize your titles, and the result is a video that is less likely to be noticed as being a cheap WWM edit. Give it a shot!

Why is it you’ve come to the site? What type of help are you looking for? Please take a moment to leave a comment suggesting some topics for me to cover in the coming weeks. I’ll do my best to take the suggested topics and provide some information on them. Thanks!

It occurred to me that some people are ending up here after searching for split screens in Adobe Premiere, but don’t want an actual split screen effect. If you’re looking for a way to have two different clips playing simultaneously, today you’re in luck.

If there is a technical term for this type of effect, someone please let me know!

1. Start by importing your clips into the project and adding them both to the timeline. Position them on top of each other, and if you want, trim them to be the same size (you could always trim it later if you want to leave it for now).

2. In order to fit two clips on the screen, we’re going to have to crop some of the video, meaning a portion of each clip won’t be visible. Choose the Crop Effect and drag it onto the top clip to apply it.

3. With the top clip selected, go up to the effect controls. Twirl down the options for the Crop Effect by clicking on the little triangle to the left of it. Here you have the option to crop the top, left, right, or bottom of the clip. Whether you crop left/right or top/bottom will be depend on which type of split you want. Crop left/right for a vertical split, and top/bottom for a horizontal split. In this example I’m making a vertical split.

I’ve already applied a 50% left crop to the clip. As you can see, the screen is now split in two. If I play it back, both clips play at the same time. The problem, however, is that the action in both clips is getting cut off. Obviously we want both clips to play at the same time, but we want to see all the action as well. For this we’ll have to do some tweaking.

4. When you crop your clip, you want the total crop to be 50% so that the video will fill half the screen. For this particular clip it works out that by cropping 25% left and 25% right I end up with a clip half the size of the screen and still manage to keep most of the important video content visible. After applying that cropping though, the clip is sitting in the middle of the screen instead of to one side. The solution is to go to the Motion Effect and change the clip’s position. With the Motion Effect selected you can click and drag the clip over to the side where you want it.

5. Select the bottom clip and repeat the cropping process, only this time be sure to position the clip on the other side of the screen.

That’s all there is to it. If you have any troubles, please ask questions either via email or in the comments section.

A split screen is a fun effect which allows you to seamlessly combine two shots into one. This allows the same actor to play multiple roles at once!

The trickiest part about creating a split screen effect is actually shooting your video. You have to make sure the actor (or the actor’s shadow) doesn’t cross the line where you plan to create the split. You also have to make sure lighting stays consistent for both shots. Since this site is learn digital video editing, and not learn how to shoot video, I’m going to leave that part up to you.

For my split screen effect I decided to use an Image Matte effect. An Image Matte is a mask that is applied to a video track to remove certain parts of the video. The part that is removed is based on the information in the Matte Image specified. I made my own Matte Image using Photoshop.

The above image has a black side and a white side. I also applied a Gaussian Blur so that the line separating the two parts would be less defined. When we use this image as our Image Matte, the video in the black area will be removed. By putting the Image Matte on our top clip, it removes the left side of the clip, making the clip underneath visible.

How To Create A Split Screen Effect In Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0

1. Make a Matte Image.

2. In Premiere, add your two videos to the timeline, one on top of the other.

3. Click on the Effects Tab. Choose the Keying Effects folder. Drag “Image Matte Key” onto the top clip in the timeline.

4. Select your top clip in the timeline. In the Effect Controls Panel for that clip, twirl down the Image Matte Effect options. Click the setup button.

5. Choose the matte image from your hard drive.

6. Make sure “Matte Alpha” is selected instead of “Matte Luma”.

7. In your clip, if instead of seeing both actors at once you see none at all, check the “Reverse” checkbox.

That’s it! Watch your clip to see how it looks. You might find that you did a poor job shooting your video and there are lighting issues. You may need to do some editing to properly sync the acting taking place. If the split occurs in the wrong location, remake your image matte with the line in the desired spot.

There’s a tendency among new editors to leave too much extra footage before and after cuts. The result can be a snail paced scene with a lack of impact.

Fixing this problem is simple: cut the dead air! You can also tighten your edits and improve flow even more by overlapping the dialogue from the next shot with the current shot. I re-edited a part from Episode 4 of How Could It Not Happen to show how this can be used. In the “Loose Edit” there is a delay in the delivery of the line “What are you waiting for?”. In the “Tighter Edit” the audio from that line starts before the cut. This not only speeds up the pace, it effectively creates the impression that one character is cutting the other off.

A few months ago I created a tutorial for Heyday, my skateboarding site, that shows how to do a ramped slow mo using Adobe After Effects 7. Figured some readers here might find that useful, so enjoy!

In the introduction to video compression I mentioned that most editing programs come with built in compression options. Today I’m going to talk a bit about how to compress videos with Windows Movie Maker.

Where Are The Compression Options?

WWM doesn’t openly tell you that you’re compressing the video. Instead it simply gives you options under the title “Finish Movie” on the left hand side. Maybe you’ve even used it before and didn’t make the connection between finishing the movie and compressing the video information. Now you know!

What Settings Are The Best?

I’d love to give a quick answer, but there are no “best” settings because everyone has different needs for their video. In this case we’re going “Save To My Computer” and then post the videos online. I’m not choosing “Save To Web” because WWM will try to make me sign up for a video host. I already host my videos with Vimeo (today I’ll just be using the server space because I don’t want to show off these clips), so I don’t need one. Also, I want to know where my video is saved on my hard drive.

1. Choose a name for your video, then the location that you wish to save it.

2. On the next screen choose “Other Settings”. All of the options that come up with make a Windows Media Video (.wmv) file except for “DV-AVI (NTSC)” or DV-AVI(PAL)” if you’re using PAL. That setting will create a full quality .AVI file.

3. Consider your audience when choosing your compression setting. If you’re uploading a 45 minute video to the internet, using a high quality setting like “Video For Local Playback (2.1mbps)” will result in a very long download time. If you choose an option that compresses the video a lot like “Video For Dialup Access (38kbps), you’ll end up with poor quality. So which do you think is more important to your viewers? Clicking on an option will give you a file size estimate, as well as tell you some other things about the setting such as the resolution and frame rate. Keep these in mind when making your choice.

sky-lan.wmv

sky-dialup.wmv

If you still don’t know what to choose, try a few out and see how they look/sound. Above are link to two copies of the same video for you to preview.

An Introduction To Video Compression

Have you ever exported a finished edit, only to find that the file was so big you couldn’t upload it to a website, send it to a friend, or even burn it on a dvd? Or maybe you’ve created a masterpiece, exported, and upon playback your video looks like a bunch of ugly blocks and spots. Understanding video compression and learning how to use it will help you overcome these problems.

What Is Video Compression?

Video compression is a process that reduces the amount of data contained in a video file, thus making the file smaller. It is possible to compress digital video because it contains redundant information. Imagine a tripod shot of a plane flying across a blue sky. The majority of the background remains the same from frame to frame. Instead of storing the sky data for every frame, a compressed video can re-use the sky data from a previous frame until there is a change. So if the background is unchanged for 12 frames, the information can be stored in 1 frame instead of 12. The process takes place with each individual pixel, not just frames. This allows for the most efficient reduction of data redundancy.

Does Video Compression Affect Video Quality?

Yes. By reducing the amount of video data, it’s only natural that details of the video are lost. Before you decide to give up on video compression though, take note that even DVDs contain compressed video. Generally, high quality video is less compressed and takes up more disk space. Compressing video for the internet can be a challenge because you want to make the file small while keeping quality as high as possible. We’ve all seen blocky videos on the internet, especially on sites like You Tube, where they automatically compress the clips you upload. With some testing a tweaking though, it is possible to create web videos that still look good.

Video Codecs And Compression

Video is compressed by software or devices called Codecs (Compressor-Decompressor). Each codec uses a unique algorithm to eliminate data redundancy and make the file smaller. If you have ever tried played a downloaded video and had it fail, it may have been because your computer wasn’t equipped with the proper codec to interpret the video. Some popular codecs include DVIX, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, H.264, and WMV).

How To Compress Video

Every editing program comes with some built in compression features. When you render your project, there are options that allow you to configure how your video will be compressed. The more basic programs like Windows Movie Maker simplify the process by giving you several presets (guide here). Advanced programs give you total control on the settings. There are also third party programs such as Sorenson Squeeze and Mpeg Streamclip which allow you to import videos for compression. In future posts we’ll go through some specific options and recommend a few settings.

Sometimes when you’re putting together a scene you’ll notice drastic changes in the background sound, or even worse, clearly audible noises. This can be very distracting to the viewer. Luckily it’s fairly easy to fix by piecing in other audio clips.

This sample clip contains a shot with some unwanted background noise, the same clip again with the noise removed, and then the final clip with the room sound added. You may need to turn your speakers up a bit to catch the difference on the last two.

I’m using Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 for the example today, but this type of audio editing is possible in many programs. As long as you can separate the audio track from the video track, you’ll be able to pull this off.

A Problem Clip

During “raw 06.avi” something gets bumped and causes a noise. We must fix this catastrophe!

A Flawed Solution

Your first instinct might be to simply delete the audio track from the problem clip, thus deleting the audio problem. What seems like a good idea, however, poses another problem. Your location isn’t silent! It’s almost guaranteed that there is some sort of background sound or “room sound” in your shot. If the audio suddenly drops out completely, your viewer will hear the difference.

Here is the same piece of video with the audio from the noisy clip completely removed.

A Clean Edit

Here is the piece again with the room sound added. In this case I didn’t actually shoot any extra footage for the room sound, I simply took it from a part of the clip “saw 03.avi” in which I wasn’t speaking. The background sound from this shot matches perfectly with the other clips, creating an audio edit that will go unnoticed.

On future shoots you want to get some footage specifically for using as room sound. Once you’re done all of your takes, let the camera roll for about a minute. This will provide you enough extra audio that you should be able to repair any minor problems.