Trimming styles & techniques in Vegas

ram17 wrote on 9/24/2018, 7:07 PM

I joined a upcoming SDE Wedding seminar in our area & luckily there's only 4 of us Vegas Pro users out of 25 participants, others are using Premiere.

SDE editing is time crucial, so the main factor would be depend on how fast & efficient you trim your clips & assemble your story in order to deliver it on time. I just want guys to know your techniques here on how you trim your clips & maybe you can share some of your golden tips. It's also a way for us (yeah it's four of us) to show with other editors why we stick in Vegas Pro because of its efficiency.

Comments

zdogg wrote on 9/24/2018, 7:48 PM

I had to look up SDE (Same day edit)

If you have a multicamera setup, you could use the Vegas mulit camera feature, just run your three or four timelines in sync and you clik on the view you prefer, on the fly, just as if you were doing a live broadcast, switching cameras, and Vegas makes the cuts automatically and puts that view into a composite timeline.

So, obviously, time is of the essence, and this would be a going 'starting point' to just get it cranked out.

Reading some commentary of those who did not know what SDE was, answering a bride to be who was considering SDE and wanted to know if "it is worth it"??? and many, once figuring out what she was asking about, not surprisingly, don't want to see the same ceremony again, the one they just sat through. So, the "other stuff" would be, considering those pretty strong sentiments, what you might want to feature, the preparation, the lead up, and whatever else you shot in preparation. Just sharing info here, you, of course, are the expert there.

 

DrNeb wrote on 9/24/2018, 7:48 PM

I don't make wedding vids...I'm a moving image artist, for want of a better term. For me, I love Vegas because it behaves like an audio DAW...I'm also a musician, composer, and sonic artist too. So triming for me is very much the same as I trim in Sonar. This is, just zoom the clip out to find where the clip ends. I've used the trimmer, but to me it just increases the work flow time. I'm not keen on the new story board feature...it gets a little confusing. But I'm a traditionalist, I suppose in regards to my editing skills. I've got a graphics tablet, that I've been meaning to integrate better - I'm in the middle of building a 3d animation as we speak. Blender 3d. I need another computer :)

karma17 wrote on 9/25/2018, 3:42 AM

I think the most important thing is having a vision for your story clear in your mind before you start editing. I would compare to making a website. If you don't have a vision for the site, then you are going to be just stumbling along, trying this and trying that, and then maybe not liking it, and changing it, then trying something else, etc.. So #1, I'd say have a vision or idea.

2. With said vision in mind, look through all your clips, find the ones you want to use, then rename the files with a meaningful name, LS long shot, bride, MS-Medium Shot_Groom, ES Church,

3. Import everything in and drop it all all the timeline in a rough assembly cut. Put roughly the sequence together. Erring on the side of leaving stuff in versus cutting stuff too soon.

4. Watch and start trimming it down to where you like it. Also, I will add a couple of extra video tracks so I have space to move clips around in case I want to do that.

5. Using the bracket keys, and knowing your short cuts also saves time.

6. When it comes to applying effects, also consider putting effects on the program level versus the track level. That way, one effect applies to all the clips versus just one clip and you have to cut an paste.

7. Another trick is what you colorize a clip to your liking, you can save it as a pre-set and just pull it with the fx if you want.

8. Another tip is to right click and drag clips to timeline and can place as video only and don't have to delete or ungroup audio tracks.

9. Also, consider starting with audio only and no visuals. This creates a question in the mind of the audience, then they are actually looking forward to seeing first visual.

10. Don't add music prematurely, it can make the video seem more complete than it is. Add it last.

11. Make sure you save your work every 2-5 minutes in case of a crash or freeze.

12. Also, consider using the order effect, that is, figuring out what elements in the story or video you want to emphasize, then preceding those moments with something of the opposite nature. For instance, to emphasize loud, precede it with silence. To emphasize silence, precede it with loud.

Just some things off the top of my head.

3POINT wrote on 9/25/2018, 7:20 AM

I'm not a wedding filmer, but I think that a wedding film almost always tells the same story. I could imagine that creating first a weddingmovie template project, where afterwards you just fill the placeholders with your own/new footage, would be a great timesaver.

ram17 wrote on 9/25/2018, 8:24 AM

Thank you for your insights guys. I feel like refresh with your replies, this is why i love this community.

Kinvermark wrote on 9/25/2018, 7:50 PM

I like to pre-sort and sequence my footage (and stills) using Adobe Bridge (its free, BTW). Unlike any other DAM, Bridge will allow you a manual sort order. I then drag to the Vegas timeline.

In Vegas I navigate with a Contour Shuttle Pro, and have hot-keys to trim the footage to length. Vegasaur's "Remove Gaps from selected footage" quickly tightens up the timeline.

I am hoping that the Vegas Pro 16 storyboard functions will allow me to do the same (once they work) plus hover-scrub trim to make things even faster.