Until I read your sentence about OCD, I WAS going to make a crack. However, I have similar tendencies (although I don't think I'm clinical) so I can sympathise.

Busterkeaton gave you some great advice, and I would echo most of what he said. Here are a few additional thoughts.

1. In my mind I'm always thinking that each picture needs to match the lyrics of the song that I'm using. This is probably my biggest problem because it takes an incredible amount of time to find the right pictures as I'm doing it.

To quote the famous line from "Animal House:" It just doesn't matter. By this I mean that the human mind has a marvelous quirk that makes it fit the pictures to the music, even if they aren't timed perfectly. I can't tell you how many times someone has walked in when I've just dropped a few pictures on the timeline and they'll say: "Show me what you've got so far." I go ahead and press play and amazingly, almost every single time, they'll say, "wow, its amazing how you fit the pictures to the music."

Therefore rather than worry about every single picture, focus instead on a few key spots in the music. I recommend starting by creating your music bed. If, during the course of editing, you want to make the project a little shorter or longer, you can simply repeat a portion of music, or cut out a refrain (easy to do with most non-symphonic music). Then, listen for key points in the music where it stops, changes key or has an unusual percussive sound. Make something happen at these points.

Each opening & closing effect of each video has to be completely original from anything else I've created ...

OK, if you really have OCD, then I can understand this. However, absent that issue, this shouldn't be a problem. The reason is that what you want to do is actually NOT a good thing. I am not a professional editor, but I believe that in the trade this is often referred to as "calling attention to the edit." It can be very distracting. You want people to marvel at the story and the pictures, not at the effect. I hereby remove from your brow the burden of having to do this.

So, in summary, put down the music bed, add all your pictures to the timeline, letting Vegas create default cross-fades between each of them. Decide on some general organization (chronological; groom/bride/groom/bride; etc.) and use that to move the pictures around. Concentrate on just a few key musical locations to get the timing just right. Finally, for transitions other than hard cuts or fades, let the picture suggest something. If something doesn't spring immediately to mind, then don't do anything. . In a five minute montage, four non-crossfade transitions is probably plenty. And, the pan/crop moves will generally suggest themselves: e.g., pan horizontally across a group of people; vertically up and down a mountain; zoom in or out of something interesting or important that someone is holding, and so on.

I have done four of these for weddings and have gotten standing ovations every time. Believe me, I'm NOT that good, but the emotion of seeing all those pictures with some appropriate music will carry the day.

In addition to BusterKeaton's EXCELLENT advice about imposing a deadline on yourself, I would also suggest that you ask the "client" for advice. I had a friend who called me four days before his wedding and wanted a four minute photo tribute. He emailed the pictures and then three hours later I emailed a WMV version back to him. He then had about eight request for effects, changes, etc. I incorporated them into the package and emailed another WMV file that night. The next day I produced a DVD and FedEx'd it to him. Don't ever do anything alone, if you can help it. Even if you absolutely hate the advice you get and decide to reject it all, the interaction will help you focus on issues and get through them.

To see the example I just talked about, click on this link:

Video Samples

and then click on "Priestly.wmv." You'll need to save the file to your disk, or you can click on Open to play it directly from the site. Feel free to play any of the other files.

Good luck!

A good montage will flow smoothly and tell a story. But an over-produced montage will always look amatuerish. The biggest mistake people make when doing thsese is to apply as many transitions as possible, or have the zoom/pan effects be too exaggerated.

Your family will be happy to have a professionally done montage with appropriate music. Timing photos to the lyrics is ok, but it's also gimmicky.

Thanks to Busterkeaton and Johnmeyer for the excellent advice. I REALLY do appreciate the time that you took in answering my questions seriously.

And yes, I'm totally OCD. I'm 40 and I've massively suffered with it for 25+ years. Too much information probably for this forum, but if I didn't include that little nugget, I think my original post would have sounded even more ludicrous than it does. I have to take meds for the OCD or else I'm so irritable/panic driven/sometimes suicidal that it's nearly unbearable. This isn't meant to sound like a boohoo letter---my life is *just fine* as long as I keep reading books about CBT, and take the meds.

Anyway, again, too much info. Thanks again you two for your GREAT tips and advice!!!!!

Hi Dgates,

Yes I read and learned early on that it's best to stick to crossfades or straight cuts and to use the other transitions sparingly. I do think I need to mellow out on my zoom/panning because I think they go too fast sometimes and can make people seasick. Good tip. All good stuff people.

Your welcome, good luck with your OCD. I know someone who has that.

One thing I forgot to mention is if you want original openings or beginnings, that's cool, but if you are not getting paid, limit the heavy intensive work to say 15-30 secs of video. Just don't overdo it. You don't have every effect you know how to do in every edit.

A program I use to output to .avi so I can edit in Vegas is www.3d-album.com. The user interface is horrible but it has some really neat 3d environments in which to make photo montages. It also has some nice intro's, especially for weddings that you can download for free from their website, but you have to have the program to implement them. (oh, to sell your montages if you use this program, you have to purchase the commercial license).

j razz

Pan/Zoom-

I started out making these on DVD Complete....matured into Vegas and I am now shooting wedding videos for free to get experience.


I have learned that on pan/zoom for slide shows a little goes a long way. While I was completely impressed when I could pan or move a picture a whole lot, I finally had to limit the time I spent on projects and found out the customer was just as impressed with the small movements.

Johnmeyer,

Hey I loved your examples that you have on your yahoo site. Cool effects. Was especially interested in the morphing you did of that little girl in your thennow.wmv clip. That was REALLLY cool. Did you do that with WAX? And if so, is that time consuming? I've downloaded wax but never used it once yet.

Your intro in the volleyball clip was cool too. All of the clips had nice qualities too them.

Earl,

Excellent post!

"In my mind I'm always thinking that each picture needs to match the lyrics of the song that I'm using." - Why? How much of a match must there be? If people are laughing and enjoying themselves then a happy and upbeat piece will do it? Tell me how much of a match you need?

"This is probably my biggest problem because it takes an incredible amount of time to find the right pictures as I'm doing it." Again, please give me a real "Earl-World" example?

"Each opening & closing effect of each video has to be completely original from anything else I've created because I'm uptight about ever using the same effects." Again, give me your example of where you do this.


"I usually use crossfades or straight cuts for the transitions in the middle, "
In the middle of what? And if, so why is this a problem? Please be explicit?

"And again, here I always feel like I need to do something new."
Why? What happens if you repeat a simple crossfade or cut? Life is repetitious. Repeating an effect is the FIRST time your viewer will be seeing it? On the other hand you may have seen it a zillion times - they won’t. To break the need for something “new” the strategy here is to do something else; go for a walk; do another project; look at magazines; scribble ideas down on a pad; I have a COVERED pin board where I attach scribbled ideas - don't just rely on that "demanding" parallel horizontal track – it will drive into a narrow view of things! Print off the stills and have them on a vertical surface where you can view and arrange. Play with the montage and have the music running at the same time

"I struggle with a good approach on how to decide which media/pictures/video stays in, and which gets tossed. agonizing." - eh yeah? We all do. What would you do if you WEREN'T agonizing?

What I've learnt about you is that you have "high" standards. This is no bad thing. But what I'm also picking up is that you are "thirsty" for ideas and as you say "Strategies/Theories".

* Well, look at Ken Burns work. - I've done this. Marvel at what he has achieved and write down where you think you understand what he has done.

* We have a History channel here in the UK, it is full of excellent montage approaches. Write down, make notes thorough notes of what you are seeing. Maybe draw sketches of how stills flow and merge into each other. - I do this. Now try and do it yourself.

* Be critical, positively critical, of work you see on the TV - adverts news reports. Write down what you see as being valuable - I do this.

* I record photo montage work from the TV and then sit back and review and re-review the work until I'm clear as to how it has been done. Maybe in the future I may use and interpret it in my way.

* Get to view the approaches of Walter Murch. Bet he can beat you on being "thorough"!

Creating work . . I'll say that again . .. CREATING work is sometimes/mostly a very "blinkered" obsessive existence. My strategy is to go for walks; come here and read and see if I can share ideas and thoughts; I have the TV ( sorry, UK TV is not embedded with too many adverts . . BBC is free of them! )running as I know that I will pick up many many ideas from those who have been in the biz for longer than I will ever be.

On the theoretical side, in terms of workflow and creativity, is that you are doing 2 things at the same time. And 2 things that appear to be mutually "exclusive", and maybe realising that you are needing "space" to develop both at the same time too. OK, I'll speak for myself. I have to "Learn" and "Produce" at the same time. Well, I'll let you into a big secret, any artist, and YOU ARE, does this. It is a complex existence. I wouldn't have it any other way.

You’ve asked for strategies and theories about montages. Hopefully I’ve offered you this plus the objectivity I think you want to be able to stand back and view your own process. Much of creative output IS about how the process is approached NOT the outcome. The outcome, excellent/good/bad, will only CAN only be subjective.

Earl, let me thank you for bringing this to the Forum. You have also allowed me to "focus" and concentrate on that which is important to me too. Oh yes, please give ma a chance to see your work? Please? Here is something I’ve done. It is a mixed video-grabbed stills montage MIXED in with video.

http://www.cilip.org.uk/specialinterestgroups/bysubject/public/awards/delegates/swisscottage.htm

Best regards

Grazie

Was especially interested in the morphing you did of that little girl in your thennow.wmv clip. That was REALLLY cool. Did you do that with WAX? And if so, is that time consuming? I've downloaded wax but never used it once yet.

Wax doesn't have morphing, but Satish, who is the Wax developer, has another program that does morphing. I tried it, but couldn't get it to work very well. I found it too crude and the results were not satisfying. I eventually found an inexpensive shareware program that produces excellent results and is easy to learn and use. I haven't used it since and I'm at another computer now, so I don't remember its name. If you are really interested, I'll try to find it the next time I'm on that computer.

Morphing is amazingly cool, but you have to have exactly the right set of pictures (you can do it with more than two) where the pose, lighting, etc. match up. If you don't, the pictures will, of course, still morph, but it won't have that eerie effect. The second of the two morphs in that "Then and Now" montage is of my daughter and, of course, I had a huge number of pics to choose from. As a result, you almost cannot see the changes as they are happening, and therefore the effect is definitely eerie, almost to the point of being unsettling.

Not read the other responses yet but I can give you some observations.

When I was in college we shot in Super 8 in the beginning classes. I found that music played along with the film often just worked. Granted, you need to pick something appropriate, but generally people notice it when things happen to match up and ignore it when things aren't matching up. It's the same sort of mentality that makes peole believe in psychic phenomena and fortune telling and deism.

So you can actually relax a bit about trying to force relations between the pictures and the music. People will find them even if you didn't put them there.

Use music that is less concrete and assemble your pictures to just tell an overall story. Avoid pop tunes with lyrics because they give you less options and tend to make you want to match the lyrics in a literal way.
If you use music without lyrics I suspect you'll be more free to use your imagination. If you don't control every second of the video, your audience will be able to use their imaginations as well.

Rob Mack

Abrosoft FantaMorph 3

Thanks Johnmeyer for giving me the link to that morphing software. VERY COOL and so inexpensive!

Thank you everyone again for the great replies. I've learned a lot today. Looking at my media in thumbnail view is where I was really needing input which DSE gave me in another thread. I've decided to use ACDSEE for that as I really like that for viewing lots of photos at once and wish that vegas didn't create the thumbnails dynamically as it takes too long on my pc for them to be created as I scroll through them.

HI Grazie,

'"In my mind I'm always thinking that each picture needs to match the lyrics of the song that I'm using." - Why? How much of a match must there be? If people are laughing and enjoying themselves then a happy and upbeat piece will do it? Tell me how much of a match you need?"'

Well that's difficult to answer without having you look at some of the stuff I've done. I think I'm being too uptight about the concept. I'm posting a link to a few of my videos and you can see what I mean more clearly I think. Obviously, every word in a song can't match exactly to the media I'm displaying. But I think I spend WAY TOO much time trying to find a photo that does fit to one of the words in a particular phrase, rather than just getting a picture of "people are laughing and enjoying themselves". I'm not sure that most people would even CATCH that I was doing the match a word to the photo thing in the first place unless they did video editing or art of some kind. The "Ihopeyoudance" video from the link below, if you listen and watch closely will exemplify how I try to match pics with words.


"Each opening & closing effect of each video has to be completely original from anything else I've created because I'm uptight about ever using the same effects." Again, give me your example of where you do this.

Ok, for example. I purchased a photo album plug-in for Adobe Premiere that flies in the book and then you zoom in and start your video, then you can end it the same way only in reverse. For some people that have been editing for a long time, that whole thing may be viewed as cheesy in the first place, but I'm only been doing this for a short time and this is just for an example: I obsess/stress out if I use the same photo album affect for more than a couple of videos, and that I should come up with something original (at least for me) to open up every video--for example start the video with a converted pencil-sketch of a photo and cross-fade it into the actual color photo. (I did that in the "Ihopeyoudance" video in the link below) So then after I use the pencil sketch opening, now I feel stupid about using it again in someone else's video, yada yada yada... Again, as I write this and after reading the replies to this thread, I realize I think I'm just being uptight about that, but I'd still like your input on this Grazie.


""I usually use cross-fades or straight cuts for the transitions in the middle, "In the middle of what? And if, so why is this a problem? Please be explicit?"

"In the middle" I mean that for the most part, I always use straight cuts or cross-fades. If there is something in the middle of the song that denotes a significant change, I might use one different transition (sparingly). From what I've read here, this is common advice given about transitions. For those moments when the music DOES change and I want to throw in a new transition, again, I stress about using the same one in more than one video. You answered this already though in your next paragraph anyway with the "Why? What happens if you repeat a simple..." (This is what I needed to hear actually.)

I'm exhausting myself as I write this as I realize how I'm totally being OCD about everything. My M.O.

I love the advice you gave me Grazie regarding watching Ken Burns stuff, etc. I have watched some of Ken Burns' documentaries, but never taken notes on any of them, but I'm going to and watch other stuff on T.V. as well for ideas. Good tip. All of the things people have written here are great. Setting goals, not being so uptight about the process, etc.

Speaking of looking at other's work. I salivate at stuff like Stonefield's videos that he does. Most the time I'm watching it and saying "HOW IN THE HECK DID HE DO THAT????!!!" I say that a LOT.

So, yes, I am definitely "thirsty" for new ideas, but also HOW to do the things I see. It's mind boggling sometimes and I'm sure this will probably come with time.

Ok so the videos....

They are all of my immediate family. I'm happily married and have four kids. My wife is the exact opposite of me: She's very calm, happy for the day, mellow, very positive about life. Never moody like me, or cynical. I'm short, *very* fortunate to have her. I'm either WAY UP or WAY DOWN with my moods.

Anyone who downloads these and watches them, just to warn you in advance, some of the vids have a few religious pictures in them and I have no desire to offend anyone. I have NO agenda! These are just things that we hold dear to us, so if you see a a picture, just replace it in your mind with YOUR spiritual leader/church/mosque/synagogue/mountain/ski lodge. For the record, I'm not one of those people that thinks that the people of my faith are the only ones that are going to make it to a "happy place/heaven/etc" in the next life, if there actually is one.

"The Prayer" Is especially dear to me as I did it right after 9/11. I was TOTALLY FREAKED for the safety of my wife & kids from that and found comfort in this song sung by Charlotte Church and Josh Groban as the words are EXACTLY what I felt inside. I subtitled it as the lyrics are SO cool to me.

"ThanksAgain", is a video from me to my parents. It's self explanatory if you listen to the lyrics closely. My Dad passed away in August of 2001 from colon cancer. He was in WWII as a Marine and went to Vietnam as well so the Marine Corps gave him a 21 gun salute. It was very cool.

The Ihopeyoudance again is of my kids and probably show the most of how I attempt to always match a pic with one of the words in a sung phrase.

"Twintalk" was something I saw someone else do in the vegasusers video sharing thing and wanted to show my daughter how the Haley Mills thing was done in the film "Parent Trap"

http://www.lssinc.us/sjr/showfiles.php

I think when I actually FINISH my stuff I do an OK job. It's just that I take months MONTHS to get one done and then it's not fun as people are disappointed that they haven't received anything yet. (Right now my mother-in-law isn't very happy with me because I didn't get the video done for her of my kids/family for her Christmas present. Still working on it. I have five songs, and TONS of video, photos, etc. that I'm trying to go through still.)

I appreciate any and all constructive criticism that could help me. Do I zoom too much, pan too much??? etc..

Thanks to everyone that emailed me the comments about the vids I've done. It really helps to get that feedback. This forum rocks!