rookie wants highlight film

wingcom wrote on 2/3/2009, 4:45 PM

I am new to video editing and want to create a high school football highlight film of my son to send to colleges. THe problem I have is how to illuminate him on the video so that the coaches can see where he is on each play. I thought maybe a spotlight or arrow could be helpful but I can't figure out how. Thanks in advance.

PS. Layman's terms

Comments

richard-amirault wrote on 2/3/2009, 5:18 PM

The easiest way would be to highlight / point to him at the start of each play.

More complicated would be to have a highlight follow him thru the whole play. I'm sure VMS can do this, but I've never done it so I can't help on that.

To show him at the start of a play I would make a text box with an arrow or two. Adjust the size of the font to what works best. You might even have two arrows facing each other with a space between them (for your son). --> <-- or >>> <<<

To properly place the arrows use the PLACEMENT tab on the text creation box. You'll be able to drag the text (arrows) anywhere on the video.

Make the duration/time of the text box short so that when the ball snaps the arrows dissapear.

mike_in_ky wrote on 2/3/2009, 6:43 PM

wingcom...

An alternative method would be to use one of the Media Generators (Eliptical Ring). On my system, the ring is yellow and the other 2 colors are transparent. You can adjust the ring color to something more white and then pull the alpha % (opacity) down to something around 15%.

Start by selecting that Media Generator and placing it on a video track above the video track of the footage of your son. You'll have to adjust the length of the Media Generator event to match the length of your son's footage. By adjusting the position of the 3 colors markers, you can make the ring as small or large as you want. Make the ring small (color 2) but thick so that it won't look like your son has a "halo" and make color 1 the same values as color 2 so that you have a ball rather than just a circle. Then use the Track Motion controls on the left side of the display for that track to move the ring on top of your son as the video proceeds. As an alternative to Track Motion, use the Pan/Crop control for that media event. It will be tedious to do since I assume your son doesn't stay in one place in the video clips as he runs down the field.

I've tried this technique on some short footage of my grandson and it works just fine to highlight him. Give it a try, it may do what you want to do.

mike_in_nc

wingcom wrote on 2/4/2009, 9:18 AM

Thanks, brighter side, it alls appears to work well except I'm not sure how to adjust the duration. Is there a setting to adjust or just the slider in the timeline section?

Thanks again