How to add effects with iMovie 11

Change a clip's look progressively over time using iMovie's built-in effects
Modern camcorders can automatically focus, white balance and colour correct for you. As such, most of your clips will look fine and be ready to be included into a project the moment you import them. But machines being what they are, they do sometimes get it wrong, which is why iMovie's various video tools can come in so handy.

With them, you can alter the brightness, contrast and colour of any shot. You can obviously use them to also distort the image, giving it an unnatural appearance to simulate unusual weather conditions or to create that alien planet feel you were after.

Couple those changes with one of iMovie's 19 video filters and you have a broad palette to play with (you can also copy and paste those changes from one clip to others by using the Edit > Paste Adjustments commands in the menu bar; these can save you a lot of time if you want to create a special visual style for a large part of your project).

Unlike Final Cut Pro and other professional editing packages, there isn't an obvious way to gradually apply that change over time – it's a black and white clip, or it's a colour one, for instance; there's no in-between.

So what do you do if you want to play around with your image and slowly intensify the colour – like the effect in Limitless when a mind-enhancing tablet is taken? Thankfully, such an effect isn't out of the reach of iMovie. All you have to do is cut the clip in the right place, as shown below.

How to alter a clip progressively over time

1. Find and cut


Find the clip you want to alter over time and add it to your project. Skim over it with the mouse until you're over the part you'd like the change to occur. Without moving the cursor, press the Shift+Command+S keys to activate the Split Clip tool, which cuts the clip into two at that very point.

2. All change


Double-click on one part of the clip to bring up the Inspector window. Select the Video tab and make your changes. You can also make use of the Video Effect menu in the Inspector's Clip tab to add a single effect to your clip (only one can be used at a time). You can alter your modifications at any time.

03. Transition


Go to Window > Transitions to reveal the Transitions panel, bottom-right of the interface (or use the Command+4 keyboard shortcut). Locate Cross Dissolve and drag it onto the gap between the clips. To change its length, double-click on it in your project and type in a new value in the Duration field.

Use Extermal Microphones with iMovie 11 to Make Your Video Better

If your movie sounds great it will make your screen images look even better 

There's one element that makes it obvious you're watching an amateur movie as opposed to a professional one: the audio. Although nearly all camcorders or video recording devices capture sound as well as images, the quality is often very poor. Even HD camcorders that produce vibrant, high-quality clips are often let down by the low quality of the on-board mic.


It's a well-known fact that audio is crucial to the appreciation of your film. Poor sound makes your audience feel that the video was actually of poorer quality than it actually is. Good-quality audio enhances the whole experience. So get yourself a device whose sole purpose is recording sound and you will greatly increase your production value for very little money indeed.

Small recorder 

 

Take the Samson Zoom H1, for instance. It's a tiny audio recording device that records very high-quality sound in stereo. You can choose various formats, but since we're going for quality, you should select an uncompressed one: WAV. This means that the files will take up more space, but this is a small price to pay for higher quality.

If you're going to go for this device (which is available via www.amazon.co.uk) make sure you also budget for its Accessory Pack, which includes a tripod and a windscreen foam cover, designed to cut out unwanted sound (which often gets captured, especially when shooting outdoors). In total, this should cost you something in the region of £100.

If your camcorder is capable of taking in audio input – with a line in stereo jack, for instance – then you could connect it to your microphone. That way you wouldn't have to worry about syncing the sound with the video later on in the editing process. But having an external mic can offer you advantages that those tethered to the camera cannot match: you could have a long shot and still hear the people you're recording perfectly because the mic is hidden near them and a long cable would be hard to conceal from view.

So if you've got your audio and video on separate files on your Mac, how do you go about connecting them together? This can be a little difficult to achieve in iMovie but it can work.

First of all, you need a clear point of reference to achieve the sync. This is where clapperboards come in, but why purchase one when a couple of hands clapping will work just as well? As long as your clap can be seen on screen and heard on the audio track, then you can add a marker on your project when the clap happens (markers are one of iMovie's many hidden advanced tools that you can reveal from the Preferences window).

Toggle the waveforms for your audio tracks to see the spike that represents the clap, and move it until that spike is under the marker. Mute the original audio and play your footage back. Drag the audio left or right until the sync is perfect. Once you've achieved this, you might not use your camcorder's built-in microphone ever again.

YouTube Video Editor Already Used by Two Million People

Earlier this fall, YouTube debuted a web-based video editor that empowered the many millions of YouTube users to improve their videos even if they didn't have any knowledge about video editing or the money to buy specialized software.

The YouTube video editor was designed to be easy to use so it is rather limited in terms of features. That turned out to be a good thing as the editor has proven quite popular with plenty of users.

YouTube now says that two million people have used the tool to improve their videos and have worked on four million different videos, as NewTeeVee noted.

The idea behind the video editor was to empower those that had no way of improving or adjusting their videos and had no idea how to do it.

There are too many videos flipped to one side or videos that don't actually start until they're half way through on YouTube that would definitely need the help.

Considering the target audience, it's easy to understand why there are only a few features and buttons in the editor. But the ones that are there are exactly the ones that people would use the most.

One particularly interesting feature is "I'm Feeling Lucky" which automatically enhances a video, by boosting the colors, contrast or brightness when needed.

It's not perfect by any means, but the results can be surprising, when it works. A unique advantage of the "I'm Feeling Lucky" feature is that it analyzes the entire video and makes the necessary adjustments to every frame.

Doing the same manually with the tools provided by the YouTube video editor would be incredibly time consuming.

An interesting thing about the feature is that it was entirely coded by a YouTube intern over the summer. He set out to make videos better "just by pressing a button" and managed to do it in just two months.

Source is
http://news.softpedia.com/news/YouTube-Video-Editor-Already-Used-by-Two-Million-People-236911.shtml

How to smooth out the shaky shots with iMovie 11

1. Analyse in an Event

You can analyse your clips even before you add them to a project. To do this, select a clip (or multiple ones) and open the Inspector by clicking on the toolbar's 'i' button. Make sure that window's Clip tab is selected and click on Analyse Entire Clip. The process may take a while.

2. Choose the right part

By default, an analysed clip will have its motion smoothed automatically as soon as you insert it into your project – as long as you don't select any part of the clip that had those red squiggly lines. If you do, the stabilisation process will not occur, so make sure you only add a section that will work.

3. Stabilisation control

Play that clip back and you should see an improvement over the original. Unlike the green screen effect, you have some control over the process: double-click the clip to open the Inspector. The stabilisation section has a slider. Drag it to the left to lower the amount of stabilisation applied to your clip.

Adobe Premiere Pro CS5: Learn by Video (Book with DVD-ROM) by Maxim Jago and Jan Ozer

Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 is a complete program that consists of high quality, Adobe approved video training that is meant to teach you the fundamentals of Adobe's Premiere Pro CS5. When you register your book at Peachpit, you will get bonus training that covers CS5.5

The videos contained within are short, focused, and solution-oriented. Exercise files are included so that you can get hands-on experience using this powerful program. This HD (720p) video is 15 hours in length and contains 13 chapters. There is also an 120 page booklet that highlights what you learn in the video as well as additional information.

Chapter 1, "Introduction," begins with a look at how Premiere Pro works. Here you will take a tour around the interface, see how to start editing, how to share assets with After Effects, and perform some basic tasks.

Chapter 2, "Getting Set Up," next shows you how to create and set up new projects, looks at Premiere Pro preferences, recording clips, capturing clips, creating a storyboard, saving your work and much more.

Chapter 3, "Editing Clips," examines one of the main purposes of Premiere Pro is in cutting. Here you will see how to work with tracks, timelines, and sequence structures as well as track patching and other types of editing.

Chapter 4, "Transitions," describes not only how to move from one clip to another, but how to add edits, trim clips on the timeline, transition effects, how to select video and audio separately and together, as well as keyframing opacity to create transitions.

Chapter 5, "Nested Sequences and Multi-Camera Editing," looks at more advanced editing techniques such as working with nested sequence clips, multi-camera editing, synchronizing multiple clips, switching camera angles on the fly, and finalizing multicam edits.

Chapter 6, "Effects," let you correct problems like poor exposure or white balance as well as embellish your clips. Here you begin with an introduction to effects and then go through everything from the new Mercury Playback Engine, keyframing effects, picture-in-picture effects, 3D effects and much more.

Chapter 7, "Creating Titles," is a powerful and commonly used element of video production and here you will begin working with text, title templates, creating moving titles, and creating titles in Photoshop.

Chapter 8, "Integrating Premiere, Photoshop, and After Effects," is really one of the big "WOW" factors when working with Premiere Pro and this chapter explores the Creative Suite Production Premium and looks at Photoshop basics, After Effects, and how they can interact.

Chapter 9, "Audio," is at least as important as the video and you will now look at working with audio in Premiere Pro. Here you will see how work with the extensive audio-related toolset that comes with this product. You will work with audio volumes, gain, waveforms, creating submixes, Soundbooth, recording voiceovers, and more.

Chapter 10, "Metadata and Content Analysis," shows how to add metadata to clips, convert speech to text, work with transcribed text, and face detection in the project panel. All of this will improve the efficiency of your workflow.

Chapter 11, "Outputting Video," means that it is time to share your project with the world. This chapter examines recording to videotape, working with the output settings dialog box, work with Adobe Media Encoder, and optimizing your project.

      
Chapter 12, "Working with Adobe Encore CS5," takes a look at the Encore interface, what Encore does, how to link everything together, and building your DVD, Blu-ray, and Flash output. 

Chapter 13, "Production Support with Adobe OnLocation CS5," finishes the video up with working with OnLocation – a unique tool for pre-production and location filming. Here you will see how to prepare for your shoot, calibrate your monitor, and record your footage as well as direct-to-disk recording and selecting clips for Premiere Pro.


Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 is really well done and easy to understand. The presentation is straightforward and presented in a manner that almost anyone can understand. What I liked best is the fact that they work through a real editing situation while still managing to show you almost everything there is to know about Premiere Pro.

Also, in addition to having the ability to send the videos to your iPhone or iPad, there are lesson files and media that come with the DVD, there is a section at the end that will allow you to quiz yourself, and a booklet provides summary information so you don't have to always go back and re-watch the video. If you want to learn how to use Premiere Pro, if you have worked with it, but want to really get better fast, then I highly recommend Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.

Source is
http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-adobe-premiere-pro-cs5/page-2/

10 Insider Tips for Getting the Most out of Sony Vegas Pro 11

Have you upgraded to Sony Vegas Pro 11? Use these tips to get the most out of the new features.

1.    To deliver a high-quality video file for posting on sites like YouTube, Vimeo, or your own website, render to the MainConcept AVC format and use the Internet HD 1080p template. This provides a  high-quality video, and if you have an OpenCL-enabled graphics card in your render computer, the render will draw on the card’s GPU to render significantly faster than other formats.

2.    To render a file for Web streaming, render to the MainConcept AVC format and select the Enable Progressive Download checkbox in the Video tab of the Custom Settings dialog box. This results in a file that users can seek through even before the entire file has finished downloading from the streaming server.

3.    In the Render As dialog box, select the Add this render template to your favorites button for each template that you frequently use. Then, when you want to find those templates in the future, select the Show favorites only checkbox. This sorts your list of file formats and templates down to just those you’ve marked as favorites. Instead of looking through dozens of formats and scores of templates, you now only need to browse through your few favorites to find the one you want.

4.    If you have several events on your timeline that are related (for example, as part of a sequence), you’ll probably want to be able to control their position on the timeline as a related pack of events. The Grouping function is great for this. However, if you know that you may also need to tweak the placement or trimming of individual events within the related pack (e.g., making minor adjustments to the position of a sound effect event), grouping can be too restrictive. In such cases, use the new Sync Link feature to create a relationship between the events. Sync Link works much like Grouping in that you can move the entire pack by moving the control event, but offers more flexibility to adjust individual members of the pack without adjusting the others.

5.    The new OFX implementation for video filters, transitions, and media generators, provides you with greater control over parameter animation. To animate any parameter in these plug-ins, click the individual Animate button for that parameter. If you’ve animated several plug-ins in the same chain or several parameters of the same plug-in, click the Curves button to view and work on the resulting automation envelopes separately. Click the tag for the effect and parameter you want to adjust in order to sort the envelope view and make it very easy to find the envelope you need for the parameter you’re adjusting.

6.    To quickly add animated text to your project, click the Media Generators tab and select the new Titles & Text generator from the list. Point to the various presets to find the animation you like, and drag that preset into your timeline. If you decide you want a different animation, choose the new one from the Animation drop-down list in the Video Media Generator window.

7.    When using the new Titles & Text generator, use the text box that appears in the Video Preview window to adjust the size and position of your text. This makes it extremely easy to place your text into your video in a way that is most appropriate relative to the content of your video. If the position box does not appear in the Video Preview window, click the Generated Media button for the event that holds your text on the timeline. This opens the Video Media Generators window with the text controls in it, and also opens the position box in the Video Preview window.

8.    If you experience an edge violation in your 3D video clips, the viewer’s brain will have trouble making sense out of the placement of objects in the foreground of your scene. To avoid this problem, use the Floating Windows controls in the Stereoscopic 3D Adjust filter to mask the appropriate video stream, thus eliminating the conflicting visual signals caused by the edge violation.

9.    When you use the Cookie Cutter filter or the Iris or Cross Effect transitions on 3D footage, the cutout created by these plug-ins can conflict with the 3D placement of objects in your video. To correct such conflicts, use the new Stereoscopic 3D Depth Control to move the cutout behind or in front of screen depth so that it works more effectively with other objects in the video.

10.  You can specify whether you want Vegas Pro to process event video effects in your project either before or after any cropping adjustments to the event. Depending on the effect you’re using and the pan/crop adjustments you’re making, this can have a big impact on the final appearance of your video. Event pan/cropping is simply a part of the video event FX chain and you can place it anywhere within that chain. If you want to pan/crop before any video effects, you don’t need to change anything — this is the “Pre-Effect Mode” and is the default state. If you want to pan/cropping after the effects are applied (Post-Effect Mode), drag the “Pan/Crop“ button from the beginning of the effects chain and drop it after the button for the effect. You can set pan/cropping into post-effects mode for some effects in the chain while it remains in pre-effects mode for others.

Source is
http://www.onlinevideo.net/2011/11/10-insider-tips-for-getting-the-most-out-of-sony-vegas-pro-11/

How to use iMovie add steadycam effect

Stabilise your shots to smooth the motion for that professional touch

The Shining is probably the best example of the use of steadycams, as the camera glides through the hotel's corridors and its maze.

Usually, to get a steady moving shot, you'd put your camera on a dolly – essentially a set of tracks – but there's obviously huge limitations to this technique: one is that you mustn't show the ground otherwise you reveal the tracks; another is the difficulty in going up or down stairs.

With a steadycam, you can follow your subject wherever they may go. Proper steadycams cost an absolute fortune, but the Smoothee for iPhone is relatively cheap at £170 and if you're a handy DIY person, Johnny Chung Lee very kindly posted an article on how to build your very own steadycam for little more than US$14 (£9) in parts. The instructions are at www.littlegreatideas.com/stabilizer/diy.

Using a steadycam requires quite a bit of practice, but once you've perfected your moves, you can create incredibly smooth motion as you walk, no matter what you follow. Sadly, not all of us are handy with a screwdriver and until the cheapest steadycam in the world becomes available for sale you may have to do your best.

But Apple hasn't left you high and dry: iMovie has a tool for stabilising your clip's motion. It can't work miracles and an overly shaky shot won't be fixed (instead, you'll see a red squiggly line over the problem segments in its Event), but it can be highly effective on most clips.