Attn: Wedding Videographers (photo montages)

stepfour wrote on 8/3/2002, 3:44 PM

I'm working on a wedding video wherein the Bride and her Mother want me to include a montage of still pictures of the couple from babyhood, growing-up and of their engagement party. I agreed to do it, but I just realized that I have no ideas about doing such a montage. I've only done about 10 weddings and this is the first time such a thing has been asked for.

The pictures they provided are all different sizes from tiny portraits to snapshots, etc. I can scan any of them into a jpeg or bitmap. There is lots of info on scanning in various threads here. The problem is how to present such a montage. Can any of the Vegas users here who are wedding videographers offer any thoughts on what kinds of themes or creative editing I might try to make such a montage look good. What type of backgrounds do you use, if any? I think just presenting the pictures with transitions and a music bed will look sort of cheap.

I only have a beginning skill level with Vegas track motion and a fair understanding of cropping or zooming, which may be the same as track motion. Not asking for a how-to but just some ideas and what VV tools I need to brush up on to get it done. Thanks for any suggestions.

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Comments

jerryd wrote on 8/7/2002, 8:39 AM

this looks really neat. Could you e-mail me the .veg file (I'm a little confused on a couple of the techniques). Thanks jerryd@connectu.net

Shredder wrote on 8/7/2002, 9:58 AM

So that everyone can share, I've posted a sample .veg file with photos on my Web Server (it's 900K)

http://www.creativeshrapnel.com/JonPhotoMontage.zip

I made it in about 15 mins this morning, from scratch using my Honeymoon Pix from Costa Rica(so it is easy to do). I've tuned my FX settings. This time I used:

1. 50% Black Overlay
2. Black and White: 0.5
3. Gaussian Blur 0.015x0.015

I scaled the foreground images down so that the H&W fit just within the safe title area

I scaled the background images so that the portrait images are a little wider than the frame (and thus fill the screen)

Also, so that I could package the .veg file & not have to send you large 4MP images, I batch resized all the images with ACDSee to 720 pixels wide, which is the largest that they would be zoomed into in this project (the frame is 720 pixels wide max) -- This will ensure no 'jaggies' when I zoom the background in.

Enjoy!

Thanks for all the positive feedback on my Photo Montage. It's nice to know others like your work.

- Jon

stepfour wrote on 8/7/2002, 2:49 PM

I've been at zooming, panning, cropping, and keyframing a while today. Coming along okay. Having to limit the motion to simple pans and zooms. Still haven't been able to get multiple-motions on a pic to look smooth. What I have done is put about 35 pictures on the timeline with nice slown pans and zooms with transitions between them. Much more than I knew how to do with VV3 this time last week. This thread has generated a wealth of info. I'm printing it each time new posts hit. Great reference material. Although I only used the basic stuff, it's enough to get me home on this project.

Cheesehole wrote on 8/8/2002, 1:05 AM

>>>Still haven't been able to get multiple-motions on a pic to look smooth.

That is difficult (often impossible) in Vegas. we need more control over the keyframes to get smooth motion. the solution is to add a deeper level to the keyframe feature. we need to be able to grab the 'arms' or 'control points' of a bezier curve so we can visually tweak the keyframe velocity until we get smooth transitions from point to point. this could be done on the pan/crop frame itself, or on a keyframe sub-track. AfterFX is a good example of this feature. without it, keyframe control is clumsy. the 'smooth' or 'linear' presets are no substitute for real controls. I think Vegas would hold it's own much better as an all-in-one app if it had this feature. keyframe motion control should be near the top of the list for Vegas 4. in my opinion it's fundamental for a real 'pro' app.

SonyDennis wrote on 8/8/2002, 11:23 AM

Really? Motion keyframes were greatly improved from VV2 to VV3: they got smooth paths and multiple motion settings (linear/smooth/etc). Although you don't have the (often confusing) Bezier handle adjustments like AE, you can make very smooth motions. I think Luxo's wedding pictures video shows what can be done.
///d@

Luxo wrote on 8/8/2002, 4:30 PM

Thanks Dennis, but I agree with cheesehole. Every clip in that video uses only two keyframes, which is where Vegas excels. I think Cheesehole is talking about situations where there's more than two keyframes, something I tend to avoid due to lack of control (i.e. bezier arms).

Currently, controlling the speed and velocity between keyframes is in good shape (although I would welcome a custom curve setting). The hard part is tweaking the the radius of the 'turn' between second and third, and successive, keyframes. The smoothness setting offers some limited control, but not as much as traditional arms and control points, and you have to work blind with an invisable motion path.

I love the motion settings SF added to 3.0 -- the 'smooth' setting especially application wide -- but an advanced tab with better pan/crop controls would be most welcome.

Luxo

Cheesehole wrote on 8/9/2002, 2:09 AM

>>>I love the motion settings SF added to 3.0 -- the 'smooth' setting especially application wide -- but an advanced tab with better pan/crop controls would be most welcome.

yes, I agree the new controls in VV3 were very welcome. I'm glad to see SoFo is moving in that direction. I just hope that isn't the end of it... I hope there is more to come like bezier arms, which aren't confusing if the interface is really slick (I know SoFo can handle that).

think of all the parts of Vegas that would suddenly be so much more powerful if the keyframes were enhanced. practically every effect parameter can be keyframed. if we could get precise control over all those effects I'd be in heaven. there's so much potential to be unleashed!

and yes I was talking about chaining motion keyframes (more than two), but even the point A to point B scenario needs more control. we at least need a keyframe velocity control. the basic problem is getting Vegas to do what I see in my head. more control would allow that to happen. bezier handles are the best way I know of, but if there is a less confusing way then I would welcome that too.

doormill wrote on 8/10/2002, 12:26 PM

I've downloaded the .veg but can't open it. I get the message "the file is most likely corrupted or unknown file format. A chunck has a illegal length"

I've downloaded the zip several times and unzipped it. anyone else have this problem? I'd very much like to see it as I'm still learning.

Have a good day

salad wrote on 8/10/2002, 5:01 PM

Doormill,
See the thread: "Can't open foreign project files".

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=115248&Replies=11&Page=1

Check you version of Vegas.
The .veg file that won't open was probably created on VV 3.0b or 3.0c.
If you have VV version 3.0 or 3.0a, you most likely won't be able to open it.

pat

doormill wrote on 8/11/2002, 12:03 PM

Thanks,

I remembered just after I posted that I had downloaded the 3.0c update but never installed it. It worked fine once I did.

It looks great by the way. Cool Idea