Lost Video Island

[Rocksiren]

I started out with my first "art piece" on Windows Movie Maker, and Im happy to give some tips as requested via e-mail.

1.) SOFTWARE-

If you cant afford like Adobe or anything like that (which I cannot)- do not despair! If you are creative you should be able to make a go of it.

For an "affordable" piece of software (under $100), I have to recommend the following:

Cyberlink Power Director - I have just upgraded to version 4. I have NOVA Video Explosion Deluxe, but instead of making little temporary "copies" of the imported video clips, it made HUGE full scale copies which made it VERY slow and often just shut off without warning. Also would be "jumpy" throughout the video. Steer clear.

CyberLink provides over 100 transitions, video effects, and version 4 comes with this sound library providing porbbaly thousands of clips free of charge. It is pretty user friendly.

www.gocyberlink.com

One thing: be sure to save your work frequently throughout your video making. LIke most video programs, this one will cut out sometimes too.

2.) SOUND

Vidding should be a total individual thing, like anything one makes, but when making the choice for your music, put yourself in the audience shoes.

Usually my ideas come from the music first- Ill listen to a song and just be so into it that Ill make the video. Does your song capture the mood you want? For Hurley, is it light and plucky, kind of hippyish, a rock song? Is it something that drags, is slow, has a lot of instrumental solos in it, doesnt seem to go with your clips?

Timing- I like to keep mine under 4 minutes. Sometimes you find yourself with the perfect song, but find it goes a little too long. Your video editor can usually help, but if you want to be able to "see" the scales, beats, put in some effects of your own, I have to recommend Audacity - (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/). It is freeware and has been amazingly helpful in cutting out unecessary musical solos, whole bars which may help liven up your song and be easier to vid too. Also helps find beats if you are trying to match action to music. If applicable and youre feeling it- try to match the lyrics to the action.

CLIPS-

Your vid is telling a story. Putting a 5 minute sequence form one of the episodes to a song you like is really not very creative. Not to hurt anyone's feelings, but it is almost a guarantee that people will not watch it the whole way through. Im not saying you have to be amazing, but as a general rule in my "normal" (not slow, or fast beat) vids, I try to keep the clips under 4 seconds (its a lot more than it sounds, believe me). I usually tack on some extra for transitions, etc.

Alright thats my piece. By the way Im watching some horrible movie where John Rhys Davies just turned into a "werewolf" which basically looks more like a giant evil koala bear.

My post was getting was too serious.

RS

[Hobbes]

Thank you! That'll be a great guide from yet another experienced vidder and note the 4 second thing guys? do you?
actually, we've been getting a lot less of those lately, good job to all of you who send in videos! You've made it a lot harder to judge these LOL they're all so good nowadays...

[Ringwench]

Thanks for the link for the audio editor! I have a song waiting to be vidded but literally the first minute and the last minute (of a 7 minute songs) have like no content! This will be very helpful!