wiscon_vidparty | Vidding Workshop!

chaila posting in

Welcome to the

wiscon_vidparty vidding workshop! We hope this will be a chance for new or potential vidders to find out more about what’s involved in making a vid and to see the wide variety of ways vidders make vids, and for vidders of all skill levels to discuss vidding and share tips and ideas. Everyone is welcome to participate!

This workshop will be discussion- and question-based, so please, start or jump into any discussions you want to have and ask any questions about any aspect of vidding! Finding ideas, getting source, clipping (or not), editing programs, codecs, rendering, effects, specific technical issues you’re having, discussion about specific vids, discussing your own ideas, links to useful resources, tutorials, cheerleading--any and all vidding related topics are welcome.

We’ve created a few categories to keep some of the major topic threads organized. If you have a comment or question or want to start a discussion on a certain topic, just comment below the relevant subject. (We’re flexible though, so don’t fret too much about getting things in the right place. If in doubt, just give your thread a descriptive subject line so people can find it).

Feel free to add new threads if what you want to talk about isn't covered by the categories, but please give your comment a descriptive subject line so readers can tell what’s being discussed.

We have several awesome vidders who have volunteered to participate and introduce themselves at their convenience. We will be linking to their introductions as they appear. Keep an eye out and feel free to ask them specific questions!

Topics (to get you started--add your own threads and subthreads!)

• Vid Idea Development -- Finding and developing ideas for new vids

• Tech Questions -- Hardware and software (PC, Mac or Linux), codecs, aspect ratios, exporting and rendering, effects, etc.
          Questions asked/discussed:
          -- Software to use on a PC? (including discussion of Windows Movie Maker & Lightworks)
          -- Vidding with iMovie09?
          -- Codec rec: Avid DNxHD
          -- Converter recs for Macs?
          -- Linux clipping?

• Getting Started (and Finished) -- From beginning to end, how do you make a vid? Getting source, clipping, editing workflows, tips for getting started, etc.
          • Subthread: Editing workflows/processes
                --chaila (VirtualDub, Vegas, Zarx264gui)
                --heresluck (DVD Decrypter, DGIndex, Premiere, Zarx264gui)
                --thingswithwings (Handbrake, Mac the Ripper, MPEG Streamclip, Final Cut Pro, Sound Studio)
                --ghost_lingering (Adobe Premiere & AfterEffects, Mac the Ripper, and mpeg streamclip)
                --eruthros (DVD Decrypter, VirtualDub, AvsPmod, Premiere, Zarx264gui)
                --such_heights (Switch, audio editing/conversion, Final Cut)
                --beccatoria (avidemux, Cinelerra)

          • Other questions/discussion
           -- How to time clips to the beat?
           -- Using markers
           -- Approaching editing/revising? & how to deal with ambition outstripping effects/transition knowledge?
           -- Free/cheap editing software for Macs?
           -- Ripping DVDs vs. downloaded source?
           -- Note re: codecs & compression

• Links and References -- Link helpful resources from elsewhere on the internet.
          -- Various lists of resources, including subtitling
          -- Mac vidders: how to get the shiniest source
          -- Lots of links, especially about vidding creativity
          -- Panel notes on song choice
          -- A&E's Technical Guide to All Things Audio and Video
          -- Audio editing
          -- Multiple aspect ratio tutorials
          -- Understanding codecs & containers, & Autodesk software for students

• VIDDING SQUEE - All things happy, fun, and inspiring.
          • The first vid you made you're still proud of?
          • Vids/vidders that inspired us!

Meet the Vidder Threads

• Meet the Vidder: Rhi
• Meet the Vidder: metatxt
• Meet the Vidder: such heights
• Meet the Vidder: kiki_miserychic
• Meet the Vidder: Garrideb
• Meet the Vidder: ghost lingering
• Meet the Vidder: here's luck
• Meet the Vidder: chaila

ETA 3/3/14: The main part of the workshop has concluded, but please feel free to add answers or info if you've got them! We've organized a list of the threads, questions and answers for ease of browsing. And don't forget that you can sign up to be a vidding mentor to a newer vidder, or sign up to get a mentor!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

chaila

Getting Started (and Finished)
What is the best way to start vidding if you never have? How do vidders get from an idea to having a completed vid? From getting audio and video source, to clipping, to the process of editing a vid, to rendering and posting, what are the different processes that different vidders use? Tell us about your workflow, talk about tips for getting started, or ask specific questions here.

Edited Date: 2014-03-01 02:08 pm (UTC)

From:

chaila

I suspect that there are as many editing processes as there are vidders. Vidders, tell us how you do things in this thread! From the time you decide to make the vid to the time you render it, what steps do you take?

From:

chaila

This was probably the hardest part of vidding for me, at first: figuring out how to even approach it. It's taken me several years to actually get to a place where I have a process that almost always works for me, and which I think results in decent-quality vids. So here's mine, in case it's helpful to anyone! I vid on a PC.

1) I usually acquire source from the interwebs. Every time I've tried to rip my own DVDs, it's gone awry (though I also have not put that much effort into figuring out how to do it so it wouldn't go awry).

2) I clip, by which I mean I go through the episodes of the show and chop them up into smaller, more usable pieces, which I then import into my editing project. I don't clip everything, just the parts I think I might use (which sometimes means almost everything, lalala). I clip instead of rewatching the canon, basically, because clipping reminds me what happened, what the visuals are, and what scenes I might want to use.

I use Virtual Dub to clip (out of date but still useful tutorial for using Virtual Dub. I now use the H.264 codec to clip into .avi files, which once you install it will show up in the list of options). I added a plug in so I can use Virtual Dub with all common file types (avi, mp4, mkv, etc).

I name my clips by episode, plus a short description to remind me what it is. (i.e. within a TSCC folder, "1.01 sarah john jump to future") Sometimes if there's striking visual in the scene or a repetitive visual theme I think I might use in the vid a lot, I'll just add it to the description so I remember it or can search for it later ("1.07 sarah ellison in fire, hold hand out" or "2.04 cameron in grocery store, hold apple). Then later I can search my clip folder for "hand" or "apple" and get everything that I described with that word.

3) I use Sony Vegas 12 to edit. I import the song I've picked and all the clips I've made into a a new project, and then I basically just start throwing clips on the timeline. I usually have some ideas for certain parts of the vid, and then just kind of make up the rest at first, and go through relevant clips until I'm struck with ideas about what else to put where. I hate empty timeline so my first goal is to get a rough draft.

4) Once I have a rough draft, the fun part starts! Then I basically blend it all up and fix everything. I move clips around and swap in new ones to make the narrative or theme (or whatever I'm going for) more clear, tighten all the editing, draw out visual parallels, maybe add some motion: in general just make the vid cleaner and clearer and better. For some reason, it's easier for me to do this while revising than while doing a rough draft. I usually have a beta or cheerleader here too, someone who watches the vid and gives me feedback on stuff that works or doesn't or stuff to fix or think about.

5) Once I have a final draft, I render to an uncompressed avi (this is the newest part of my process. It took me four years to realize what people meant when they said this). Basically that means what it says: the file is not compressed with any codec, so it's huge.

6) I use Zarx264gui to compress the huge uncompressed .avi to a good quality, decent size .mp4 file. Here is excellent information about using Zarx264gui at animemusicvideos.org (which is an excellent resource for ALL things vidding). I'm still playing around with settings to optimize size/quality proportions, but that link will tell you everything you need to know.

And that's it! Then I have a vid ready for uploading to streaming sites and for download, and I post it. It's long, but it's basically the process I've worked out over the course of years, so I figured my pain might be useful to someone else. Feel free to ask questions about it!

Edited Date: 2014-03-01 03:32 pm (UTC)

Re: Tell us about your editing workflow/process!

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sophinisba - Date: 2014-03-01 04:18 pm (UTC) - Expand

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chaila - Date: 2014-03-01 07:22 pm (UTC) - Expand

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Re: Tell us about your editing workflow/process!

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shati - Date: 2014-03-02 12:29 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

heresluck

First there has to be a song. Usually I start by listening to the song obsessively for days or weeks, because sometimes I think a song is perfect and then it turns out I am wrong. (More about this in the Vid Idea Development thread.)

I edit the audio of most of my songs -- sometimes because it's just too long, sometimes because the structure needs adjusting in some way ("I can't start with that verse!"), sometimes because there's an extended noodly outro that just isn't adding anything. Then I listen to the edited version a bunch of times to get it set in my head, I put it in my vidding playlist, etc.

I set up a spreadsheet with a column for the lyrics of the edited version (and rough timings of the intro, bridge, etc.), a column for specific clip ideas, and a column for general ideas, and over the next few weeks (or months... or more...) I throw ideas into that spreadsheet as I think of them.

I rip DVDs using DVD Decrypter, index the resulting .vob files using DGIndex (which generates an .avs file), tweak the .avs files if necessary to get rid of interlacing, and load the .avs files in Premiere. I usually have one .avs file per season. (If anyone wants to see what the .avs scripts look like, I have lots of examples.) I have occasionally vidded using HD downloads, which is similar, except obviously there is no ripping -- I just make an .avs file (I use EditPadPro, but any text editor will work). Basically .avs files are wrappers that allow me to vid files that Premiere doesn't want to load and to tweak the appearance of those files without changing the original file.

I do what's called "virtual clipping" in Premiere: I make a whole bunch of bins (folders) and label them with whatever is relevant for that project (usually character names, sometimes other stuff), then open the .avs files one at a time and scroll through them looking for clips I might want to use. When I find one, I set in and out points and drag the "clip" to the bin and give it a descriptive name. It's not a real clip -- there's no additional file on the hard drive -- but Premiere treats it like a clip. Some clips get thrown on the timeline as I'm clipping; others just hang out in the bins in case I need them later.

Once I've finished clipping I start moving around the stuff I already put on the timeline: making clips shorter, placing specific actions or motions in relation to specific lyrics or beats or crescendos or whatever. I pull other clips to fill in the blank spaces. I change my mind about things a lot. This part of the process takes many hours, usually spread over days or weeks or months, depending on what else is going on in my life and what other vid projects I'm working on.

Usually at some point I have a complete crisis of confidence and I export a snippet to show people who love me and (ideally) are excited about the show or characters I'm vidding so that they can give me a pep talk. I am not ashamed to admit that I need a lot of pep talks.

Eventually I have a full draft, which I export to show

renenet, my longtime primary beta, and sometimes other people -- for example, if renenet doesn't know the show very well, I try to find someone who does. They tell me what's working and what's not ("It seems like the first verse belongs to a totally different vid"; "Why does this other character show up 2/3 of the way through the vid?"; "I know you love those jump cuts, but they are not doing what you want them to do"). I sulk for a while -- that part can take anywhere from half an hour to weeks -- and then I start pulling stuff off the timeline and trying to figure out what should go there instead.

Depending on how pressed for time I am and how lost I am feeling, there may be more rounds of cheerleading and/or beta. Sometimes lots more rounds of beta, especially if it's taking me a while to accept that the vid I am making is not the vid I thought I was making. That happens a lot.

Once the vid is (finally) done, I export an uncompressed .avi for archival purposes. If I'm sending it to VividCon, I also export DVD-ready files. My current version of Premiere allows me to export .mp4 files suitable for download (in theory), so I've done that for my last few vids, but the compression/quality ratio is not great, so I am probably going to go back to compressing the master .avi using Zarx264gui (see chaila's comment for details).

Then I upload the vid (to my website, to Vimeo) and post about it in various places (AO3, my DW/LJ, DW/LJ communities, Tumblr) -- or, if it's going to VividCon, I sit on it for months. Either way, I spend more time than I probably should worrying about what other people will think of it. Heh.

Edited Date: 2014-03-01 04:50 pm (UTC)

Re: Tell us about your editing workflow/process!

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mammothluv - Date: 2014-03-01 06:15 pm (UTC) - Expand

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d_generate_girl - Date: 2014-03-01 10:42 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

thingswithwings

My process is a lot like

chaila's, in terms of acquire/clip/vid/export. I now have sufficient computer power/skills to vid directly from most of my source files (usually mkvs or vobs) but I find that clipping is an integral part of my vidding process. To make that more clear: you can sometimes just import a whole file - an entire episode, or an entire movie - into your vidding program (like iMovie, WMM, Premiere, FCP, Vegas, etc) and vid from it directly. I did this for one of my Festivids vids this year, because it was a 27 minute source and I was using the entire thing. But in almost any other vidding situation, I need to clip as part of the creative process, which means I make smaller clips (sometimes 2 seconds, sometimes a minute or two) of just the stuff I want to use. So it goes:

1) Idea phase. Maybe I get inspired by a song, or sometimes I have a concept and go looking for a song. I have songs on my vidding playlist in iTunes that I just haven't found the right fandom/source for yet, and vid concepts/characters I just haven't found the right song for yet. Once I have a song+idea in mind (or when I'm auditioning songs for a concept) I listen to the song over and over. Like, I put it on a loop and listen to it for literally hours.

2) Acquisition phase. I am a completist, so I typically scrub through every potentially useful piece of footage. If I'm vidding a single source, this means I rewatch the whole show (with the sound off). If I'm making a multivid, I will acquire every single piece of potentially useful footage I can think of, ask my friends for suggestions for other pieces of footage, and use other resources to locate stuff. Two great tools for making multivids and sourceless vids (or any vids really!) are tvtropes and the imdb keyword search (in the search bar at the top, select "keyword" from the dropdown menu). So let's say you're trying to make a vid about a certain trope (like my vid The Price, which is about manpain, and uses a lot of similar-looking shots from across fandoms - men crying, women's graves, etc) or you're trying to make a vid about a book or comic book character using live-action footage stolen from other sources (if I were trying to make a vid about Cordelia Vorkosigan, say), or you're trying to make a vid that constructs backstory for your characters (like the vids that tell us what Natasha and Clint got up to in Budapest). You need specific shots: "men crying" or "women military fighters" or "spy tools". If you find the right trope on tvtropes, it'll deliver you a zillion potential sources. If you find the right keyword on imdb (and you're lucky, and someone's tagged things well) it'll also deliver a zillion potential sources. And both of those are also good ways to expand and diversify the types of sources you use - so if you're making a vid about hackers, and want to include anime, but don't know anime sources, tvtropes will set you up.

I download source in mkv (bluray rip preferred) or I rip it from DVD if I have to.

3) Clipping phase. Like I said, I scrub through all the available footage, looking for everything I could potentially use (often with the sound off. You see footage very very differently with the sound off, or at least I do. That's really important. Shows and films use musical cues and situational cues and dialogue and context in order to make you see the footage in a particular way! But if you turn off all those cues, you can open yourself to seeing it differently). While scrubbing through footage, I typically have my song going in my ears, on a loop, again, as this is the greatest source of vidder's serendipity for me. Many times I've found a hilarious/amazing match of song to footage, just because that part of the song happened to be playing in my ears while my eyes were looking at that scene. Listening to the song constantly while clipping helps me start to structure and organize the vid (who gets what verse, how do I deal with that one weird lyric, what the heck am I gonna do with the bridge, etc.). Like

chaila, I give my clips really specific descriptions ("L101 - AP waiting around hospital room together P w cuffs closeup" is Leverage 1x01, Alec and Parker, including a closeup of Parker holding handcuffs) so that I can find everything later (sometimes I even search file names - so I might search for "cuffs" to find that one later) and I always always ALWAYS include the episode number, because there's nothing worse than needing to reclip for some reason and not being able to find that scene in the source a second time. I also develop shorthand descriptors so that I can easily find related or thematically similar clips - so if I'm looking for clips people shooting light from their bodies in my Avengers:EMH clip library, I look for keywords "carebear stare," and if I'm making The Price, looking for clips of dudes dropping things in slo-mo, I look for keywords "I was sad so I dropped something." How you organize clips makes a HUGE difference in how easily you can find them later, and how easily you can relate them to one another. By the same token, each vid I make has a bunch of folders, so that I can organize the footage generally. The Leverage vid I'm thinking about clipping for atm has folders like "Alec," "Parker," "Eliot," "Alec/Eliot," "Alec/Parker," "Eliot/Parker" "OT3 Domestic" "OT3 action" "OT3 on the job" and "OT3 general" so that it's easier to find stuff.

3.5) ETA: Music editing phase! I forgot this originally. I try to edit the song as early on as I can, because I like to know what space I'm trying to fill. I mostly just edit the songs to make them shorter, or to remove a verse that doesn't work, or to make the ending better (most of the time I don't like a gradual fade-out ending b/c it's a pain). I also once reversed the order of some verses in order to better fit the song to the narrative of the character.

4) I open every single clip I have made in Quicktime (or, well, depending on the number of clips. Sometimes I have to do it 50 or 100 clips at a time or everything crashes). I once again listen to the song on repeat. I play every single clip one after another. I look for similarities, things that should be next to one another, things that are framed similarly, etc. I play some clips backwards, to see if they'd be funny/sexy/whatever in reverse. I continue planning, structuring thematically, figuring out what lyrics/parts of the song correspond to what.

5) Outlining phase. Actually I do this all the way through. Once I've picked a song, I listen to it and write down the lyrics for myself in Word (I don't copy/paste from a lyrics site). Sometimes, for some vids, I'll write down time stamps as well, so I know how much time a lyric actually takes. You might want to put eight scenes on a particular lyric, but if it's only 2 seconds of vid time, ain't gonna work. If I'm being thorough (or vidding something instrumental!) I'll also write down all the instrumental sections as I hear them. Then, beneath each lyric/description, I write what I think I might put there. So while I'm clipping and reviewing, as I get an idea, I go write it down in my outline document. So here's the beginning of my outline document for my vid Silver Moon Black Dog:

beat beat beat beat beat beat beat beat (8x) (0:04)
-quick flashes of atmospheric imagery, Ankh-Morpork, hourglasses, etc

fiddle fiddle fiiiiiiddle, fiddle fiddle fiiiiiiiddle (0:07)
-maybe this is all nannying stuff, but with weird jumpcuts in it and some camera motion?

banjo comes in, three banjo trills backed by fiddle (0:20)
-nannying continues, or maybe monster under the bed

more banjo/fiddle back and forth (0:28)
-including Susan kicking the monster's ass and dragging it out in a bag

silver moon rising for what seems like the first time (0:33)
-aspect coming on her: walking through door, bone-face scream

. . . where the notes in the outline often correspond to the clip names in the clip library, eg "bone-face scream" is what I called that clip, so I can go find it later using the outline as a guide.

6) Vidding phase. This part's easy, because I just put the clips down on the timeline! I already know the song and the footage so well at this point that this is mostly assembly and troubleshooting and playing with effects. Sometimes what I thought would work doesn't work, and I have to figure it out again. Sometimes I have to go back and reclip stuff, or review a bunch of clips again to find something to fill a hole or make a bridge or whatever. I don't usually do much fancy stuff for title sequences, but anyway one of the big stressors in this phase is figuring out what the heck to do for the title sequence. I can almost never force myself to give up any of the song real estate for the titles, but other people are very good at making cool titles that go at the beginning/end of the song.

7) Publishing phase. Once the vid is done, I export in a few different formats, upload to youtube, and check the quality.

8) Subtitles phase. With the complete vid in hand, I create a subtitles file tailor-made to the video file (I open the finished vid in MPEG Streamclip, so that I can make the timing of the subtitles accurate down to the thousandth of a second without any fuss).

9) THIS IS WHY IT TAKES ME EIGHT YEARS TO MAKE A VID OH GOD

ETA: Also, I can talk more technically if ppl want, but generally speaking I use Handbrake, Mac the Ripper, MPEG Streamclip, Final Cut Pro, Sound Studio, Quicktime, and MS Word to get my stuff done.)

Edited Date: 2014-03-01 09:01 pm (UTC)

Re: Tell us about your editing workflow/process!

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chaila - Date: 2014-03-01 10:22 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Tell us about your editing workflow/process!

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thingswithwings - Date: 2014-03-01 11:21 pm (UTC) - Expand

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Re: Tell us about your editing workflow/process!

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goodbyebird - Date: 2014-03-03 12:24 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

eruthros

My process is really similar to

chaila's technically and

thingswithwings's in terms of organization, but there are a couple differences where I'm dealing with different technical problems so I thought I'd mention them! I vid on a Windows machine that's too old to vid on easily, so I have to figure out workarounds sometimes in order to deal with not having enough memory / processor / GPU.

1. After I find a song and an idea, the first thing I usually do is type up the lyrics of the song (and any notable instrumental bits) in an outline and listen to it a bunch; this is where I decide what audio editing to do and what kind of general arc I want and stuff like that. I might decide what verse to edit out but not actually do that part for ages, because I end up doing it in audacity, and I hate audacity. (Recs for better audio editing that are free or cheap would be great, because I find audacity infuriating. I tried some of the pay stuff as trials - Sony and Adobe - and they use so much processing power that they don't really work for me and are way more program than what I need.)

2. I assemble source. For a single-source vid that's usually downloaded blu-ray rip mkvs or ripped DVDs.

2a. If I'm working with DVDs, I use DVD Decrypter to make VOBs (there are better options now but I already have it installed), analyze with DGIndex, and import the DGIndex files into AvsPmod to edit them. I'm really lucky that the first vid I made (with

thingswithwingsjdownloader or jdownloader 2 beta) to get higher-quality youtube source. When you put "completionism problem" together with "multi-source vid" I end up watching a lot of source but that's kind of fun for me? A lot of people really hate it but I kind of enjoy it even when I'm watching terrible movies - it's like a weird scavenger hunt where I finally find what I'm looking for in a season eight episode of Smallville that was mentioned on imdb!

4. Getting ready to clip finally! I clean up the source as needed right before I clip it - so I get rid of interlacing or crop the letterboxing or whatever at this stage. I use virtualdub to clip; where

chaila uses a plugin, I use an avisynth script (in AvsPmod) that lets me open any type of file in virtualdub, because I like the tools avisynth gives me for cleaning up footage and standardizing frame rates and stuff. Avisynth initially sounded difficult to me because it's a text-based way to think about video, but the way I use it is basically to a checklist. Like "Is this source interlaced? If yes, try this command" - and I got that checklist from the AMV.org technical guide, which is very useful! Plus AvsPmod comes with some useful extra tools, like a crop calculator that lets me get rid of letterboxing really easily.

4a. If I'm making a multi-source vid this is the point at which I pick a frame rate. This is not mandatory but it makes editing much easier if all my clips are in the same frame rate, so I use the AssumeFPS() command in avisynth to tell virtualdub to pretend that all my source is the same frame rate.

5. Clipping! If I'm already familiar with the source, I watch the footage with the sound off; if I'm not, I watch it with the sound on so I'll know what the heck is going on and then I'll pause and make clips as needed. If I'm doing super targeted clipping - "I hear there's a clip of someone jumping on an alligator in this tv episode" - I can zoom through in fast-forward. I clip in virtualdub, using the lagarith lossless codec to make avi files. The annoying thing about the version of vdub I use is that I have to set the codec every time.

I clip a lot, and I use long descriptive titles when I can - the characters, some scene description, and sometimes where the camera is or notable effects (shakycam, dramatic lens flare). If I already know how some of the vid is going to go I tack some song lyrics in the filename. And I put the episode number or movie title there too. So, loooooong filenames. I also clip into folders - for characters, for emotions, for anything I can think of. I just want to maximize my chances of finding it fast later when I use the search function in Premiere! As I clip, I also note stuff down in the lyrics outline I have - so my general arc note "a bunch of clone troopers being cloned" becomes "YC1 - Dooku putting Jek into cloning chamber shot over Dooku's shoulder." And I stick all the great clips I don't know what to do with at the end so I won't forget I have them. That helps me solve holes in the vid later - I'll scroll down there and go "oh hey Yoda holding a tiny stormtrooper totally fits there!"

6. Clip review! I basically vid like I write essays - read all the things, pick out the important parts, reread those parts, etc. I watch all my clips again, folder by folder, filling out my outline as I go and maybe moving stuff from one folder to another or refining file names. I play the song on repeat while I do this and often get good clip pairings by accident. I also get a lot of "wtf was I thinking why did I clip this."

7. Finally vidding! I am vidding on an old Windows XP laptop with an NVIDIA graphics card but not enough memory, so to do the actual vidding part I have to basically close everything else! That's part of why I do so much structure beforehand and why I don't start working in Premiere while I'm still doing the main clipping. If I have to reclip while I'm vidding I often have to close Premiere to do it, so I always try to figure out as much as possible early on! I vid in Premiere CS3, in the original source aspect ratio and frame rate if there's just one source, but I render the files at reduced resolution while I'm vidding so that I can actually play the video back while I'm working. (This is a Premiere CS3 thing and people using later versions don't have to worry about it thank god.) I throw clips on the timeline and often overlap them at first - two different ways this sequence could go that I'll choose between later - and when I get stuck I often jump ahead in the timeline because it's easier for me to conceptualize a bridge between A and B than to think about all the things that could follow A. I export in reduced resolution, too, both for me to watch and to send it to betas basically as soon as I have anything on the timeline, because I like feedback.

8. When I decide the project is done I still have to do the most annoying part! Which is part of why I'll dither over clips for a long time - this stage is terrible and doing it more than I have to is super terrible. I delete all my rendered files, reset my project to render in the correct resolution, and wait for Premiere to chug along. After that's done I can't view my video in Premiere itself without dropping frames, but I have to look for single-frame rendering problems - if my computer coughs while rendering, I'll get a single frame with a single pixel red line at the top or with a choppy block of failed rendering. So I have to scrub through my vid frame by frame looking for that before I can export. This is a "vidding in better quality than your computer can really handle" problem :) Then I export to lagarith lossless and end up with a large .avi file (though not as big as the people who can export uncompressed)! It is beautiful but my video player will stutter playing it - so I can't look at it until I convert it to a smaller mp4 using zarx264gui, which is a tool for making online-release quality video using the H264 codec. Yay now I can watch it! And I'd better not decide I want to change anything or I have to do this whole thing again.

9. Online distribution stuff: upload the files to mediafire for download, make the posts, upload to a streaming video site, make the srt subtitle file.

Re: Tell us about your editing workflow/process!

From:

frayadjacent - Date: 2014-03-02 09:54 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

such_heights

So I'm very impressed with everyone's thoroughness below! But I have to say that I am often an extremely lazy vidder and maybe it would be reassuring to see also a less meticulous approach!

When the first part of Doctor Who s7 was on I made a vid per episode while they were airing, so I shall talk through the process of doing those.

1. Episode airs. I start thinking about the tone, themes, and bits that I most enjoyed, to give me a overall direction to look for songs. Of the four vids I made, one song came from a fanmix for a different fandom, two were songs already in my 'songs I want to vid one day' playlist, and one was a song I knew from another vid. I have no qualms about vidding audio that's already been used elsewhere - if it fits, it fits!

2. Acquire source. For this kind of thing speed is of the essence, and although .mkv files are lovely and pretty, they take forever to clip in Streamclip, so I look for a standard quality avi or mp4 to work with.

3. Clip! I'll clip pretty much the entire episode as the source is limited. I tend to make big clips that are a few minutes long each, and will label them with character names and a quick description to remind me, eg '701 amy rory doctor land on planet'. I export the clips from Streamclip as dv files.

4. Audio. I use the free audio converter Switch to convert my mp3 to aiff - sometimes I get weird glitches using mp3s in Final Cut, but aiff works great.

5. Drag everything into Final Cut and start vidding! I listen to the song through a couple of times and mark specific beats I want to hit and divide up sections so it's easier to see at a glance how long each verse and chorus is. I then starting throwing things in together fairly haphazardly, putting clips down wherever I already had ideas of visuals for a particular section. For something like a quick episodic vid I usually vid pretty chronologically, so I start scrubbing through the clips from the beginning of the episode looking for interesting shots to throw down near the beginning of the timeline. If I find something I know goes later, I'll put it somewhere and come back to it.

6. I try and get a full timeline as quickly as possible, even if it involves using clips in ways that'll never make the final cut, eg clips that go on way longer than I want them to, or awkward talky face. I much prefer having something subpar to work with than blank space. I figure it's a case of replacing the less good clips with better and better clips until I'm satisfied.

7. Export a draft, make my housemate and partner in vidding crime

purplefringe watch it a couple of times and tell me how to make it better. Do some tweaks - add a little zoom, cut a little faster, that sort of thing.

8. When happy, export final draft! Upload to youtube, vimeo and my website, make some subtitles, post to internet.

Re: Tell us about your editing workflow/process!

From:

chaila - Date: 2014-03-03 12:35 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

aamcnamara

I think this is the right thread--how do you all time the clips on your vid? To the music (just before the beat? just after the beat? on the off-beat?), to the lyrics...? Is it instinct ("yeah this looks/feels right") or deliberate?

(I'm working on my First Ever Vid and having trouble with the thing where it feels right when I'm putting it together but on replay it's just enough off that the vid drags, and it's really annoying me.)

From:

heresluck

Good question! There are sort of two issues here, one aesthetic and one technical.

The technical question is how to get a particular visual (an explosion, a punch, or whatever) to land in sync with a particular point in the audio (usually a beat, but not always). It really helps to be able to look at the waveform of the audio, so, if you can, zoom in on that. If you're trying to land something on a beat, you will probably see a spike in the audio where the beat is. Find the frame that you want to land on that beat (the moment of impact, the point where the light starts to get really bright) and position it three frames BEFORE the spike in the waveform. Then replay and tweak as necessary -- three frames is a guideline, but a lot depends on the exact visual and sound that you're working with.

The aesthetic question is harder, because the answer depends on a lot of variables -- the pace and sound of the song, the nature of the vid itself, your own aesthetic preferences. For me, there's a kind of dialectic relationship between the music, the lyrics, and the visuals: sometimes I am using the music to emphasize specific bits of the visuals, sometimes I am trying to make sure that particular clips match up with particular words or phrases, and sometimes I am cutting clips to acknowledge what is going on in the music (for example: if there's a series of quick drumbeats, I want to use jumpcuts or other quick cuts to correspond to that aspect of the music).

The instinct/deliberate choice thing has become less of a binary for me over time. I learned a lot by rewatching vids that "felt right" to me in terms of how they were cut and paying very specific attention to how the vidder got that effect: how clips related to the lyrics and the beat, where she cut, how long clips were, how length of clip and motion within the frame related to what was going on in the music.

When I first started vidding, I mostly paid attention to lyrics, because lyrics were what drew me to think of a song as a vidsong. But then I realized that the vids I liked best were vids that, in terms of how they were cut, were taking their cues from the music rather than the words. That changed the way I approached things! But, again, that's a personal preference thing, not a right/wrong thing; think about the vids you like best (which may not be the vids I like best!) and pay attention to how they work -- that's what you want to emulate.

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

From:

aamcnamara - Date: 2014-03-01 05:51 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

kiki_miserychic

Generally I cut 2-3 frames before the beat when I'm cutting on the beat. I think the images get to the viewer first, so to be "on the beat," they come a bit before the sound. I go with what feels right. There are other vidders that edit closer to the actual beat though. I also vid with the lyrics too and with instruments and to silences too. It's all about what you want to emphasize and how much you want the cutting to be anticipated by the viewer.

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

From:

aamcnamara - Date: 2014-03-01 05:53 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

From:

shati - Date: 2014-03-01 06:47 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

metatxt

One trick I learned from

futuransky is to use markers! Markers are exactly what they sound like -- visual bookmarks in your timeline. Most programs have them, as far as I know. Some programs let you color-code your markers, or do other fancy things.

Play your timeline and set a marker with the shortcut key every time you hear a beat (or on important lyric lines, etc.) The key is to make sure you're consistent about what the markers mean. Some programs also let you set notes with each marker*

After that, you'll want to zoom into your timeline and line up the marker more precisely with the actual audio waveform.

Programs with markers will have a feature that allows your clips to magnetize to the markers. Depending on how you want to edit, you can turn this on or off. Even if you want to place cuts a bit before or a bit after the actual beat, you may want to keep this feature on. Make your rough cut as you usually would, aligning clips with the markers. When your rough cut is finished, turn off the "align clips with markers" or magentize feature, highlight the entire visual timeline, and move to the right or left by 2-3 frames.

* Regarding marker notes -- in my experience, these are most useful when you have thoughts about what is going to happen in that moment of the vid but haven't worked it out enough to commit to a particular clip or sequence. I would not rely on marker notes as a way of distinguishing between marker purposes (if that makes sense?)

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

From:

ghost_lingering - Date: 2014-03-02 01:45 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

d_generate_girl

Vidders, how do you approach editing a vid? I tend to get very attached to my first draft and quail at messing up clip order and choice. I also think my ambition outstrips my knowledge of exactly how to achieve effects (transitions, credits, etc). Any tips for knowing when a vid is "done" and/or how to figure out when effects are appropriate or how to accomplish them?

From:

chaila

I think the best thing is: get a beta, particularly someone you feel comfortable with, if you can. You don't necessarily have to listen to a beta's suggestions, but I've found that it's invaluable for me to have a beta say "this is what this vid says to me" or "this part was confusing." It can be really hard to hear if it's not what *I* thought the vid was saying or if I'm really attached to that part, but I usually sit with the beta comments for awhile, brood about it, and then come back with excited ideas about how to fix it. Now I find I get *more* excited about revising, about being full of ideas about making things even better and how to address problems that a beta pointed out. Sometimes what helps me is to not work on the vid for a little while when I know it's time to make big revisions--a few days at least or even weeks, depending--and then come back to it with fresh eyes and new motivation.

I have less input on the question about effects though, as I feel very much the same: I don't even think about adding most effects, because I don't think of adding things I don't even know how to do. I do watch a lot of vids though, which widens my ideas about what's possible, in terms of effects? And I'll go ahead and ask someone how they did X, if it looked neat? And then someday I may end up including something like it in a vid.

From:

metatxt

In my experience, effects can seem really overwhelming when you don't know how to do them because it's hard to see the process behind them. Then they all get grouped up into this massive term "effects" and there's no way to differentiate what you're trying to learn. -- so, I think the key with any kind of effect is to learn how to identify what it is doing and it's proper name (if any). If the effect has a name, you have a direction! (Of course, in forums, you can always point to a clip of the video itself and say -- hey that thing at 1:15 how do you do that?)

Also, this is where learning general editing terminology can be helpful! The transition every vidder learns first is a jump cut. Another common and more subtle transition is a cross-fade or dissolve, whereas an easy but more jarring transition is a wipe. Even the more complicated transitions are often made up of simpler components. If you know the name, you can say -- hey how do I use X program to make a dissolve? yknow?

A few strategies for dealing with the familiar problem of ambition outstripping knowledge:

1. Storyboards and Placeholders. draw out or describe what you want to achieve and where it fits in the timeline. or put a placeholder in your timeline. then you have a manageable, finite period of time you're trying to fill and a finite skill you need to gain. You can vid around that block of time while you look for tutorials or other vidders who can tell you how to make that effect happen.

2. Work on two vids at once. One vid is your "I can do this and finish a vid" project that you have 80% of the skills for. The other vid is your ambitious, I want to make this vid and I'm not sure how to get from point A to point B vid. Really break down the concepts and techniques you want to learn for your ambitious vid into smaller pieces. Then get even more specific. Accomplishing smaller or more approachable projects helps cement your confidence in the knowledge you do have and makes it less scary to look for that one tutorial you need to make credits. Because I guarantee, the skills you have for a more approachable project you will also use in your more ambitious project.

3. Get a beta-cheerleader. Even if your beta-cheerleader doesn't know how to do what you want to learn, not feeling alone with your project can ease that pressure/overwhelm.

4. Learn your editing (or effects) program inside and out. Get detailed about your vid concepts, but then put them aside. Focus on learning each in and out of your program. Start with familiarizing yourself with the interface and go from there. Most software publishers have tutorials posted on key features or books out that walk you through each part of the program. I'll admit -- this can seem dry and it isn't the most popular way to learn, but it can be the most useful because there's a sequence and direction to your learning already in place.

From:

thingswithwings

I'm terrible at editing, so can't help you there! But I really groove on what

metatxt said about effects. When I started vidding, I thought of "effects" as some big monolithic group of things you could do, probably using magic, that were different from the vidding process. But really all effects are is small tools that alter the image in a small way. To make a big effect, you pile up a bunch of small tools. The thing is to learn how to use those small tools. So, figure out how to play a clip in reverse, speed it up, and slow it down; learn how to fade to black (or to any colour!), learn how to change the image's position, size, or orientation (how to flip it from left to right, or top to bottom), how to crop an image, how to make the edges fuzzy, how to change the colour of an image, etc etc etc. Each of those is relatively easy to learn to do, and when you know how to do all of that (and more!) you can put them together to do things.

Example: in one vid I made (Here It Goes Back Again, my Back to the Future vid), I wanted to zoom out from one scene until it looked like other characters were viewing the scene through a window (so, I had to use my scene to replace what the characters originally viewed through the window). I did this by changing the scale (size of the image), cropping the edges of the clips, making the edges of one image blend into the edges of another, and changing the rotation of the image. All very simple tools, but kind of a cool effect. Anyway, I'm not great at effects in particular, but this is how I've learned what I've learned: by learning how to use a bunch of simple tools to create a complex effect.

From:

ghost_lingering

One way to get around revising your draft without losing what you already have, is to save multiple versions of your project file. That way if you HATE the changes you made you can always go back to a previous version.

There have been times when I know that a vid could be worked on for longer but I call it done anyway; vidding, for me, isn't about perfection but rather about producing something in a positive, low-risk, low-pressure way. So I think the "doneness" of a vid is partially based on what you're looking for in making the vid. But this is another place where having a beta can be a great idea, because they can give you a second opinion when you've lost perspective.

Googling for tutorials is a great way to learn how to do things -- I do it all the time. And watching what other people do -- not just vidders, but filmmakers, other video remixers, etc -- can be a huge inspiration in terms of credits & styles.

From:

were_duck

I have a macbook pro that currently lacks video editing software. Mac vidders, what are decent free/cheap options for acquiring said software? I made one terrible vid once in iMovie and have mucked around on FCE before years back, but I'll be basically starting from scratch on this machine.

From:

rhivolution

For paying: if you can get an old copy of FCE, I would, as for me it was really worth the $99 I paid for it at the time, though I also used it for university so that may be why it was cost effective for me. Obvs, they've stopped making it, but it's still compatible with newer OSX releases through Mountain Lion (NB: I've not used Mavericks yet so can't confirm).

From:

thingswithwings

ummm I know of a way to get a very cheap copy of FCP 7 that involves emailing me. Assuming FCP 7 is ok on Mavericks, which, idk.

From:

were_duck

Who has good tips for acquiring usable source? I can't say that I'm going to be a size queen, but I'd like the finished product to look okay. Is ripping DVDs still the best option, or has downloaded source come a long enough way? TBH I have found DVD ripping in the past to be tedious, confusing, and frequently overwhelming in terms of getting a usable end product.

From:

metatxt

I hate ripping DVDS for exactly those reasons. I have Mac DVDRipper Pro and it works great when I absolutely have to go that route, but I prefer to either torrent or download files.

Let's be honest -- I almost always torrent. I know there are some comms where people will post episode download links (perhaps others can volunteer those sources?), but I don't really use them. I get really impatient about acquiring source.

If I have a hard time finding consistent source via torrents or downloads, or if I'm feeling like I want something particularly shiny, I use Tune4Mac iTunes Video Converter Platinum ($50? $65?) which will scrub DRM from iTunes rentals or purchases. There is a song version you can purchase to scrub DRM from audio files too. It was an investment, but I use it all the time and not just for vidding.

For good or for bad, I can be a size queen, but that's more an answer to my own vidding anxieties :P

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

From:

thingswithwings - Date: 2014-03-01 09:23 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

From:

metatxt - Date: 2014-03-01 10:24 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

From:

beccatoria - Date: 2014-03-02 01:06 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

isagel

I find that downloaded high resolution .mkv files look at least as good as ripped .vob files from DVDs, and they're often easier to get hold of. Depending on your vidding software and your process, they may be trickier to use, though. I know nothing about how this works on a Mac, though.

I particularly love that mkvs of currently running shows look so shiny these days that there's no need to wait for the DVDs to make shiny vids.

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

From:

thingswithwings - Date: 2014-03-01 09:24 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

From:

chaila - Date: 2014-03-01 09:27 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

From:

starlady - Date: 2014-03-02 12:12 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

From:

thingswithwings - Date: 2014-03-02 04:12 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

From:

beccatoria - Date: 2014-03-02 01:11 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

metatxt

Added note! re: CODECS and compression

Codecs are confusing as hell. Codecs can be lossy or non-lossy compression codecs or container codecs. Those AVI files you download can actually have different codecs inside XVID and DIVX for example, but the container codec appears the same. This is important because your editing program may work differently with files from different codecs. Usually if you're working with a single source, you can work with a single codec (score!). It's when you get into multifandom vids that things can get mucky.

I second the suggestion of MKV files. Anything H264 really, MP4 or MOV should work well.

Also, HD should be either 720p or 1080p in the descriptor. HD files are huge. Some files are not HD but are compressed from HD source. These are still really shiny and are EXCELLENT FOR VIDDING. They often say HD but then you look at the file size and it's 300Mb, when it should be 1Gb.

Re: Getting Started (and Finished)

From:

rhivolution - Date: 2014-03-01 11:02 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

kiki_miserychic

I'm the worst vidder to discuss how I vid because the longer I vid, the more I see that I do things a little different than most other vidders. I use downloaded source and plop it into project media in Sony Vegas and pull out what I want...

From:

beccatoria

Oh lord, I feel like such a disorganised idiot, I don't do half the stuff others do (though I think I'd feel more in control of my vidding if I did).

1. I listen to the song over and over until I have a broad idea of structure and what goes where. This varies MASSIVELY from the extremely vague (which yes, makes vidding harder) to the fairly specific.

2. Throw all my source through avidemux to get it into a format Cinelerra (my editing programme) will accept. Sometimes this is unnecessary and I vid straight from the source I have. But usually I do it because it's stabler and Cinelerra can be oddly picky. If I wanted to use a lossless codec (and if I had the hard drive space to do so), I would use DNxHD or MJPEG, but I'm lazy and don't have the space so I don't. I use h264 instead. I convert whole episodes/movies.

3. I don't clip. I use whole episodes/movies and I mark out the sections I want to drop from the longer file onto the timeline within the programme. I do a lot of scrubbing back and forth looking for stuff which tends to remind me of other stuff.

4. I start vidding. I vid linearly, going from the start to the end, fixing things as I go. I render fairly regularly since it's sometimes hard to get the flow of the vid if you get playback lockups which is more common when I'm using HD source. If something's badly timed or not quite working, I have to fix it before I move on.

5. Once I get a full draft, I go back and sometimes change things here or there, but it's generally pretty complete because I've been revising it so frequently as I got.

6. Beta, most of the time. Sometimes for hardcore "OH GOD WHAT'S NOT WORKING", sometimes just for "I know you don't know the source, but please tell me it's at least not eyebleedingly uncomfortable to watch?" Getting a thumbs up that you haven't accidentally created the vid equivalent of shag carpet is always pleasant!

7. Redrafting if required. For me this is usually specific sections rather than major structural reworking.

8. LOL CREDITS WHUT.

9. VID :D?

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