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When to add effects

 
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scarlett_106
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Joined: 20 Mar 2011
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Location: CT

PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2011 6:00 am    Post subject: When to add effects Reply with quote

I'm very new to Vegas and I typically make pretty simple shipper vids with a few fades, maybe some slo mo, etc. But I'm really inspired by the vids I've seen here and on YouTube, so I want to grow.

My question is...do you expert vidders add effects as you add clips or after all the clips are in? By effects I don't mean editing the clip or voiceovers or anything. I mean transitions, flashes, coloring, brightness, etc. I am about to start a Vampire Diaries/True Blood vid and I want to use a lot of effects like flashes (not just as transitions but within clips to accent beats of music) and such. Should I just wait till the end after I've got clips how I want them? Or do effects as I go?

Thanks!
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Brooke
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2011 6:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Scarlet; it is all about the vidder's preference. Sometimes I wait to add my effects to the end and sometimes I already know what effects I want; so I go ahead and add them.

Sometimes I have an effect; then I change it last minute.

When I DO wait I type M where I want the flash transition because it leaves a mark so you know where to add what you want to add. If that makes sense.

Sometimes I wait because I am a indecisive person and often change my mind.
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eloramoon
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 2:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I do a little of both, sometimes depending on the video. Often I'll do minimal effects until I have some idea where the video is going, and then I'll just start plugging in the effects as I go. Sometimes I go back and add them later, though. I know that doesn't help, LOL! But I guess what I'm saying is, either way. Whatever feels right at the time.
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scarlett_106
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Joined: 20 Mar 2011
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks, guys. I think my problem is that I'm not super comfortable with different effects yet - I mostly use fades! haha Maybe a little Sony Glow and then some HSL Adjust. I'd love to grow into a vidder who can pull on a wide variety of fx! I just don't know how to start...as you know, vidding is mostly about storytelling, so I get caught up in which clips I want to use for which part of the song and how I want to cut the clips...fx kind of fall to the wayside.

Is there a way to copy the fx used in one clip and "paste" those fx into another clip? In Sony Vegas that is. I know there's a way to do track fx, but say I have great coloring for one Jate scene and I want to apply it to a Suliet scene without redoing each little effect. Is there a way to do that?

Thanks!
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Brooke
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I play around with it. I still do. You can also SAVE any FX you create. It makes it easier.

After you have your effects/FX you click on the green symble for the FX; then you click on FX Plugin Chain; then you click on save as; save it under a name and you have it saved in your sony vegas.
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Aislynn
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Joined: 03 Feb 2005
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Location: Sawyerville, USA

PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

scarlett_106 wrote:
Thanks, guys. I think my problem is that I'm not super comfortable with different effects yet - I mostly use fades! haha Maybe a little Sony Glow and then some HSL Adjust. I'd love to grow into a vidder who can pull on a wide variety of fx! I just don't know how to start...as you know, vidding is mostly about storytelling, so I get caught up in which clips I want to use for which part of the song and how I want to cut the clips...fx kind of fall to the wayside.


*throws in my two cents* My personal feelings is that effects should enhance the vid, not overtake it or worst of all, distract from it. So I think you're really on the right track by focusing on the storytelling and clip choice aspect. There's certainly nothing wrong with effects -- I've used a bunch before and I definitely will again! -- but they should be secondary to the vid itself, IMO.

So don't feel pressured that you have to have a ton of effects for your vids to be good. Several of the best vids I've ever seen don't have any noticeable effects, they get their strength from being very clean, with no stray frames, from making use of the beat, either with the motion in the clip or through cutting to the beat, and from awesome clip choices/lyric interpretation. I think you have to sort of feel your way around, experiment with things and just see what feels the most right to you, whether it's to use a lot of effects, only a few or even no discernible ones at all.
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scarlett_106
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Joined: 20 Mar 2011
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Brooke: Thanks! I do save fx - for instance, in my last vid, I found good lighting for the Jate scene "It was not all misery" "Enough of it was" and it was really dark, so I saved it as "misery" in case I had another similarly dark scene. But is there a way to copy and paste fx from the timeline view? Say, I want to apply "misery" to another clip on the timeline but I don't want to go into the plug-ins?

Aislynn: Thanks for the 2 cents! I agree that the best vids I've seen are about storytelling. Do you know Kirwani on YouTube? She is a Jater (and a Sookie/Eric shipper, and a Delena shipper, the list goes on!) and she just has amazing storytelling AND effects. A lot of you expert vidders on here have the same thing - great stories but also great coloring, editing, etc. By effects I don't necessarily mean cheesy things, I mean mostly flashes, coloring, and pan/crop. I was blown away by "The Funeral" on here...I mean wow, I could never think up to use all those fx!

I feel like I'm okay at matching lyrics to clips and all, but I struggle to match beats. Especially when there's a song with a lot of rhythm changes (like "The Funeral") - I feel like I don't capitalize on them!

Do you guys know "Poison" by Alice Cooper? I'm starting a vid now of Damon Salvatore (TVD) and Eric Northman (TB) to that song, and it has so many beats. I want to capitalize on those without going overboard - maybe by white flashes on the beats? Coloring changes? I just don't want it to look too flashy! Ugh.
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Brooke
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kat gave me good advice. Do it on the heavier beats; the louder beats.

There are people who do use every beat but they have been doing it forever. Me; I don't normally do those type of vids. I do more storytelling and a lot of character audio to help me tell the story.

I have a song I'm gonna do and it's LOUD; so what I am going to do is do it on the loud drum beats.

Also you don't always need to use effects for beats. You can use scenes for instance someone jumping, slapping someone, or like that.

And I often just use a new scene/clip for a beat use.
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scarlett_106
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 5:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks, Brooke! It's good to remember you can use the clip itself instead of just fx. In my Poison vid, I just used a character turning around in surprise as a beat. Hopefully that works!

Question - do you think vids with voiceovers are better than vids without? I'm debating whether to add VOs to my Poison vid...there aren't a lot of "silent" spots in the song to put them in, and I think the lyrics tell the story. But maybe it'd be good to add just a few that go with the theme? I feel like most people either use a ton of VOs or none at all. If I use a few, will it seem too sparse?
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Brooke
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 5:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It depends on the vidder. Me personally, I think that with louder songs it is a lot harder to make voice overs work if you don't have any softer parts of the song.

For instance I'm doing a louder song with a Sookie/Eric vid then what I am used to so I am not using any voice overs.

I have used songs were I only use some voice overs for a few scenes.

A vid I was working on I had a few through out.

I don't think if you only have a few it's too spares. It depends on the video.

Like some people open up with great audio and don't have anymore; and that works good for the vid.
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Aislynn
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Joined: 03 Feb 2005
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Location: Sawyerville, USA

PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 7:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

scarlett_106 wrote:
Aislynn: Thanks for the 2 cents! I agree that the best vids I've seen are about storytelling. Do you know Kirwani on YouTube? She is a Jater (and a Sookie/Eric shipper, and a Delena shipper, the list goes on!) and she just has amazing storytelling AND effects. A lot of you expert vidders on here have the same thing - great stories but also great coloring, editing, etc. By effects I don't necessarily mean cheesy things, I mean mostly flashes, coloring, and pan/crop. I was blown away by "The Funeral" on here...I mean wow, I could never think up to use all those fx!

I feel like I'm okay at matching lyrics to clips and all, but I struggle to match beats. Especially when there's a song with a lot of rhythm changes (like "The Funeral") - I feel like I don't capitalize on them!

Do you guys know "Poison" by Alice Cooper? I'm starting a vid now of Damon Salvatore (TVD) and Eric Northman (TB) to that song, and it has so many beats. I want to capitalize on those without going overboard - maybe by white flashes on the beats? Coloring changes? I just don't want it to look too flashy! Ugh.


Oh no, I totally get what you mean about not talking about the cheesy effects. I didn't mean that either (though now I find myself wanting to make use of WMM's heart transition, just for the heck of it, lol! ). Anyway, you're definitely on the right track, IMO, and Brooke is giving you great advice!

What I do when I have a song that has a LOT of beats is to do what Kat and Brooke both suggested, pick the heavier beats and do something on them, whether it's just change clips, use the action in a scene, use the pan/crop to do a sort of hard pull in, whatever seems to feel best for the vid.

One thing you want to be careful of is white flashing on a pretty much every beat. It CAN be used to good effect at times but it needs to be done with care and you'll always want to put a warning in your description about it because that sort of strobe light effect can actually trigger an epileptic event in somebody who's susceptible to that.

Sorry to give my own vids as an example but using the beat is something that I love experimenting with, especially in finding ways beyond just doing a white flash on a big beat and that sort of thing (not that I still don't use the white flashes, I might sound anti-white flash but I'm totally not, I just like finding alternative ways to use the beat other than relying on them ).

This is a VERY beat heavy song ("Bodies" by Drowning Pool) so I tried to let all of the frenetic action going on in the clips themselves do a lot of the heavy lifting when it came to responding to the beat. Not only with all of the gun muzzle flashes but even with things like the images scrolling quickly on the screen at the :18 second mark. Special Ops Vs The Decepticons

This might look like a strange choice for me to pick for an example of beat use because the song is actually pretty slow to mid-tempo but I really wanted those hard beats in it to pop, so I used a lot of jump cuts, where I took a long scene, like Babydoll walking down the corridor at :09, and cut out pieces of it so she seemed to "jump" forward with each beat, if that makes sense. Within You || Sucker Punch

Anyway, I'm hardly the most Expert Beat Use Expert of Expertiness but it's really fun to play around with. The main thing I find is that you want to give people time to see your clips (unless you're doing some sort of quick roll of images to a drum beat or something but you generally don't want to do an entire vid of quick rolls; it CAN be done, of course, but most of the time the images just sort of blur together and you end up not really being sure what you just saw ).

As for the VO question... I generally try to ask myself if the vid really needs them or not. There's nothing quite like a great audio bit to really hammer home an emotional point in a vid... but if the song is making it hard to hear it, sometimes you're better off to leave it out, in my opinion. I don't think that's a factor in making a vid good or not, honestly. If it improves the vid, then yes, you should definitely use it. If it really doesn't add anything to the vid, then you shouldn't be afraid of letting the song lyrics and the images speak for themselves.

[/wordy mcword]

Anyway, can't wait to see your Damon and Eric vid, I ♥ them both so much! ♥♥♥!!!
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scarlett_106
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Joined: 20 Mar 2011
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 3:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow! I'm a bit late replying, but I just watched the vids you linked. Amazing! Are you a professional vidder IRL? lol Seriously, those were both amazing. And I actually love that David Bowie song from Labrynth!!! Flashback.

I see what you mean about the action-y clips doing the heavy lifting. And then using editing to make beats stand out when the clips aren't action-y. I've actually never thought of editing a clip like that, to break it up with other clips to make them more pronounced! I think honestly, I get scared of trying new things so I just stick with what I know. Then I come on here and I get even more intimidated by you guys and your talent! lol I really need to branch out...

In the vid I'm just finishing up, I tried to work with beats, and I tried a few different things - alternating between normal and high contrast on each beat and off beat and using fast clips for the beats so the action would make it look beaty (haha). I still didn't take many risks, though! I get so caught up in the lyrics and which clips to use. BUT your clips perfectly matched your lyrics (it was almost eerie in the David Bowie vid) and you had great fx!

Btw I love how you used the timer thingy (forgot what they're called but they look like a pendulum and musicians use them to keep time in music) to accent the beats and give the vid a "frenetic" (to steal your word) feel! Cool detail.

By the way, back to the original question of this thread, on my latest vid, I did what we all said - mostly focused on the story and clips editing, but if I thought of a good effect, I tried it out right then. Now, I'm going back and working on the coloring and all. I find coloring VERY hard! Some clips I can get to look great with HSL Adjust and Contrast, and others are impossible. For instance - I have these two Vampire Diaries clips that take place in an open doorway and the inside is dark but the outside is bright sunlight. I'm having the worst time getting them right! But anyway. I guess it's trial and error.

Thanks again for all the tips!
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Brooke
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 4:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The heart transition. Yes; I don't use many transitions; I mostly use the additive dissolve if I do. I use the blinds when I do trailers. That's when I think I can pull off those types; but with regular vids I just don't make it look right. There are some people who can pull it off; but not me.


With the beat use vid I think your going in the right direction.

Sometimes clips make it hard. Like I LOVE contrast and sometimes it just makes it look dark and grainy.

But with my coloring mostly it's trial and error. I do have two coloring that Tammy sent me.
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Aislynn
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 10:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh wow, what awesome things you said about my vids! *blush, scuffs toe of shoe against the ground* Thank you so much for that, I'm going to come back and look at your comment the next time I'm feeling like I can't vid my way out of a paper bag (to adapt an old saying )!

scarlett_106 wrote:
Btw I love how you used the timer thingy (forgot what they're called but they look like a pendulum and musicians use them to keep time in music) to accent the beats and give the vid a "frenetic" (to steal your word) feel! Cool detail.


Ooo, thanks! That's a metronome. I've been trying to throw in some interesting visuals like that when they seem appropriate. I've been inspired by all of the amazing vidders out there who can seem to manage clip choice, lyric interpretation and just an awesome artistry in their work at all one time and that's something I've been trying to incorporate more into my own work. Every vid is an opportunity to try new things, IMO. (And sometimes the new things go REALLY wrong but I figure that that's the only way I can learn. )

scarlett_106 wrote:
By the way, back to the original question of this thread, on my latest vid, I did what we all said - mostly focused on the story and clips editing, but if I thought of a good effect, I tried it out right then. Now, I'm going back and working on the coloring and all. I find coloring VERY hard! Some clips I can get to look great with HSL Adjust and Contrast, and others are impossible. For instance - I have these two Vampire Diaries clips that take place in an open doorway and the inside is dark but the outside is bright sunlight. I'm having the worst time getting them right! But anyway. I guess it's trial and error.


Trial and error is definitely the way to go, IMO. I've found that so much of vidding is just me inching my way along, trying to feel for what seems right for the vid I'm working on. Don't be afraid to try stuff out, you'll find somethings that you don't care for and some that feel like they work really naturally for you. Your own particular style of vidding will develop itself over the course of just vidding.

Anyway, thank you again for your extremely kind words! I really appreciate it so much! ♥!
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scarlett_106
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 3:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, they're all true, Aislynn!

Another question - when you guys do coloring, how do you keep it consistent? Trial and error is fine but clips are SO different. For example, if I have a fireside Jate chat and then a sun-soaked beach shot, how the heck do I keep the coloring consistent? Do you seriously go one by one and edit each clip until it kind of matches? Ah! lol

I've tried "track fx" in Vegas but again, it's hard to find an fx that works for all clips...
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