how do you edit a movie?

allyn wrote on 4/5/2004, 8:31 PM
here's how i edit a travel video, which are the only kind of movies i have edited so far.

i drag all of the clips to the timeline at once. then i go through them deleting and trimming the clips that i don't want. most of the time i leave the clips in the original order but occasionally i move one to an earlier time slot. to delete a clip i double-click on it and press delete. to trim a clip, i position the "timeline" at a break and press s to split, then i double-click the part i don't want and press delete. i have ripple edit on so the blank space gets removed.

how do other people go about editing?

Comments

IanG wrote on 4/6/2004, 2:14 AM
>how do other people go about editing?
First I decide who the audience is going to be - if it's just the family I can include stuff which would bore anyone else! I think it helps to set a tight limit on how long the finished video will run - it forces you to be more critical about what's included.

I start by reviewing my clips and stills and deciding which ones I'm going to use - most of them don't make it as they're badly shot, duplicates or just pointless. Mostly pointless! At the same time I'm thinking about the general approach I'll take - it's mainly chronological, but not exclusively e.g. when I visited NY I filmed in Central Park every day but it's all in one part of the video.

Next, I'll put the establishing shots and the "must have" stuff into something like the right order, leaving plenty of space to juggle things on the time line. Hopefully, I've now got some idea of what I'll use and when, so I'll put down a music bed and position things a bit more precisely.

Now that I've got a framework to work in I'll start the grunt work of placing the remaining clips, trimming them mercilessly, adding transitions etc. I've been reviewing and correcting all the time, but I find it helps a lot to have someone (my wife) who'll give an honest opinion and point out all the mistakes I've made and the "clever" bits that simply don't work - review early and often, before you get too attached to something and wont change it.

Ian G.

Steve Grisetti wrote on 4/7/2004, 6:34 AM
Ian really nailed it with his description of the editing process -- at least from a psychological point of view.

I don't like the idea, though, of dumping all my clips on the timeline and then throwing away what doesn't work. When I try that, I STILL end up with more than I need to tell the story. I prefer to keep all the clips in the media pool and only take the minimum I need to tell my story (using the trimmer on longer clips to only take short pieces of longer clips).

I also recommend keeping things moving visually as much as possible. When someone is talking or being interviewed, cut away from him or her to related video (just lay the video on the video layer above your main video), keeping the original audio playing. This way you use the video and the audio to tell the story without having a "talking head" on-screen for more than a couple seconds.
IanG wrote on 4/7/2004, 10:30 AM
I don't like the idea, though, of dumping all my clips on the timeline and then throwing away what doesn't work. When I try that, I STILL end up with more than I need to tell the story.

Too true! Imagine you're going to pay your audience to watch.... by the second! I don't even put things in the media pool unless I'm fairly sure I'm going to use them.

Ian G.
Steve Grisetti wrote on 4/7/2004, 1:27 PM
Great sentiment, Ian.

Not that it's a fair comparison, but the ratio of film shot to film actually used in a feature film is about 30 to 1!

You and I don't have that kind of budget, but I generally shoot about an hour's (unscripted) video for about 10-12 minutes of final cut.
JamesMessick wrote on 5/6/2004, 8:20 PM
In my latest project, a video of the new grand-kid, I made a video for the wife and I to enjoy. It came in at 16:46. I then went back and cut out the parts that were of less interest and ended up with a 5:43 video for "general distribution." Still too long, probably, but she's just too cute!
dand9959 wrote on 5/8/2004, 1:14 PM
And don't forget one of the most important rules of thumb you'll ever learn:

Save early and Save often!

Trust me on this one. :-)
Moebius wrote on 5/8/2004, 3:23 PM
I am new to this program, and I was also wondering about other people's workflows, as I can't seem to get one that satisfies. Now that I know about the hidden trimmer, I'll have to give it another go.

I have been using Ulead's Video Studio 7. When I capture, it splits it by scene if I have that option selected. It then dumps them all to the timeline, if that option is selected. But-- there is also a storyboard, and you can switch back and forth. One clip = one box on the storyboard. Each clip can be trimmed individually or deleted. Transitions can be added and the duration set by entering a number or clicking an arrow without dragging overlaps. At this point of production, when each clip is an individual entity, I can't imagine how a timeline could be better, especially in regard to seeing what you have to work with. All that timeline information is useless to me at that point, and no zoom of the timeline lets me see it all well on one plate. A picture is worth a thousand words, but bunch of pictures where one would suffice is, uh, too many?

Can you tell I'm frustrated? I'll give that Media Pool another try, and see if I can use it as a kind of storyboard, and mess around with that trimmer, too, but if it doesn't get any better, I can't find much use for this thing. I actually bought it for the Pan and Zoom for slideshows. Can you believe I save it as DV AVI and bring it into VideoStudio to split by scene and add transitions?
There's a new VideoStudio 8 out now that Pans and Zooms, but I haven't tried it. If only VS8 would allow me to save a customized transition. Hey, I said "if only!" < obscure reference to Rubberdubbers >
IanG wrote on 5/9/2004, 12:15 AM
Moebius, I think my first post here was along the lines of "how can I live without a storyboard?", so I understand your point of view! The problem with storyboarding (IMHO) is that it can only represent one track at a time, and you get trapped into thinking that way. Once you get used to the idea of working with multiple tracks, timelines become less appealing.

That said, take a look at Media Center. It's a media organising / playing app. You can add video clips to a playlist, select the frame you want to display as a thumbnail, order them (ie storyboard) and then drag and drop directly onto MS' timeline.

Ian G.
Moebius wrote on 5/9/2004, 11:42 AM
I believe I have thoroughly explored the possibilities. For what I do to edit my home videos, the VideoStudio workflow is easier. I'm not doing anything fancy-- mostly trimming and deleting fairly short clips. This just takes longer, whether I use the trimmer or do it on the timeline. That is not to say that MS3 is without it's advantages, although I have not used the latest version of VS.
I can just do what I need to do to my video faster with VS, and entirely from the keyboard. If MS3 had a hotkey for trimming a single clip, similar to <ctrl> + T, and it would also remove the empty space, it would certainly improve the workflow and eliminate the trimmer. As it is now, I find it easier to mark in and out with the keyboard and the trimmer and drag the trimmed clip to the timeline.

I guess I don't really need to re-arrange my clips too much. In fact, since I've been doing this, my camera technique has improved to the point where, uh, not so much editing is required. This means I try to hold it really still, pan slowly, don't go wacko with the zoom, try to avoid long and boring scenes, and pretty much don't try to walk with the thing! I've even curbed my use of transitions to mainly separate only wildly different scenes and for intros slideshows.