Feb 23, 2010

Lets see if we can make some short videos for the computer club table at the arts expo a week from saturday.

 I just found a couple of great sites for vegas moviestudio training videos and tutorials.

The first one is a seminar for the professional version, but a lot of it seems applicable the movie studio version.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro9webinar?keycode=67002

The second one is tailored specifically for Moviestudio.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/support/trainingvids.asp?prod=moviestudio

If you want to buy  the license  for  your copy of Moviestudio, you can at this web site:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudio

If you think you might be doing High Definition video you might want to consider buying Moviestudio Platinum..Not only does it edit in High definition it will let you burn a BluRay dvd on a standard dvd in a standard dvd burner, but only about 15 or twenty minutes long. (Lets face it ,you probably wont be making a video that will sustain a veiwers interest for that long until you have had a lot more experience. By then, you will be ready for the professional($600) version  any ways.)

But be aware that  you will be getting two licences, one for MovieStudio and one for DVD Architect.   DVD architect is a DVD authoring program  with a lot of features that let you make a full menu Video Dvd like the ones you rent from Block Buster or buy at Walmart.  Great for sending to your kids etc . You can download  the DVD Architect  program  or the Platium version of Moviestudio at this site:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/trials/moviestudio

Feb 17 2010..Here is one version of the chromakey project..with an added background plate and a few extra sound effects, background music and titles.

Feb 16 2010... Today we made this chromakey  (green screen) Movie. Maybe next week we will fine tune it and add a different background

February 3, 2010

This coming Tuesday we will be doing green screen work. Those  of  you who have taken any of Sharon's or Elaine's courses, will be familiar with layering and the things that you can do with it to change still pictures.  Green screen does the same sort of layering.  In Sharon's digital darkroom you have made cut outs on still pictures. Green screen techniques do the same sort of thing but instead of working on one picture at a time..green screen works on 30 pictures for every second of video.  That is 1800 pictures a minute.  The kicker is that the green screen has to be in place when you take the video and so you have to plan in advance.,

   We see the result of green screen techniques in almost all of the tv shows that we watch. Most often the results are not dramatic. We dont even know that they  are special effects. They can be a very cost effective tool allowing the crews to work on a sound stage in a controlled environment rather than having to move hundreds of people to a remote location.

Check out this video from Stargate Studios, a professional video production company,

This can be taken to extreme limits using other computer generated effects with programs that you could buy and run on a home pc. ( if you were so inclined and had big bucks and not much else of a life.) They are far beyond me but the two  clips below are really interesting.

and this next video sort of shows you how  it was done..or at least hints at the methods used.

Feb 2, 2010

I ran across this old video from 1990, an archive of the computer chronicles. They are talking about desk top video editing on a personal computer. I didnt know that they had digital video that far back.   It seems to have required a lot of extra equipment and was nowhere as user friendly as the stuff we have now. (The video takes a long time to load) skip the first 15 minutes, I found  it incomprehensible.

I suspect I may have thrown too much at you this past Tuesday, so next Tuesday , Jan. 26, will be a work shop session covering the same material (ie getting the clips onto the time line and working with them, making splits, deleting sections, and moving them around .)

I am going to set up my computer on the table in front of the stage with you all and I will be able to see what you are doing and work with you without having to get up and down off the stage.

If you are tired of hearing that squeaky guy giving the speech, maybe you can bring those film clips that you are really interested in.

Here is the agenda for our next session, Tuesday the 19th. You will get more out of it if you bring your laptop with the Movie Studio program already installed, I will have a data cd that I will give you to load into your computer with class materials. I do not intend to do any program installing during the session.

Class Syllabus

Session #1 Jan 19

1..Distribute and load class material folder "## movie studio class"  into my documents or documents

2..Brief demonstration of capturing video from digital video tape camera.

3..Very Basic editing

A draft of the class syllabus for the first 3 sessions can be seen here

The Digital Video Seminar will be concentrating on the editing  program "Sony Vegas Movie Studio"

Next Tuesdays meeting, Jan 11, 2010 will be over at 9:00 am since several of us have made plans to go on a tour that morning.

I will be giving a quick demonstration  of the trial program  which can be downloaded from the Sony Web site, http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudio

  or

 http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/trials/moviestudio

It is a thirty day trial.  If you choose to buy the proram it costs $54.95 to  license the downloaded program but this license also includes another program ,"DVD Archictect".

There are also downloadable manuals which you may find useful.

Movie Studio does not do High definition.  It will accept and edit HD clips but can only render out as standard definiton. For rendering out as high definition, you need Movie  Studio Platinum or Movie Studio HD.