Learn more about video editing with instructions on how I edited this gorgeous video celebrating America the Beautiful.

How I Made this Video

I love making videos like this one celebrating America the Beautiful.  More importantly, almost everyone likes watching videos like this.  Gorgeous visuals and quality music blended together with a peaceful, natural ease.

If you added some narration, you could turn this video into a message on many subjects other than the obvious:  Celebrating the Fourth of July in the United States.  Add some narration with a subtle sales message using a theme of solidarity and strength for your online audience, no matter what niche you are in.

To make this video, I gathered all the elements I needed into a new editing project in Final Cut.  I knew EXACTLY what kind of video I wanted to make, so it was just a matter of hunting for all the individual elements and then putting them together.

LAY DOWN A BACKGROUND

I first took a full screen, slowly waving flag animation and laid it down on video line one for the background.  I slowed it down further than it already was, bringing it down to about 50% speed.  To access speed in final cut, highlight the clip and control/click to bring up a menu for several attributes including speed.   The flag stays constant throughout the video so to make the clip long enough, I had to loop the animation several times.  It really did not loop well, I was a tad disappointed.  There was a pretty bad shadow jump but I lived with it.  Did you notice?  Probably not.  One in 10,000 people would probably notice a detail that small so I decided it was not worth the time and effort it would take to dump the clip and finding another one.

As I often do with background clips, I took the flag out of focus with a gausian blur filter.  Doing this makes the video you stack on top of it pop-out better.  The flag is a background, and it needs to be unobtrusive as it adds to the overall affect.

I then got a shot of the Statue of Liberty and put it on video line #2 in my timeline.  I matted out the background, which was mostly blue sky, with an 8-point garbage matt filter.  I softened the edges of it quite a bit, so some sky still shows around her.  The blue sky looks pretty on top of the flag.

DIGITAL, KEYFRAME ZOOM-IN

Then I keyframed the zoom-in to Lady Liberty’s face.    The original shot was just a static wide shot.  I wanted a zoom in on her face so I did it digitally with keyframes.  To do this, you put a keyframe at the beginning of the shot.  Then you add another keyframe at the point where you want the movement to stop.  On the first keyframe, you give the clip one size attribute and on the second keyframe, you give it another, closer-in size attribute. To zoom in on the face and get it centered correctly, it was also necessary for me to keyframe the center point of the 8-point garbage matt.    An 8-point garbage matt is a filter where you select 8 points within the clip to design the shape of the matt.  You use this for odd-shaped objects.

I brought the opacity (transparency) down of the clip just a touch so you could see the flag waving thru her face.  The Statue of Liberty also stays all the way through the video and I wanted it to blend well with the flag, so I made her semi-transparent, and gave her an 80% opacity.   Fiddling with the opacity of clips is one of the easiest ways to give a video an artistic touch.

ROYALTY FREE MUSIC IS ALWAYS BEST

The music is a one-minute royalty free clip of America the Beautiful.  With a classic song like that, the song itself is in the public domain but the performance is usually not.  It would not be lawful for me to take a performance by a popular artist singing America the Beautiful and use it with my video.  Since it is a public domain song, I could sing and record it but TRUST ME, no one with ears wants to listen to me sing.  So I stick with a royalty free clip.

FILL IN THE VIDEO

Now, the rest of the edit job consisted of filling in the rest of the timeline with visual images that flowed together nicely, and giving the overall piece a soothing cadence.

I gathered up lots of royalty free video clips I already own and have stored on my computer.  Any shot the could be labeled “Americana” I selected and put into the bin.  City skylines, national parks, gorgeous scenery.  I drug the clips into my bin in my final cut project.

I spent the next few hours putting them on top of  the flag.  I adjusted the size, gave nice, soft edges for the borders, added drop shadows.   Some clips looked better if I cut them out with an oval matte.  The oval matt is found in “filters.”    I adjusted the position of the clips with keyframing.  I made the clips move in from outside of the frame using key framing.  I added keyframe to the clips and adjusted the center position to make them move into the frame and snuggle close to Lady Liberty.

DISSOLVES ARE GREAT EDITING TRANSITIONS

I mix the shots in and out using good, old-fashioned dissolves and fades.  Nothing beats a dissolve or fade.  (A dissolve is where one shot fades out and another fades in.  A fade is where there is only one shot, and it fades in from nothingness.   This is actually an adjustment to the opacity of the shot.)

I adjusted the speed of many of the dissolves here to make the pace a bit slower and to make it all blend more smoothly.  The default dissolve is 1 second, or 30-frames.   I like to slow that down to 2 or 3 seconds for a more peaceful feeling.  You do this by double clicking on the dissolve icon once it is in the timeline.  this pouts it back into your viewer window.  From the viewer window, you can adjust the length of the dissolve.

Once I am done tweaking my keyframes and getting the movement speeds to fit the moment, I pronounce in done.

Finis!

Last step is to convert the video into a sharing format for upload to the web.  I export the timeline as an MPEG4 for upload to the internet. MPEG4 is one of my favorites because it looks good but has a small file size.  The video host I use, veeple, converts it to flash.  Veeple gives me some embed code which I copy/paste into the blog so you can see the video.

And there you have it folks!  Another exciting video editing journey with Lorraine Grula, Internet Video Gal.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips!

Technorati Tags: edit video, how to make video, make video, video america the beautiful, video editing techniques, video production techniques, watch video

Post production editing is always one of my favorite parts of the over all video production cycle.  I personally edit on Final Cut, but there are many incredible programs out there to choose from.  I wish there were enough time in the day for me to learn them all!  But alas….Step by Step Editing Description

The other day, I posted a description of the pre-production and production phases of a marketing video I produced for WebSpaceBuddy, a website of a client.  Here is my promised second post about the post-production, or editing phase.

The first step in post production is to gather all your building block elements into a new project.  Open a new project and do a “save as,” same as you would with a Word document.  

IMPORTANT EDIT TIP!

File management, or where you put your video and audio files to use for your projects, is an important consideration with any video editing program.   I hear some people gripe about Final Cut’s capability with file management.  I think the key is to be organized in the front end stage of naming and organizing your files and folders.  Develop a consist file organization strategy so you can find files and projects later.  Be warned that moving files later on can cause them to go offline and you’ve got to go hunt them down.  Some programs do a much better than job than final cut at keeping up with neurotic editors who are always moving master files.  In Final Cut, you can reconnect offline files through File>Reconnect media.

This is a typical project for me and I need to gather a typical list of building block elements: a background, ten or so jpeg royalty free file images fitting the subject matter, and appropriate music.  

I recorded the narration for my script.  I do this in final cut using a mic that plugs into my compouter with an xlr/usb cable.  

Once all my materials are assembled in my project bin, I hunker down and get to the task of layering all my building blocks in my timeline, adding graphics, transitions, filters and keyframes.   This particular video runs 3:02.  It took me about 4 hours to edit, which is pretty standard for a project of this size and complexity.  Editing can be a very meticulous task.    

My first editing task with almost any editing project like this is to assemble the audio first.  I have to sift through all my takes on the narration.  I toss out the mistakes and pick the best cuts.  I drag those cuts into the right position on the timeline.  I keep going until I have a polished voice track.  Then I mix in the music on another audio line in the timeline.  I usually give it a few seconds of solid music up full before the narration starts.  Then I also continue the music for about 3 seconds at the end of the narration.  Then fade it out.     

AUDIO FIRST, VIDEO SECOND

After the music/narration mix sounds right, I begin with line one of my video, the background.  I laid my choice of digital background down and brought the opacity down on it to about 40%.  Backgrounds should be just that BACKGROUNDS.  At full transparency, lots of digital backgrounds are overwhelming so I often tone them down via the opacity.  Other times I tone them down by taking them out of focus.  

DEFINITION OF OPACITY

(Opacity is a term that refers to whether you can see through something or not.  If it is opaque, you can not see through it.  If it is transparent, you can see through it.  At full transparency, it is invisible.  At 100% opacity it is solid video and you can not see through it at all.  Higher end editing programs allow you to alter the opacity of any element.  Backgrounds are a common thing to alter opacity on.  That’s also how you would create the illusion of a ghost in your video. )    

Digital background images usually only last about 15 seconds.  Good ones are loopable.  That means  you can edit it to itself seamlessly  if you match up the very beginning frame to the very end frame.  Like wallpaper!  

Once the background is long enough to cover the entire audio track, I take the still images and place them  in the timeline where I thought they fit with the narration.  Remember in video editing, when you stack multiple layers of video, the one on the top show.  If they are small enough and placed right, you can get multiple  layers of video to show at once.  This video for web space buddy has up to ten elements on the screen at any one time.   

I add a matte filter to each jpeg still image.  This is how I make some images ovals and others rectangular.  I add drop shadows and soft edges.  I adjust the size and spacing to get multiple images on the screen at once.  

Next, I use the graphic tool to add words.  I create a “sample text” element.  I choose a style of font, color and add a drop shadow.  What I’m doing is creating one basic template of how I want all my words to look, then I copy paste it as many times as I need to in order to fill the entire audio track.  This saves time and I do not have to add the exact same color and drop shadow to every graphic element throughout the 3-minute video.  

Making it Move

I add keyframes to the graphics in order to make them grow or move onto the screen.  Keyframes are a common video editing technique.  You can watch a video I did about keyframing here, but basically, key framing is a way to do simple 2-D animation when editing video.  In other words, you can make the building block elements of your video grow, spin, or move.  Many values are keyframable and if it is keyframable, that means you can make that value change over time by using keyframe.  Size, shape, color, position, all those items are key frame-able.  

I also add transitions, mostly basic cross dissolves, to get in and out of images.  A transition is just that… it takes your from one image to the next. Cuts, dissolves, wipes are all transitions.  

Keep Up the Pace!  

I like to keep the video elements moving in order to make the video more visually interesting.  If I had just taken one or two images and one or two graphics and drug them out for the entire 3 minutes it would be a very boring video!     

Then I tweak and fiddle as much as my little obsessive-compulsive neurotic editor inside wants.  Bigger, smaller, to the left, to the right.

Once I am satisfied with the final video, I convert it into a sharing file for the web.  This takes all of the iundividual elements and turns it into one file.  This is much like the process of turnikng a word file into a PDF.  

I usually chose MPEG 4 as my files for uploading because of the small size file it produces.   I upload it to a hosting service called veeple, where I can add interactive clickable links.  Veeple converts my mpeg4 video to a flash.  You can read more about veeple here.  

With veeple, I was able to make the bottom of the video click through to the site Web Space Buddy.  Consider putting an affiliate link or redirect link on your video by using veeple.  I think their technology is awesome and adds lots of marketing value to your video.  

 That’s all for this post.  Whew!  If you read all that then you must really want to learn video editing!  I salute you my friend!  

Lorraine Grula

Internet Video Gal

Technorati Tags: final cut editing software, final cut video editing, hot to make video, how to edit video, making video, online marketing video, post production, post production video editing, Video Editing

Anyone with a blog or website needs as much content as possible.  Re-purposing original content that took lots of time to produce is one way to make sure you get maximum mileage out any time or money spent.    

Lucky me, I just found the repurposing content tool of the century.  Lucky you, because you now can go get it too.  It goes on sale June 25.  

RSS Zine

My friend and colleague Penny Haynes is putting out a new service that takes your RSS feed and magically zaps it into an incredible looking PDF Magazine style to sell, post or handout any way you see fit.  

I got goose bumps just THINKING about using her new RSS zine product to instantly create half a dozen or more gorgeous PDFs to dramatically increase my online content out of content I already have.    

Oh glory.  I don’t even have to copy/paste!  All I have to do is submit the URL link for my RSS Feed and choose whether I want a one-column or two column format, and do I want a page flipper style or just a standard scrolling style?  She has awesome looking examples, go take a look.  

I really think Penny out did herself here with this  new product.  Penny designed the Commercial Creation Center and other product I endorse.  Add RSS Zine to the list.  Click here to check it out.     

I am going to have fun with this!  And although it is not directly related to video production and I ALWAYS stick to the topic of video production on this blog, I liked RSS Zine so much I just had to tell you about  it.  I know lots of you can use it as much as I can.  So it is not the kind of secret I keep!

Check it out!  Click here.  

Lorraine Grula, Internet Video Gal

Video Production Tips, Editor-in-Chief

Technorati Tags: online marketing video, Penny Haynes, recycle content, repurpose content, rss zine, turn rss feed into pdf

A client of mine, Dr. Rangoo Srinivas, needed a video to market one of her websites, WebSpaceBuddy.com. So I agreed to do it for her.  Here is a step-by-step description of how I made this video.

How to Make a Marketing Video

In order to make a marketing video, you first have to know as much as you can about the product and its customers.  So, my first step is to learn all about the product, her website.

Web Space Buddy calls on Dr. Srinivas’s unique and impressive background to offers personalized webinar training for teachers, students or wordpress bloggers.

Phase 1:  Pre-Production

First, I needed a script.  So I sent Rangoo my standard list of questions for any video project.

1. Who is the audience for this video?
2. What is the purpose/objective of the video?
3. What do you want the audience to think/feel and do as a result of seeing the video?
4. What environment will viewers of the video be in when they view the video?  In other words, will they see it on your blog, your My Space page or on You Tube?

In addition to relying on her answers, I studied her website carefully and all the sales copy she already had. I looked over the forum and in general, snooped around.

I took video of her site as I did this to use later in editing together the final video. Many folks would assume I would get video of her site with screen capture editing software like Camtasia.  Certainly I could do it that way, but I choose another way.

Video Taping a Website: Planning for the Editing Phase

I personally find it easier to videotape my computer screen using my mini dv video camera set up on a tripod than to use screen capture software in order to get the video of her site.   That is the one thing that is 100% certain, you HAVE to have video of the website being highlighted in order to edit a video.  Question is?  How to get that video?

Capturing footage straight out of my camera is easier than importing video from another program in my humble opinion.  So that’s how I do it!

Editing Begins

Once the script is finalized, I edit the project in Final Cut so next, I need to gather the remaining video building blocks needed to build, or edit together, her video.

Videotaping her website was part of the process of planning to edit.   I was gathering one of the many building blocks I knew I would need later in editing.  The other building blocks are various kinds of related visuals images and audio recordings.  I used stock still image jpegs.  

After opening, naming and saving a new FCP project, I record the narration audio. I can do this within the Final Cut program using a microphone that’s plugged straight into my computer.  I use a cable that has an XLR mic input on one end and a USB connection on the other end.

I read the script in my professional sounding “narrator voice.”  I speak slowly, evenly and articulate as well as this old Southern Gal can.   I put a smile in my voice, which means I do my best to sound friendly and welcoming.  Honestly, I do not particularly like my narrator’s voice.  But it’s “good enough.”  I do not think internet video requires top quality professional narrators, but it’s important viewers understand what I say and that I sound pleasant.  I think anyone can develop their own “narrators voice” if they practice.   Speak at a moderate, even pace and enunciate each word with some emotion behind it.      

Next, I search for some appropriate royalty free music.  I need something long enough that is pleasant but not overwhelming.

I also needed still images to represent her audience:

• Teachers
• Students
• Bloggers

I gathered about ten still images, making sure I got the correct grade levels.

I also need a background, so I sift through my collection of backgrounds and pick one.

All of these building blocks are put into my Final Cut Project for easy access while editing.

Then, I spend about 4 hours assembling all the building blocks into the video you see.  It’s a process of layering, cropping, adding drop shadows, mattes, fiddling with the opacity, creating and adding graphics, adding key frames for movement, adding filters and other visual affects.  Editing also means mixing the music with the narration to sound even.

I will do another post tomorrow giving more details on all of that editing! A lot of people will want to know step by step how I did it and what filters I used, etc.  But that’s another post!  

Upload to the Web

The final step in editing is to convert the video time line to a sharing file format for upload to the web.  Final Cut has great conversion software built into it so it is a simple process much like making a PDF from a Word Document.

I chose MPEG4 because it gives a small file size and still looks ok. The finished video was about 8MB, compared to the same video in quicktime format at about 80 MB.  Big difference, quicktime looks better but it will be reconverted to Flash  anyway so I want a quicker upload so choose the MPEG4.

Video Hosting, Deployment and Analytics

As with many of my videos, I want to host this one with Veeple.com so I upload it to my account at Veeple.  On my medium grade broadband connection, this took about ten minutes so I went and had dinner.  

There are lots of reasons I chose veeple, the most important is the ability to add clickable links.  With veeple, I was able to make the URL at the bottom of the video clickable to Web Space Buddy.

Click on it and see!

Inside the veeple editor, I added a transparent overlay to the domain name of Web Space Buddy that I had put into the video while editing in Final Cut.  Making it clickable makes it a much more effective marketing tool.

Once it is in my veeple account, it’s simple to generate some embed code that I copy/paste it into my post here at video production tips.  

More later on editing the video and writing the script.  

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips!

Leave a comment below if you have any questions.

Lorraine Grula

Internet Video Gal

Technorati Tags: Business Marketing with Video, clickable links, final cut express, how to use audio and video online, online video hosting, veeple, Video Editing, web space buddy

Compact Fluorescent lights (compact flo as they are nicknamed) are becoming popular as the new “green” way to light your home and you can find the bulbs almost everywhere now.  They are also being used in video production and they have several distinct advantages over traditional video lights.

Traditional video lights are usually tungsten halogen.  They get HOTTER than a firecracker.  You can easily burn your fingers on them.  I even burned a hole in the wall once when I bounced the light just a little too close.  Oops.

Compact Fluorescent lights on the other hand do not get hot.  That feature, in and of itself, makes me want to buy some.  Sitting under tungsten halogen lights is so hot as to be dreadfully uncomfortable.  They heat up the entire room FAST.  That leads to having to crank up the air conditioner more IF it is not a noisy one.   If it is a noisy one, then it stays off so you get better sound and everyone just roasts.  No fun!

Compact flo lights also use less electricity.  That’s one of the biggest things that make them a “green alternative.”   Compact fluorescent light bulbs crank out an amazing amount of light for the wattage used compared to other kinds of light bulbs.

The light given off by compact fluorescent is nice, soft and diffused.  Every compact flo light bulb I have ever seen is already diffused for you by the addition of white paint to the inside of the glass.  That does not mean you never need to add supplemental diffusion but right out of the box you have some nice diffusion.

The company Videssence is one of the leading providers of compact fluorescent light fixtures for TV and video production.  They sell both standard ceiling mount lights and portable fixtures.  They also have recessed fixtures for video conferencing rooms. (That is not an affiliate link.)

All-in-all, I think compact fluorescent lights are a fantastic addition to the world of video production equipment.  I bet that guy whose wall I burned a hole in would agree.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips

Lorraine Grula

Technorati Tags: compact flo, compact flourescent light bulbs, compact flourescent lights, compact fluorescent, diffused light, diffusion, light bulbs, Lighting for Video, tungsten halogen

My friends at Cisco do a marvelous job at using video for their online marketing.

I first wrote about Cisco’s online video marketing here and here.

Cisco has had great success with this video campaign.

To promote their products for Father’s Day, they produced the video above.  It is a simple video made with still pictures that runs just over a minute.  Making a video out of still pictures is absolutely one of the EASIEST ways to make video.

The script, IMHO, is fantastic.  Nothing complex, but creatively written.  It’s short, barely over a minute.  With online video, shorter is almost ALWAYS better.

Another twist Cisco has taken is to create a blog written by their ficticious character, Ira Pumfkin.  Ira is the bumbling reporter who stars in the series of online marketing videos produced by Cisco.  The blog is a great vehicle for their videos and other marketing materials.

As the business of online video marketing grows and matures, it’s important for all of us to learn from each other.  Cisco provides a great example and I am so please they are having success with their videos.

I think this is working so well for them because they make their videos entertaining and short.  They came up with a great cast of realistic, likable characters and their videos rely on creative, yet simple storytelling.

Storytelling is the heart of any video.  I say that A LOT.  The BEST videos tell stories based on characters.  Cisco is a perfect example.  I’d like to know what you think!  Leave your comments and opinions below.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips.

Lorraine Grula

Internet Video Gal

Technorati Tags: cosco, easy video production, ira pumfkin, make video, online video marketing, tech edge weekly

I know, that sounds like one of those dopey questions on standardized tests like the ACT, but it’s the best way I can think of to describe what a sequence is in the process of video production.

When you are telling a story with the written word, you use words to form sentences.  The sentences are strung together to form paragraphs and the paragraphs build upon each other to tell the story.

With video story telling, you take shots and put them together in sequences.

In this analogy, the shots are like words and the sequences are like sentences.

A video sequence is a series of shots on the same subject that are edited together to tell a story. Rarely in video do you just set up a camera and leave it on one wide shot for the entire video.  That would be one boring video! A sequence is the process of putting together wide shots, medium shots and close-ups of an activity to show the viewer what is happening.

Let’s say you are going to do a video about how to make a cake.  That’s your story.  (OK, our cake saga won’t win any Academy Awards, but it is a practical example!)

To make our video, we might start with a close-up of a box of cake mix.  Immediately the viewer knows the story has something to do with food.  A hand comes in and rips off the box top.  Then we cut to a close-up of a bowl and the cake mix is dumped into the bowl.  Then perhaps we cut back to a medium shot that shows Mom is dumping the mix into a bowl.

So the viewer knows this is a story about Mom making a cake.  No words were used to tell the viewer this, just a 3-shot sequence.

The sequence might continue with close-ups of eggs cracking, beaters mixing and ovens being turned on.  The final shot in the sequence could be a close-up of little Johnny gobbling cake.  Or, if our story is more morose, it could be a shot of the cake thrown into the trash can along with a note that says, “Sorry dear, but I am leaving you for another woman.”

Oh gosh, that’s not a very fun story, now is it?

SEQUENCES are how you put together video.  ALWAYS.

Next time you are watching TV, notice how the camera shots cut from one shot to another to another.  That’s a sequence!

When you are shooting video, you videotape everything in sequences.  This means you take wide-shots, medium-shots and close-ups of whatever is happening.  Then, in the edit room, you put these shots together in a logical, sequential order to tell a story.

So the next time you are out shooting video, take as many shots as you can, wide, medium and close-up, of the action.  Take different shots from different angles.   Then when you go into editing, you will have lots of different choices about how to put together your sequence, just like the author has many different choices about how to word her story out of the gagillion and one words available!

And that dear readers, is everything you need to know about video sequences.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips!

Lorraine Grula

Internet Video Gal

Technorati Tags: how to make video, making video, sequence, Storytelling, video making, video production techniques, video sequence, video storytelling