Digital Video Guide and Tips

Exporting the movie

2011-05-31T23:48:00.000-07:00

Pinnacle Studio provides the Make Movie mode as your central location for exporting a finished movie project, whether you’re exporting to tape, DVD, the Internet, or carrier pigeon. (Just kidding: Export to Carrier Pigeon won’t be available until the next version of Studio, if not later.) To open the Make Movie mode, choose View ➪ Make Movie.
If any of the clips in your movie were captured at Preview, you’ll be prompted to insert the tapes containing the original source clips at full quality. Make sure you have those tapes handy, and follow the instructions on-screen to recapture the footage.
You’re ready to start exporting your movie to tape. Follow these steps:

1. In the Make Movie mode, click Tape at the left side of the Make Movie window.
Basic video settings will appear in the Make Movie window, as well as the estimated file size for the exported file. Studio needs to export the movie as a file before it can be recorded onto tape, and that file is probably going to be big. As you can see in Figure 15-5, I have a movie that is only about 50 seconds long and yet it will create a file that is over 157MB (megabytes). This is why I always recommend you buy the very biggest hard disk you can afford.
2. Click the Settings button.
The Make Tape tab of the Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog appears.
As described earlier in this chapter, make sure that the correct output
source is selected in the Video menu. In Figure 15-6, you can see that I
am preparing to expo
3. If you’re exporting to a DV camcorder, place a check mark next to the
Automatically Start and Stop Recording option.
With this option enabled, Studio will automatically control your camcorder for you, meaning you won’t have to manually press Record on the camcorder. If you’re exporting to a video converter such as the Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge, do not enable this option. If you do enable automatic control of your DV camera This gives the camcorder’s tape mechanism enough time to spool up to the proper speed for recording.
4. Click OK to close the Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog box.
5. Back in the Make Movie window, click Create at the bottom of the export control.
Studio creates a file for your movie. The process may take several minutes, especially if your movie is long and has a lot of effects and transitions. When the file is created, the export control tells you that your project is ready for output.
6. Click Play under the preview window.
If you chose to give Studio automatic control of your DV camcorder (Step 3), Studio automatically starts the recording feature on your camcorder, stopping when the movie is completely exported. If you’re exporting through an analog output (such as a Pinnacle AV/DV card), you have to press Record on your analog VCR a few seconds before you click Play in the Studio preview window. One nice thing about Studio is that while it’s waiting for you to click Play, the software sends out a black video signal through the analog outputs. This means that you can press Record on your analog VCR and let it record that black video for 30 seconds or so before you play your movie in the export process. Presto — you eliminate the need to add black video clips to the beginning and end of the timeline. When the movie is done being exported, Studio reverts to outputting black video through the analog outputs. I suggest you record 20 or 30 seconds of this black video on the VHS tape before you press Stop.

Adding black video to your timeline

2011-02-28T22:50:00.000-08:00

If you plan to export your Pinnacle Studio movie project to tape in a digital camcorder, you’ll need to add some black video clips to the beginning and end of the timeline. To add a black video clip to the beginning of your project, follow these steps:

In the Edit mode, click the Titles tab on the left side of the album. A selection of titles appears in the album.
If any tracks in the timeline are currently locked, click the track headers on the left side of the timeline to unlock them. When a track is locked, a tiny lock icon appears on the track header and a zebra-stripe pattern appears across the track. Unlocking all tracks is an important step because you’re going to insert a title clip at the very beginning of the timeline. If all tracks are unlocked, they all shift over automatically when you insert the title. This keeps all your narration, music, and title overlays properly synchronized with your video.
Click-and-drag any title to the very beginning of the video track on your timeline.
Double-click the title to open the title editor
Select the text in the title and press Delete on your keyboard to delete all the title text.
Adjust the duration of the title using the Duration field in the upperright corner of the title editor. I recommend a duration of 30 seconds.
Close the title editor. The blank title will appear at the beginning of the timeline.
Click the blank title once to select it, and then choose Edit➪Copy.
Move the play head to the end of the timeline.
Choose Edit➪Paste.

A copy of the blank title will now appear at the end of the movie as well. Another thing I often like to do is add a Dissolve transition between the initial black video clip and the first actual clip of the movie. This technique makes the beginning of the movie a little easier on the eyes as it fades in. In Figure 15-4, I have done this by dragging a Dissolve transition to the timeline from the Transitions tab of the Studio album.

Exporting to tape in Windows Movie Maker

2011-02-28T22:46:00.000-08:00

You can export to tape from Windows Movie Maker, but I really don’t recommend it if you have another option. Even if you use Movie Maker’s very highest-quality capture option, your video is still compressed by Windows Movie Maker when it’s first captured into your computer. This means that the quality of the source footage stored on your computer is somewhat reduced right from the start. If you don’t have any other choice but to use Windows Movie Maker, here’s how to do it: First connect your digital camcorder to the computer’s FireWire port. I also strongly recommend that you use Movie Maker’s titling tool to create a blank title with no words and a black background. Place this title at the beginning of your project and make it 30 seconds long. Copy the title and place it at the end of the project as well. When you’re ready to send your movie to tape, click Send to DV Camera under the Finish Movie step in Movie Maker (remember, I recommend using Windows Movie Maker version 2 or later; see Appendix E for information on downloading the latest version). Put a blank tape in your camcorder and follow the instructions on-screen to export your movie to tape.

Exporting to tape in Apple iMovie

2010-10-31T18:17:00.000-07:00

Like most software from Apple, iMovie is entirely functional and to-the-point. And at no time is this more evident than when you want to export your movie to tape. iMovie doesn’t have the ability to export directly to an analog capture card, but it definitely can export video at full quality to your digital camcorder.
To export your finished movie to tape, follow these steps:

1. Connect your digital camcorder to the FireWire port on your computer, and turn the camera on to VTR or Player mode.
Make sure that you have a new, blank videotape cued up and ready in the camcorder.

2. In iMovie, choose File➪Export.

3. Choose To Camera from the Export menu.

4. Adjust the Wait field if you want.
The Wait field controls how long iMovie waits for the camera to get ready before it begins export. I recommend leaving the Wait field set at five seconds unless you’re exporting to a video converter (such as the Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge) connected to your FireWire port. In that case, you may want to increase the wait to about ten seconds or so to ensure that you have enough time to press the Record button manually on your VCR.
Whatever you do, don’t reduce the Wait field to less than five seconds. Virtually all camcorders need some time to bring their tape-drive mechanisms up to the proper speed, and the Wait gives the camcorder time to get ready.

5. Adjust the two Add fields to determine the amount of black video that will be recorded at the beginning and end of the tape.
I recommend putting at least 30 seconds of black video at the beginning and end of the movie.

6. Click Export.
iMovie will automatically export your movie to the tape in your camcorder. If you’re exporting directly to a digital camcorder, iMovie will automatically control the camera for you; there’s no need to press the Record button on the camcorder. But if you are exporting through a video converter, you’ll need to manually press Record on your analog VCR.

Exporting Movie

2010-10-31T18:15:00.000-07:00

After your hardware is set up properly and you’re sure that your movie will look good on a regular TV, you’re ready to export the movie. Regardless of what software you are using, keep in mind that — like video capture — video export uses a lot of memory and computer resources. To make sure that your system is ready for export:

Turn off unnecessary programs. If you’re like me, you probably feel like you can’t live without your e-mail program, Internet messaging program, Web browser, and music jukebox all running at once. Maybe you can’t live without these things, but your video-editing software will get along just fine without them. In fact, the export process will work much better if these things are closed, and you’re less likely to have dropped frames or other quality problems during export.
Disable power-management settings. If you’re exporting a movie that’s 30 minutes long, and your hard disk is set to go into power-saving mode after 15 minutes, you could have a problem during export because the computer will mistakenly decide that exporting a movie is the same thing as inactivity. Power management is usually a good thing, but if your hard disk or other system components go into sleep mode during export, the video export will fail. Pay special attention to this if you’re working on a laptop, which probably has pretty aggressive powermanagement settings right now.
On a Mac, use the Energy Saver icon in System Preferences to adjust power settings. Crank all the sliders in the Energy Saver window up to Never before you export your movie.
• In Windows, open the Control Panel, click the Performance and Maintenance category if you see it, and then open the Power Options icon. Set all of the pull-down menus to Never before exporting your movie.
Disable screen savers. Screen savers aren’t quite as likely to ruin a movie export as power-management settings, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

In Windows, right-click a blank area of the Windows desktop and choose Properties. Click the Screen Saver tab of the Display Properties dialog box, and choose the None screen saver. (That’s my favorite one, personally.)
On your Mac, open the Screen Saver icon in System Preferences and choose Never on the Activation tab of the Screen Saver dialog box.

Whenever you export a movie to tape, I always recommend that you place some black video at the beginning and end of the movie. Black video at the beginning of the tape gives your audience some time to sit down and relax between the time they push Play and the movie actually starts. Black video at the end of the movie also gives your viewers some time to press Stop before that loud, bright static comes on and puts out someone’s eye. Some editing programs — like Apple iMovie — have tools that allow you to automatically insert black video during the export process. I’ll show you how to insert black video using iMovie in the next section. But if you’re using some other software that doesn’t have this feature — like Pinnacle Studio or Windows Movie Maker — you’ll need to add a clip of black video to the beginning and end of the project’s timeline. You can usually do this by creating a blank full-screen title, and I’ll show you how later in this chapter. The most common failures encountered on VHS tapes are mangling or breakage at the very beginning of the tapes. Employees at video rental stores are quite skilled in the art of VHS tape repair, and they often repair beginning-oftape problems by cutting off the damaged tape, and then re-attaching the remaining good tape to the reel. If you put 30 seconds of black video at the beginning of your VHS tapes, about three feet of tape can be cut off before any of your movie is trimmed away. And if you ever need such a repair performed, head down to your local video store. You should be able to find someone there who will do the job for a couple of dollars.

Setting Up Your Hardware

2010-10-31T18:10:00.000-07:00

Getting your hardware ready for exporting a movie to tape isn’t so difficult, really. The easiest thing to do is connect your digital camcorder to your FireWire port and turn on your camcorder to VTR or Player mode. (Oh yeah, and insert a blank tape into the camcorder.) After your movie is recorded onto the tape in your camcorder, you can connect the camcorder to a regular VCR and dub your movie onto a regular VHS tape if you want. I strongly urge you to use a fresh tape that has black video recorded on its entire length. This will prevent errors in communication between your digital camcorder and your computer.
If your master plan is to eventually record your movie on a VHS tape, you may want to skip the middleman — that would be your digital camcorder —and record straight from your computer to a regular VCR. To do so, you have three basic options:

Use an analog video-capture card. Analog capture cards (such as the Pinnacle AV/DV board) can usually export to an analog source as well as import from one. When you export video using an analog card, I strongly recommend you use the software that came with that card. Most analog capture cards come with special utilities to help you import and export video. The Pinnacle AV/DV board uses Pinnacle Studio to capture and export video. To get Studio ready for analog export, follow these steps

Connect the analog outputs for the card to the video inputs on your VCR.
Make sure the software that came with the capture card is set to export to the correct ports. The Pinnacle AV/DV, for example, uses the Pinnacle Studio software. In Studio, choose Setup ➪ Make Tape. The Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog box appears. On the Make Tape tab, choose Studio AV/DV analog in the Video dropdown list.
Make sure that the right analog output ports are selected. The Pinnacle AV/DV board has both composite and S-Video outputs, so choose the one to which you have connected your VCR.

Use a video converter.
Use your digital camcorder as a converter.

I know, I know, I said I was going to show you how to avoid using your camcorder as the middleman when you export to VHS tape. But if you don’t have an analog-capture card or a video converter, you might be able to connect your digital camcorder to your FireWire port, and then connect a VCR to the camcorder’s analog outputs. If nothing else, this arrangement reduces wear and tear on your camcorder’s expensive tape-drive mechanism. Some digital camcorders won’t allow you to make this connection, because some models can’t send video out the analog ports at the same time they’re taking video in through the FireWire cable. Experiment with your own camcorder and VCR and see whether this arrangement will work for you. If you are exporting to a VCR, make sure that a new, blank tape is inserted and ready to use, and make sure the VCR is set to the right channel. (Many VCRs have to be set to a special “AV” channel to accept video from composite video cables.) As a last step before you begin your export, preview your movie on a TV connected to the VCR to make sure that the VCR is picking up the signal.

Prepping Your Movie for TV Playback

2010-09-30T23:54:00.001-07:00

This means that the video that looks just peachy in the preview window of your editing software may not look all that great when it’s viewed on a regular TV. Computer monitors and TVs differ in three important ways:

Color: Computer monitors and television screens generate colors differently. This means that colors that look fine on your computer may not look so hot when viewed on a TV.
Pixel shape: Video images are made up of a grid of tiny little blocks called pixels. Pixels on computer monitors are square, but the pixels in TV images are slightly rectangular. This usually isn’t a problem for video captured from your camcorder, but still images and graphics generated on your computer could be a problem.
Interlacing: TV video images are usually interlaced, whereas computer monitors draw images by using progressive scanning. The main problems you encounter when you export a project to tape is that the very thin lines that show up on the screen may flicker or appear to crawl. Pay special attention to titles, where thin lines are likely to appear in some letters.

If you use the LCD display on your camcorder to preview your movie, keep in mind that the LCD panel probably isn’t interlaced. However, the camcorder’s viewfinder probably is interlaced. This means that flickering thin lines (for example) may show up in the viewfinder but not on the LCD panel. Preview the movie using both the LCD display and the viewfinder before you actually export it.

Finding an online home for your movies (Youtube Alternatives)

2010-07-31T23:06:00.000-07:00

If you want other people to be able to download and watch your movies, you’ll need to put the movie files on a Web server. Your Internet service provider (ISP) might actually provide some free Web server space with your Internet account. This free space is usually limited to about 5 to 15MB, but the exact amount varies greatly. You can use your Web server space to publish pictures, movies, and Web pages that anyone on the Internet can see. Check with your ISP to find out whether you have some available Web server space — and, if you do, get instructions for uploading your files to their Web server.
If your ISP doesn’t provide Web server space, or if it isn’t enough space to hold all of your movie files, don’t worry. Plenty of other resources are available. Several companies specialize in selling server space that you can use to store your movies. These are Youtube alternatives:

.Mac (www.mac.com): This service from Apple includes e-mail tools, an address book, antivirus service, and most importantly, 100 MB of storage space on their Web server. Uploading movie files to .Mac is just as easy as copying files to different disks on your computer. The .Mac service costs approximately $100 per year, and provides many more features than I can list here.
HugeHost.com (www.hugehost.com): As the name implies, HugeHost.com lets you put huge files online. The service is quite affordable, as well. For example, 1000MB (yes, one thousand) is just $5 per month, or $55 per year. See their Web site for other pricing plans.
Neptune Mediashare (www.neptune.com): This service is partnered with Microsoft so you can easily access the Neptune Web site directly from within Windows Movie Maker. When you export a movie for the Web from Movie Maker, you are given the opportunity to log on to your Neptune Mediashare account and upload files instantly. The Mediashare Pro service provides 100MB of storage space for $39 per year. Whatever you use as a Web server for your movie files, make sure you get specific instructions for uploading. You’ll also need to know what the Web address is for the files that you upload. You can then send that address to other people so that they can find and download your movie.

Using the Windows Media format

2010-07-31T23:04:00.001-07:00

Although Microsoft was late to the online multimedia game, Windows Media is quickly becoming one of the most popular video formats on the Web. Pinnacle Studio can export directly to Windows Media format. To do so, choose View ➪ Make Movie, and then choose Stream on the left side of the Make Movie window. Click the Windows Media radio button that appears. I strongly recommend that you review export settings before making a Windows Media file, and you can review those settings by clicking the (surprise!) Settings button in the Make Movie window. The Make Windows Media tab of the Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog box appears.
When you adjust settings for Windows Media export, check the following:

Title: Enter a plain English title for your movie here. This title will appear at the bottom of the Windows Media Player window when your movie is played.
Author: They can’t give out awards if they don’t know who made the movie! Enter your name here to give yourself proper credit.
Copyright: Enter a year, and month and day if you like.
Description: Type a brief description of your movie. This description will scroll across the bottom of the Windows Media Player window as the movie plays.
Rating: Give your movie a rating if you want.
Markers: If you include Markers in your Windows Media movie, viewers can jump from clip to clip by pressing the Next and Previous buttons in their Windows Media Player programs. manually named while you were editing your project will have markers.
Playback Quality: Choose the Low, Medium, or High presets in the menu on the left. If you choose Custom, a second menu appears to the right, displaying a wider selection of presets. A summary of movie settings for each preset is shown under the Playback Quality menus.

Using the RealVideo format

2010-05-31T05:35:00.000-07:00

RealVideo is a popular format for online videos, and making RealVideo movies in Pinnacle Studio is pretty easy. In the Make Movie window, click Stream, and then select the RealVideo radio button. Next, click Settings. The Make RealVideo tab of the Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog box appears.
Review the following settings, adjusting them as needed:

Title: Enter a title for your movie. This title will appear in the program window when people view your movie, so it should be written in plain English.
Author: That’s you! Enter your name here.
Copyright: Enter the year. You can enter the month and day if you wish, but it’s not necessary.
Keywords: Enter some keywords relating to your movie. This will help people who are searching for your movie using the keywords you list.
Video Quality: Choose a video quality option here. Most of the time, the safest choice in this menu is Normal Motion Video. The Smoothest Motion Video option works well with video that doesn’t have a lot of action, whereas the Sharpest Image Video option is best for video that does have a lot of action. The Slide Show option shows a series of still images, which obviously isn’t ideal for most video. If you choose the No Video option, no video will be included in the file.
Audio Quality: Choose an option from this menu that matches the majority of audio in your project. Choices include No Audio, Voice Only, Voice with Background Music, Music, and Stereo Music.
Video Size: Select a frame size for your video image here.
Web Server: If you know that your movie will be placed on a RealServer streaming media server, choose the RealServer option. Otherwise, choose HTTP.
Target Audience: If your movie will be placed on a RealServer, you can choose multiple options here. The server will automatically detect the connection speed of each person who accesses your movie, and a movie of the appropriate quality level will be sent. If you are placing your movie on a regular Web server (HTTP), you can only choose one option. Movie quality settings will be automatically tailored to the Target audience that you choose.

If you’re placing your movie on a regular Web server (HTTP), you may want to output two different versions of the same movie for people with different connection speeds. Output a lower-quality movie using the Dial-up Modem setting, and then output a higher-quality version of the same movie using one of the DSL/Cable settings. Give each file a unique name and provide separate descriptive links to each one on your Web page.

E-mailing your movies

2010-05-31T05:34:00.001-07:00

The World Wide Web seems to get all the attention these days, but I think that e-mail, more than anything else, revolutionized the way we communicated during the last decade. Most of your friends, relatives, and business associates probably have e-mail addresses, and you probably exchange e-mail messages with those folks on a regular basis.
E-mail is already a great way to quickly share stories and pictures with others, and now that you’re making your own movies, it only seems natural to start e-mailing your movie projects to friends as well. Before you do, keep in mind that movie files tend to be really big. Most e-mail accounts have file-size limitations for e-mail attachments, sometimes as low as 2MB. Other e-mail accounts don’t allow any file attachments at all. And of course, many people still have slow dial-up modem connections to the Internet, meaning it will take them a long time to download a movie you send them. If you want to e-mail a movie to someone, first ask the person whether it’s okay to do so. Send an initial e-mail that says something like, “Hi there! I just finished a really awesome movie and I want to send it to you. The movie is in QuickTime format and the file is 1.3 MB. Can I e-mail it to you?” Most people will probably say yes, and they’ll appreciate that you took the time to ask.

Making QuickTime movies with iMovie

2010-05-31T05:24:00.000-07:00

If you’re using Apple iMovie and you want to make movies in QuickTime format, you’re in luck. QuickTime is the only movie file format that iMovie can produce. QuickTime movies can be played using the QuickTime Player program, which is available for free for Windows and Macintosh systems. If you want to output in a different format, such as RealMedia, you’ll need to use more advanced software such as Final Cut Express. Pinnacle Studio can export movies in RealMedia or Windows Media Video format, but not QuickTime. To create QuickTime movies in Windows, you’ll need QuickTime Pro, or a more advanced editing program such as Adobe Premiere.
Exporting a QuickTime movie from iMovie is pretty simple. The QuickTime format offers a variety of quality and output settings that you can adjust, and iMovie provides several easy-to-use presets. You can also customize export settings if you wish. To export a QuickTime movie:
1. When you’re done editing your movie in iMovie, choose File➪Export. The iMovie: Export dialog box appears.

2. Choose To QuickTime from the Export menu.

3. Choose the best preset for the way you plan to distribute your movie from the Formats menu.
iMovie provides three preset formats for export: Email, Web, and Web Streaming. Unless your movie is very short, the CD-ROM and Full Quality DV presets generally produce files that are too big for online use. If you want to fine-tune your own settings, choose Expert Settings from the Formats menu.

4. Click Export. A Save Exported File As dialog box appears.

5. If you chose a preset format, give your movie a filename, choose a folder in which to save it, and click Save to save your movie to a file and finish the export process.
If you chose a preset format in Step 3, you’re done! But if you choose Expert Settings in the Formats menu, you still have a few more steps to complete in the export process. At the bottom of the dialog box, you can choose presets from the Use menu, or click Options. If you click Options, the Movie Settings dialog box appears.

6. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, leave the check marks next to Video and Sound if you want to include both in your movie.

7. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, click the Settings button under Video in the Movie Settings dialog box and adjust video settings. The Compression Settings dialog box appears.
Start by choosing a codec from the menu at the top of the dialog box. The Sorenson or H.263 codecs are pretty good for most movies, and the Motion JPEG A codec works well for movies that will be played on older computers. MPEG-4 .
Adjust the Quality slider and preview how your video image will be affected. The Best quality setting provides better picture quality, but also increases the file size.
In the Frames Per Second menu, you can choose a frame rate, or just choose Best from the menu to let iMovie automatically determine a good frame rate. More frames per second increase file size.
I recommend that you leave the Key Frame Every x setting alone. (The default value is 24 — that is, a key frame occurs once every 24 frames — and a smaller number means more key frames.) Key frames help QuickTime compress and decompress the movie. More key frames provide better quality, but they also increase file size. Click OK when you’re done adjusting Compression Settings.

8. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, click the Filter button.
The Choose Video Filter dialog box appears. Here you can apply filters to your video image that can blur, sharpen, recolor, brighten, or perform a variety of other changes to the picture. Most filters also have adjustments that you can make using slider controls. A preview of your video image appears in the Choose Video Filter dialog box so that you can see the affects of the various filters. I don’t usually find these filters very useful because normally I’ve already applied filters or effects to my video during the editing process. After making your selections, click OK to close the Choose Video Filter dialog box.

9. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, click the Size button.
The Export Size Settings dialog box appears. Choose either Use Current Size, or choose Use Custom Size and enter a custom width and height in pixels. Click OK to close the Export Size Settings dialog box.

10. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, click the Settings button under Sound.
For online movies, choose QDesign Music 2 in the Compressor menu. Reduce the sampling rate using the Rate box (for online use I recommend 22.050 kHz or lower). Switching from Stereo to Mono will also reduce the file size. Click OK to close the Sound Settings dialog box.

11. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, leave the Prepare for Internet Streaming option checked if you want to take advantage of streaming or progressive download for this movie, and choose the Fast Start option in the Streaming menu.

12. Click OK to close the Movie Settings dialog box, and then click Save in the Save Exported File As dialog box.

The movie will be exported using the settings you provided. When the export process is complete, preview your movie in QuickTime, and check the file size of the movie. If the movie file is too big, re-export it using the lower quality settings (such as a smaller frame size, lower frame rate, or lower sample rate for the audio). If the movie is smaller than you expected, you may want to re-export it using slightly higher quality settings. When you’re done, you can share your QuickTime movie file online by attaching it to an e-mail or placing it on a Web site.

A Short Review on Windows Media Player

2010-04-30T09:23:00.000-07:00

Microsoft’s Windows Media Player (version 7 or newer) can play many common media formats. I like to abbreviate the program’s name WMP because, well, it’s easier to type than Windows Media Player. WMP comes pre-installed on computers that run Windows Me or Windows XP. Although the name says “Windows,” versions of WMP are also available for Macintosh computers that run OS 8 or higher.
Windows Media Player can play video in MPEG and AVI formats. Although Pinnacle Studio can output both of these formats, they’re not terribly useful for online applications because they create big files and have an appetite for resources. Windows Media Player can also play Windows Media Video (WMV) format, and Studio can output that as well (by using the Streaming option in the Make Movie window, I’ll show you how later in this chapter). I like the WMV format because it provides decent quality (for Web movies) with remarkably small file sizes.
What are the compelling reasons for choosing over other players? Choose Windows Media Player as your format if

Most or all of your audience members use Windows. Most Windows users already have WMP installed on their systems, so they won’t have to download or install new software before viewing your Windows Media-format movie.
You want the look, but not the expense and complexity, of streaming media. If you don’t want to deal with the hassle of setting up and maintaining a streaming-media server, Windows Media format files can provide a workable compromise. WMP does a decent simulation of streaming media with progressive downloadable video: When downloading files, WMP begins playing the movie as soon as enough of it is downloaded to ensure uninterrupted playback.
You’re distributing your movie online and extremely small file size is more important than quality. The Windows Media format can offer some very small file sizes, which is good if your audience will be downloading your movie over slow dial-up Internet connections. I recently placed a 3:23-long movie online in Windows Media format and the file size was only 5.5MB (megabytes). Of course, the movie was not broadcast quality, but because most of my friends and family still have slow dial-up modem connections to the Internet, they appreciated the relatively small download size.

A Short Review on RealPlayer

2010-04-30T09:20:00.000-07:00

Another very popular media player is RealPlayer from RealNetworks.
RealPlayer is available for Macintosh, Windows, and even Unix-based systems. The free RealPlayer software is most often used for RealMedia streaming media over the Internet, though it can also play MPEG-format media as well. Pinnacle Studio allows you to export movies in the RealMedia format using the “Streaming” option in the Make Movie window. Although RealNetworks does offer a free version of the RealPlayer , you have to look at their Web site carefully for the “Free RealOne Player” link before you can download it. RealNetworks offers other programs as well — and though they’re not free, they offer additional features. RealNetworks has specialized in the delivery of streaming content, and they offer a variety of delivery options. You can use their software to run your own RealMedia streaming server, or you can outsource such “broadcast” duties to RealNetworks.
A complaint often heard about RealPlayer is that the software tends to be intrusive and resource-hungry once installed — and that the program itself collects information about your media-usage habits and sends that information to RealNetworks. Although RealPlayer is extremely popular, consider that some folks out there simply refuse to install RealNetworks software on their computers. RealMedia is an excellent format, but I recommend that you offer your audience a choice of formats if you plan to use it; include (for example) QuickTime or Windows Media Video.

A Short Review on QuickTime

2010-04-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

Apple QuickTime is perhaps the most ubiquitous media player in the personal computer world today, which makes it a good overall choice for your audience. QuickTime is available for Macintosh and Windows systems and is included with Mac OS 9 and higher. QuickTime can play MPEG and QuickTime media. The QuickTime Player also supports progressive download, where files begin playing as soon as enough has been downloaded to allow continuous playback.
Apple also offers an upgraded version of QuickTime called QuickTime Pro.
QuickTime Pro costs about $30 (the regular QuickTime Player is free). Key
features of QuickTime Pro include

Full-screen playback
Additional media management features
Simple audio and video creation and export tools
Advanced import/export options If you already have iMovie (and therefore regular QuickTime), you don’t absolutely need the extra features of QuickTime Pro.

Your audience really doesn’t need QuickTime Pro either (unless of course they want to watch movies in full screen). The standard QuickTime Player should suffice in most cases. Apple iMovie exports QuickTime-format files. If you’re a Windows user, QuickTime Pro allows you to convert MPEG files to QuickTime format. Some advanced Windows editing programs (such as Adobe Premiere) can also export files in QuickTime format.

Streaming your video

2010-03-31T18:22:00.000-07:00

Doing stuff on the Internet usually means downloading files. For example, when you visit a Web page, files containing all the text and pictures on that Web page are first downloaded to your computer, and then your Web-browser program opens them. Likewise, if someone e-mails you a picture or a document with yucky work stuff, your e-mail program actually downloads a file before you open it.
Downloading files takes time, especially if they’re big video files. You sit there and you wait. And wait. And wait. Finally the movie file is done downloading and starts to play, but by then you’ve left the room for a cup of coffee again. But software designers are crafty folk, and they’ve devised methods of getting around the problem of waiting a long time for downloads. They’ve come up with two basic solutions:

Streaming media: Rather than downloading a file to your hard drive, streaming files can be played as the data streams through your modem. It works kind of like a radio, where “data” streams through in the form of radio waves, and that data is immediately played through the radio’s speakers as it is received. With streaming audio or video, no file is ever saved on your hard drive. To truly stream your movies to other people, your movie files need to be on a special streaming server on the Web. There is a remote possibility that your Internet service provider offers a streaming media server, but most service providers do not.
Progressive download: Newer video-player programs can “fake” streaming pretty effectively. Rather than receiving a movie signal broadcast over the Internet like a radio wave, viewers simply click a link to open the movie as if they were downloading the file. In fact, they are downloading the file — but as soon as enough of the file has been received, the player program can start to play. The program doesn’t need to wait for the whole file to download before it starts. Current versions of QuickTime, RealPlayer, and Windows Media Player all support progressive download. The really cool thing about progressive download is that you don’t need any special kind of server to host the files. Just upload the video file to any server that has enough room to fit it in.

I’m actually being kind of picky about terminology here. Many people now refer to progressive download video files as “streaming video,” and because they basically function the same way, why not? The good news is that you don’t need to do anything special to stream (or progressively download, or whatever you want to call it) your movies to your audience. Just output your movie in QuickTime, RealVideo, or Windows Media Video format, and let the player programs do the rest.

Choosing a Video Format for Internet

2010-03-31T18:19:00.000-07:00

Many different video formats are available for the movies you edit on your computer. Each format uses a different codec. (I explain codecs in greater detail in Chapter 13, but a codec, short for compressor/decompressor, is a software tool used for making multimedia files smaller.) Common video file formats include MPEG and AVI, but these two formats are usually not suitable for movies you plan to share online because they have big file sizes. Three other popular formats, however, are perfectly suited to the online world:

QuickTime (.QT): Many Windows users and virtually all Macintosh users have the QuickTime Player program from Apple. QuickTime is the only export format available with iMovie. Pinnacle Studio cannot export QuickTime movies, but some more advanced Windows programs like Adobe Premiere can.
RealMedia (.RM): This is the format used by the popular RealPlayer, available for Windows and Macintosh systems, among others. Pinnacle Studio can export RealMedia-format video.
Windows Movie Video: This format requires Windows Media Player. Almost all Windows users and some Macintosh users already have it. Both Pinnacle Studio and Windows Movie Maker can export Windows Media Video.

Each of these three video formats has strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately the format you choose will probably depend mainly on the editing software you’re using — for example, if you’re using iMovie on a Mac, QuickTime is your only option.

Setting MPEG settings

2010-03-31T18:15:00.000-07:00

I like the MPEG format because it is easy to use and — most importantly —widely supported among Mac and PC users. MPEG is actually a family of multimedia file standards. There are currently four MPEG standards:

MPEG-1: This is the oldest version of the standard. A drawback of MPEG-1 is that it has a maximum picture size of 352 by 240 pixels.
MPEG-2: This standard offers much higher video quality and full-size video. In fact, MPEG-2 is the format used by DVD movies, so if you burn your movies onto DVD, this is the format you’ll use. MPEG-2 files require special MPEG-2 player software, such as a DVD player program.
MPEG-3: Usually abbreviated MP3, this file format only contains audio and is a popular file format for music files today.
MPEG-4: This newer standard is a cross of MPEG video and Apple QuickTime to produce video with very, very small file sizes. Support for this format is still limited. Studio’s MPEG settings dialog box is a lot simpler than the AVI settings. Review the following settings as you get ready to export your movie in MPEG format:
Presets: Studio provides a selection of presets based on how the file will be used. For example, if you plan to record the movie on a VCD, choose the VideoCD preset from the Presets menu.

If possible, I recommend that you stick with one of the presets, but if you absolutely must fiddle with the rest of the MPEG settings, choose Custom from the Presets menu. If you use one of the presets, you can simply click OK to close the Setup Options dialog box. Additional settings can only be adjusted if you choose Custom.

Include video: You’ll want to leave this option checked unless you only want to generate an audio file.
Filter video: If you’re working with a smaller frame size, check this option to smooth the appearance of the video image.
Draft mode: Check this option if you just want to quickly produce a low-quality file for previewing purposes.
Compression: Choose MPEG1 or MPEG2. Again, MPEG-2 can provide higher quality, but it requires special player software. MPEG-2 is used on movie DVDs.
Width and height: Select a frame size for your video image here. Smaller frame sizes mean smaller files.
Data rate: Most of the time you can leave these sliders alone, but you can use them to fine-tune the quality and file size.

The slider on the left controls video data rate, and the slider on the right controls audio data rate. The Make MPEG File tab of the Setup Options dialog box also includes a couple of audio settings. Audio options are

Include audio: Uncheck this option if you only want to output video.
Sample rate: 44.1 kHz is CD quality, but most digital camcorders can record at 48 kHz. The higher the sample rate, the higher the audio quality (and file size).
Data Rate: Use this slider to fine-tune the quality of the audio. Slide it left to reduce quality and file size, or slide it right to increase quality and file size. As you adjust the slider, you see the number in the Kbits/sec box change. Generally I recommend leaving the Data Rate slider alone unless you really need to squeeze a couple more kilobytes of file size out of your movie file.

Decoding codecs

2010-02-28T05:12:00.000-08:00

Digital video contains a lot of data. If you were to copy uncompressed digital video onto your hard disk, it would consume 20 MB (megabytes) for every second of video. Simple arithmetic tells us that one minute of uncompressed video would use over 1GB. Even with a 60GB hard drive, you would have room for only about 50 minutes of uncompressed video, assuming that big drive was empty to begin with. Dire though this may seem, storage isn’t even the biggest problem with uncompressed video. Typical hard drive busses and other components in your computer simply can’t handle a transfer rate of 20MB per second, meaning that some video frames will be dropped from the video.
To deal with the massive bandwidth requirements of video, digital video is compressed using compression schemes called codecs (compressor/decompressor). The DV codec, which is used by most digital camcorders, compresses video down to 3.6MB per second. This data rate is far more manageable than uncompressed video, and most modern computer hardware can handle it without trouble. When you capture DV video from a camcorder using a FireWire interface, a minute of video consumes just over 200MB of hard disk space. Again, most modern computers can manage that. Why do codecs matter to you? When you choose a file format for exporting your movie, you’re also usually choosing a codec to compress your movie (whether you realize it or not). Usually your export software automatically chooses a codec for you, but as you’ve seen in this chapter, you can also usually choose a specific codec if you wish. Some codecs compress video more than others. Generally speaking, the more video is compressed, the more quality you lose. In most cases I recommend you use the default codec chosen by Studio (or whatever program you are using) when you select an export format.

Choosing AVI Settings in Pinnacle Studio

2010-02-28T05:08:00.000-08:00

The AVI format was developed several eons ago by Microsoft as the file format of Video for Windows video files. AVI files can use one of several codecs to compress video. Codecs control exactly how the audio and video is compressed. As you can see in Figure, Studio’s Setup Options dialog box makes it pretty easy to choose a codec or modify other settings.
The video settings include

Include Video in AVI File: I’m guessing you’ll want to leave this option checked for 99.9975% of all your projects. If you uncheck this option, only audio will be included in the file.
List All Codecs: I recommend you leave this option unchecked. Many multimedia programs install codecs on your computer, and if you check the “List all codecs” option, each and every codec installed on your PC will appear in the list, even ones that aren’t compatible with Studio.
Options: Some codecs have further options you can adjust. I generally recommend that you don’t mess with these options.
Compression: This menu allows you to choose a codec. Many multimedia programs install codecs on your computer, so the list of codecs may vary depending on what is installed on your computer. The Cinepak codec (which comes with Studio) is pretty good for all around use, and is particularly recommended for movies that will be recorded onto a CD.
Width and Height: These indicate the size of your video image in pixels. Full-size DV-format video is 720 by 480 pixels. Reducing the size of the picture can greatly reduce the file size, but make sure you keep the ratio between the height and width the same, or your video image may look distorted.
Frames/Second: This controls the frame rate of the video file. Full-quality DV-format video uses a frame rate of 29.97 frames per second (fps). Reducing the frame rate decreases playback quality, but it also greatly reduces file size.
Quality or Data Rate: This slider control isn’t available with all codecs, but when it is available, it allows you to adjust the quality up or down to control file size. A smaller data rate greatly reduces file size.

Exporting Your Movie to an AVI or MPEG with Pinnacle Studio

2010-02-28T05:03:00.000-08:00

If you’re using Apple iMovie, QuickTime is the only file format available for export. If you’re using Pinnacle Studio, you have more options. To export your movie to an AVI or MPEG file:

In Studio, choose View➪Make Movie. The Make Movie screen appears.
Click either AVI or MPEG on the left side of the Make Movie window. Choose the format to which you want to export. Generally speaking, AVI (Audio Video Interleave) files are a little bigger than MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) files. Anyone with a semi-modern Windows PC should be able to view either format. Another benefit of choosing MPEG is that Macs can usually open them, whereas AVI files are usually not Mac-compatible.
Click the Settings button. The Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog box appears, as shown in Figure. If you chose AVI in Step 2, the Make AVI File tab will be in front. If you chose MPEG in Step 2, the Make MPEG File tab will be in front.
Adjust settings and click OK. I’ll describe the various AVI and MPEG export settings in the following two sections.
Review the estimated file size above the Settings button in the Make Movie window. The estimated file size is just that — an estimate. It’s usually pretty close to what the final file size will be, but seldom exact. If the file seems too big, adjust settings so that the video picture is smaller or the audio quality is lower.
Click Create AVI File or Create MPEG file to create your movie.
In the dialog box that appears, choose a folder in which to save your movie, and give it a filename.
Click OK.

The export process will probably take a few seconds or even minutes, depending on the length of your movie and the number of effects. One reason you might want to export a movie as an AVI or MPEG file is if you plan to edit it using other software. For example, if I want to export a movie for the Web in Windows Media Video (WMV) format, I prefer to use the export feature in Windows Movie Maker. When I’m done editing in Studio, I export the movie in AVI format, which can be easily imported into Movie Maker. After the AVI file is imported into Windows Movie Maker, I use that program to export a WMV file.
AVI is a good format to use if you want to export video for many Windowsbased video-editing programs, including Windows Movie Maker or Adobe Premiere for Windows, but you may find that some editing programs prefer MPEG. Pinnacle’s Hollywood FX Pro, for example, works better with MPEGformat video. And of course, if you plan to use the exported file on a Mac, you’ll find that the MPEG format will be much more compatible with Mac multimedia software.
If you aren’t sure whether you have a specific need for one format or the other, it probably doesn’t matter very much which one you choose. AVI files are usually a little bigger than MPEG files, but as I said earlier, if you’re concerned about file sizes — say, for example, you plan to share the movie on the Internet — you really ought to be exporting the movie in a Web-friendly format like RealVideo or Windows Media.

Exporting a Movie

2010-01-31T19:39:00.000-08:00

After about the millionth preview, you’ll probably come to the realization that your movie will never be perfect: If you don’t just give up and release your movie, it will never be seen by anyone. Star Wars creator George Lucas once described this process as one of abandonment because most moviemakers almost never feel that a project is truly finished. When you decide that it’s time to “abandon” your project, you must export the movie so that others can view it. Before you export your movie, you must decide in which format you wish to export. After you’ve edited your movie in a program like Studio or iMovie, you aren’t limited to showing your work to others on your computer. You have many options with which to share your movie:

Videotape: Almost everyone you know probably has a VCR that plays VHS tapes. Sure, the quality and gee-whiz factor of VHS tapes isn’t as high as DVD, but most of your audience really won’t care. If you have an analog capture card such as a Pinnacle AV/DV board, you can connect a VCR directly to your computer and export your movie directly to a VHS tape. Otherwise export the movie back to a tape in your digital camcorder, and then dub the movie from the camcorder tape to a VCR
DVD: The DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) player is quickly supplanting the VCR as the home video player of choice for many people. Tens of millions of households already have DVD players in their home entertainment systems, and many modern computers can play DVD movies as well. DVD recorders are now relatively affordable, so making your own DVDs is pretty easy..
VCD/S-VCD: If you don’t have a DVD burner yet, you can make DVD-like movie discs called VCDs (Video Compact Discs) or S-VCDs (Super VCDs) using a regular CD-R drive and blank CDs. VCDs can hold about one hour of video, and S-VCDs hold 20 minutes of higher quality video. VCDs and S-VCDs can be played in most DVD players.
Internet: The Internet is a popular place to share video, but remember that video files are usually very big and most people still have relatively slow Internet connections. If you plan to export your movie for use on the Internet, use a Web-friendly format such as Apple QuickTime, RealNetworks RealVideo, or Windows Media Video. These formats usually have fairly low quality, but the trade-off is much smaller file sizes. When choosing one of these formats, make sure that your intended audience has software that can play your movies.
Video file: Some programs allow you to simply save the movie as a file. Common video file formats include AVI and MPEG. These files can be stored on your computer, or burned onto a CD so that others can watch your movie on their computers as well. Just remember that the AVI and MPEG formats are generally too big for anyone but broadband users to access online. AVI or MPEG files are useful, however, if you plan to edit the movie further using another editing program.

Previewing on an external monitor

2010-01-31T19:01:00.000-08:00

Your editing software has a preview window, and at first glance it probably seems to work well enough. But if you plan to record your movie on videotape or DVD, just previewing it on the computer screen can cause a couple of problems:

TVs usually provide a bigger view. A larger TV screen reveals camera movements and other flaws that might not be obvious in the tiny preview window on your computer screen.
Computer monitors and TVs show color differently. Colors that look right on your computer may not look the same on a TV.
Most TVs are interlaced. TVs are usually interlaced, whereas computer monitors are progressively scanned, or non-interlaced. Titles or other graphics that have very thin lines may look fine on your computer monitor, but when viewed on a TV, those thin lines may flicker or appear to shimmer or crawl.

The cheapest option is to connect your digital camcorder to your FireWire port, and then connect the TV to the analog output on your camcorder. If you have an analog capture card in your computer, such as the Pinnacle AV/DV board, you can connect your TV (and VCR) to the analog outputs for the card.
Apple iMovie makes previewing your work on an external TV monitor very easy. In iMovie, choose iMovie ➪ Preferences. The iMovie Preferences dialog box appears as shown in Figure. Place a check mark next to Play Video Through to Camera under Advanced options. Now that this option is enabled, whenever you play the timeline, the video will be sent out to your camcorder if it is connected to your FireWire port and turned on in Player or VTR mode. If you have a TV monitor hooked up to the camcorder’s analog outputs, the video image should appear there as well.
Pinnacle Studio also allows you to preview video on an external monitor, although it’s a little more complicated. Basically, you have to export the movie as if you were done and ready to record it on tape. After the movie is exported for tape, you can play the export file and preview it on an external monitor as many times as you like without actually recording the tape.

Casting a critical eye on your project

2010-01-31T18:52:00.000-08:00

Of course, there’s more to previewing your project than simply clicking Play. Consider carefully what you are actually previewing when you play your movie. Here are some ways to get the most out of previewing your project:

Watch the whole program from start to finish. You may be tempted to periodically stop playback, reverse, and repeat sections, or perhaps even make tweaks to the project as you run it. This is fine, but to get a Click to play a movie fullscreen. really good “feeling” for the flow of the movie, watch the whole thing start to finish — just as your audience will. Keep a notepad handy and jot down quick notes if you must.
Watch the program on an external TV. If you plan to record your movie on videotape or DVD, previewing on an external monitor is very helpful. (See the next section in this chapter for a more detailed explanation.)
Have trusted third parties review the project. Moviemakers and writers are often too close to their creations to be totally objective; an “outside” point of view can help a lot. Although I worked hard to write this book (for example), my work was reviewed by various editors and their feedback was invaluable. Movie projects benefit from a similar review process. Even if you want to maintain strict creative control over your project, feedback from people who were not involved with creating it can help you see it afresh.

Previewing Your Movie

2009-11-30T14:24:00.000-08:00

I could start and end this section by simply saying “Click Play” under the preview window in your editing program. If you want to see a bigger preview in Apple iMovie, click the Play Movie Fullscreen button. If you are using Pinnacle Studio, alas, you are limited to the tiny, inflexible size of the Studio preview window.
Of course, truly previewing a movie means a whole lot more than just clicking the Play button. To perform a truly effective preview, you must

Draw a properly critical eye on the movie.
Decide whether just previewing the movie on your computer screen is sufficient, or whether you need to preview it on a TV monitor. The next two sections address both of these subjects.

Warm up that coffee, sit back in your director’s chair, and get ready to see what kind of movie magic you hath wrought.
You should also make sure that you preview your movie on the same type of equipment that your audience will use. This includes testing it in the player software that your audience will use if you plan to share your movie on the Internet or a recordable CD.

Freezing Frames from Video

2009-11-30T08:04:00.000-08:00

The first part of this chapter shows you how to use still pictures in your movies. But there will also be times when you might want to freeze a video image for posterity, so to speak. You may want to grab still pictures from video to help promote your movie, or you may want a still image of someone or something, and the video clip is the only image you have. Just keep in mind that the resolution of video images is really, really low compared to even the cheapest digital cameras, so frame grabs from video will have a lower quality. The lower quality will be especially apparent if you print the frame grab because image details will look blocky and pixelated. To freeze a frame of video and turn it into a still picture:

Open the video clip that has the frame that you want to freeze. If you don’t have a video clip of your own, you can use the sample video clip on the companion CD-ROM. In Pinnacle Studio, you must place the clip in the timeline before you can freeze a frame. To add a video clip to the timeline, simply drag it from the album to the timeline.
Move the play head to the frame that you want to freeze.
Grab the frame. In Apple iMovie, choose File➪Save Frame As. A Save As dialog box appears. In Pinnacle Studio, choose Toolbox➪Grab Video Frame. The Grab Video Frame toolbox appears. Choose the Movie radio button next to Grab From, click the Grab button, and then click Save to Disk.
Save the frame. In iMovie, name the picture and choose a format in the Format menu. The available formats are JPEG and PICT, but if you’re not sure which format to choose, I recommend JPEG.

In Studio, name the file and choose a format from the Save As Type menu. Several formats are available, but I recommend the JPEG format for the greatest versatility.
After you have grabbed a frame of video, you can use the image on a Web page to promote your movie, use it as a background image for a DVD menu, or share it as you would any other still photo.

Making an overlay graphic

2009-11-30T07:57:00.000-08:00

Pinnacle Studio treats still graphics as if they were titles. As explained, you can put titles in either the video track or the title track of the timeline. If you put a title in the video track, it will be a full-screen title. If you put the title in the title track, it will be an overlay title, which means the words will appear over a video image.
Because Studio treats still photos like titles, you can use the title track to overlay your own custom graphics over a video image. To try it, follow these steps:

Open Microsoft Paint by choosing Start➪All Programs➪Accessories➪Paint.
In Paint, choose Image➪Attributes. The Attributes dialog box opens.
Enter the height and width of the video image used in your video project, and then click OK. If you’re working with a DV-format project, make the image 720 pixels wide and 534 pixels high if you are working with NTSC footage, or 768 pixels wide and 576 pixels high if you are working with PAL footage.
Draw an object. Any old object will do, so let your creative juices flow.
When you are done drawing, choose a color from the color palette that was not used in your drawing (or whatever object you actually drew in Step 4).
lick the Fill tool
Click a blank area of the image to fill it with the new color.
Save your picture and then close Paint.
Open Pinnacle Studio and the project in which you want to use the overlay graphic.
Click the Show Photos and Frame Grabs tab on the left side of the album.
If your drawing doesn’t appear in the album, click the folder button at the top of the album and browse to the folder in which you saved your Paint graphic. By default, Paint saves files in the My Pictures folder.
Drag the overlay graphic from the album and drop it on the title track of the timeline. The overlay image should now appear over the image in the video track, You’re probably wondering how Studio knows how to make the background of an overlay graphic transparent.

When you place a graphic in the title track, Studio looks at the color of the pixel in the upper-left corner of the image and removes that color from the entire image. For example, if the upper-left pixel is black, all black pixels become transparent, whereas pixels that are blue, red, yellow, or other colors will remain. You may need to experiment with some different background colors for the best results. I have found that black works best most of the time.

Placing images in the timeline of Pinnacle Studio

2009-10-31T07:43:00.001-07:00

Studio is pretty conventional in the way it handles still graphics, which is a good thing. You can import pictures into the program and drop them in the timeline, just like almost every other video program available. Studio also makes it easy to use graphic images on top of video.
Studio’s media album has a special section just for still graphics. You can open it by clicking the Show Photos and Frame Grabs tab. By default, the album shows images in your My Pictures folder, but you can browse to a different folder if you wish by clicking the small folder icon.
To use a picture in your movie, simply drag it from the album and drop it on the video track of the timeline. The default duration for a still graphic is four seconds. To change the duration, select the clip in the timeline and click the Open Video Toolbox button. The video toolbox window appears above the timeline. Type a new time into the Duration field at the top of the toolbox window. Alternatively, you can just click-and-drag on the edge of the still clip in the timeline to adjust its duration.

Using images in your movie project

2009-10-31T07:40:00.001-07:00

iMovie can use any picture that has been imported into iPhoto. In fact, importing the image into iPhoto first is mandatory — so if you haven’t imported your still graphics into iPhoto (as described in the previous section), do so now. When that’s done, you can start using still images in iMovie:

Open iMovie and the movie project in which you want to use a still image.
Click the Photos button. A collection of pictures that looks eerily similar to your iPhoto library will appear in the iMovie window.If you’ve gone to the trouble of organizing photos into different albums in iPhoto, you can switch between those albums using the menu above the image browser.
Click the clip that you want to use in the movie to select it.
Adjust the duration of the clip using the duration slider, which bears the images of a little tortoise and hare. The default duration for a still clip is five seconds, but if you want it to display for less time, move the slider towards the bunny, er, I mean hare. If you want the clip to appear slow and steady, move the slider towards the tortoise. At about this time, you’ll probably notice that your still graphic is moving in that little preview window in the upper-right corner of the screen. You’ll also notice the words “Ken Burns Effect” just above. No, the Ken Burns Effect doesn’t make Ken’s smiling mug appear in your movie. It makes the camera appear to slowly zoom in or out on the still image, providing a visual continuity of movement that is otherwise broken by using a still image amongst moving video clips. (Ken Burns, the well-known documentary filmmaker responsible for such films as The Civil War, uses this trademark effect in a lot of his films.)
Click the Start radio button near the top of the screen. This allows you to adjust the zoom level at the beginning of the clip.
Adjust the zoom slider. If you don’t want to zoom in on the image at all, drag the slider all the way to the left so that the zoom factor says 1.00.
Click the Finish radio button near the top of the screen. This allows you to adjust the zoom level at the end of the clip.
Adjust the zoom slider again. If you don’t want to use a “Ken Burns” zooming effect, make sure that the zoom factor at the Start and Finish of the clip are the same.
Click Preview to preview the results of the effect. If you aren’t happy with the effect, continue tweaking the zoom settings and previewing the results.
When you’re done making adjustments, drag the clip and drop it down on the timeline or storyboard to insert it in your movie.

You can still adjust clips after they have been dropped into the timeline or storyboard. Select the clip, click the Photos button, and then adjust the duration or other attributes in the Photos panel. Click Apply when you’re done making changes.

Organizing photos with iPhoto

2009-10-31T07:37:00.000-07:00

In the interest of simplification, iMovie uses Apple iPhoto for organizing still photos. This makes a lot of sense if you think about it; these two programs work together pretty seamlessly. If you already use iPhoto to organize your still images, you can move on to the next section. But if you haven’t used iPhoto yet, you’ll need to before you can use stills in iMovie. I recommend that you have iPhoto version 2 (or later) installed on your computer. iPhoto comes preinstalled on any Mac that ships with OS X. If you don’t have the latest version, visit www.apple.com/iphoto/ to download this free program. Follow the instructions on the Apple Web site to download and install iPhoto. For more on using iPhoto, check out iPhoto 2 For Dummies by Curt Simmons, published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. When the program is installed, you can begin organizing your stills:

Launch iPhoto by clicking its icon on the OS X Dock. Alternatively, you can open it from the Applications folder on your hard disk.
Choose File➪Import. The Import Photos dialog box appears,
Browse to the folder that contains the picture or pictures that you want to import.
Select the picture and click Import. To select multiple pictures, hold down the Ô key while clicking each picture file you want to import.The picture appears in the iPhoto library. After the picture is imported into iPhoto, it’s ready for use in iMovie as well.
You can now quit iPhoto if you want by pressing Ô+Q.

Getting the colors just right

2009-10-31T07:35:00.000-07:00

I described how TV screens and computer monitors don’t show colors exactly the same way. The biggest problem is that some colors in computer graphics simply cannot appear on a TV. These colors are often called illegal or out-of-gamut colors. Although this isn’t a super-serious problem, you should still fix any out of gamut colors in your images before using them in video programs.
Unfortunately, the ability to easily fix out of gamut colors is usually only found in more advanced, expensive video-editing programs. Adobe Photoshop, which retails for about $600, is one such program. To fix the colors in an image, simply open the picture in Photoshop and choose Filter➪ Video➪NTSC Colors. This filter removes all colors from the image that are out of gamut for NTSC TVs. A lower-cost option that also enables you to fix out-of-gamut colors is Photoshop Elements, which is available for a much more affordable price of about $100. You might even be able to get it for free with some digital cameras.
If your image-editing program doesn’t have a video color filter, I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it. But if it does, fix those out-of-gamut colors so that the image looks better in the final video program.

How to Adjust Image Size?

2009-08-31T20:06:00.000-07:00

Again, you only need to convert the still image sizes if you plan to export the movie back to tape or DVD. If your movie will only be watched over the Web, you don’t need to convert the image. The exact steps you should use to adjust the image size vary depending on the image-editing program you are using, but in most programs, they work something like this:

Open the picture in your picture-editing program.
Open the dialog box that controls the image size in your software. In Adobe Photoshop, choose Image➪Image Size.
Remove the check mark next to the Constrain Proportions option. Most editing programs have a similar constraining option (such as Constrain Size). Make sure it’s disabled.
Change the image size to 720x534 if you’re working with NTSC video, or 768x576 if you’re working with PAL video.
Click OK and save the image as a JPEG image file.

Save the image using the JPEG format because it can then be used in just about any video-editing program. If your picture-editing software gives you a quality option when you save an image as a JPEG, choose the highest quality possible if the image will be used in a movie program. Other versatile formats include BMP, PICT, and TIFF, but you should check the help system for your video-editing program to see which formats are supported.
Although the image may look slightly distorted after you change the size, don’t worry: It will look right when viewed with the rest of your video. Just remember that you only have to perform this modification if you plan to export the movie back to tape. If you plan to use your movie only on computer screens (or share it over the Internet), you don’t need to change the aspect ratio of the image.

Adjusting the image size

2009-08-31T20:02:00.000-07:00

Most video images have an aspect ratio of 4:3, which means the width and height of the image can be divided into a 4:3 ratio. Most of the sample clips on the CD-ROM that accompanies this book have an image size of 320 pixels wide by 240 pixels high. If you do the math, you’ll see that 320x240 works out to a ratio of 4:3.
When you take a picture using a digital still camera, that picture usually has an aspect ratio of 4:3 as well. Image sizes that have a 4:3 aspect ratio include 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768. Your computer’s monitor also probably has a 4:3 aspect ratio unless you have a newer widescreen monitor. Most TVs still have a 4:3 aspect ratio as well. Because the 4:3 aspect ratio is so common, dropping an 800x600 digital photo into a DV-based video project should be easy, right?
Unfortunately, it’s not always that easy.
Digital images are made up of pixels, which are tiny little blocks of color that, when arranged in a grid, make up a picture. Pixels can have different aspect ratios too. Digital graphics usually have square pixels, while video usually has rectangular pixels. The frame size of NTSC video is usually listed as 720x480 pixels. This does not work out to 4:3; it’s actually 3:2. However, it still appears to have a 4:3 aspect ratio because NTSC video pixels are slightly taller than they are wide.
What does all this mean? Suppose you place an uncorrected digital picture into a video program, and then you export that program back to tape. When you view the movie on a TV, the still image will appear distorted. To correct this, you need to start with a digital photo that has an aspect ratio of 4:3, and then (depending on your local broadcast video standard) change the image size to

720x534 pixels (NTSC)
768x576 pixels (PAL)

Use the size that matches your local broadcast video standard (see Chapter 3 for more on video standards). Before you convert an image to one of these sizes, it should have an aspect ratio of 4:3. Common 4:3 image sizes include 800x600, 1024x768, and 1600x1200.

Using Still Graphics in Movies

2009-08-31T20:00:00.000-07:00

Although movies are all about motion, there are plenty of times you’ll want to include still graphics in your video projects. The process of importing stills into your video-editing program is usually pretty simple, but before you start plopping stills into your timeline, you should take some important steps to make sure that your images will look right. If you don’t take the time to prepare your stills, two main problems can result:

Images may become distorted and look unnaturally stretched or squeezed.
Colors might not display properly

More ABout Stepping Up to More Advanced Editing

2009-07-30T21:03:00.000-07:00

Most high-end editors simplify the capture process with a feature called log and capture. The log and capture feature allows you to create a log of clips that you want to capture. As you review the videotape and identify portions that you want to capture — a task you would undertake with any video-editing program — you simply log the timecode at the in point (beginning) and out point (end) of each piece of video you want to capture. In Adobe Premiere, you do this by clicking Set In at the beginning of the section, and then clicking Set Out at the end of the section. You can even type the timecode in the Set In and Set Out fields manually if you wish. When you’ve specified an in point and an out point, click the Log In/Out button. This adds the current in and out points to a log. The Batch Capture window serves as Adobe Premiere’s log. You can log as many sections from a tape as you want in a single log. I have logged five separate sections of video. After you have logged all of the portions of video that you want to capture from a given tape, capturing the video takes just a single mouse click. In Premiere, click the Record button at the bottom of the Batch Capture window. The software automatically rewinds and cues the tape in the camcorder as needed and captures all the sections of video that you specified. The capture process may take a while, but because it all happens automatically, you can take a lunch break while it occurs. If you capture a lot of video the old fashioned way in Apple iMovie or Pinnacle Studio, you’ll start to see why log and capture can be a big timesaver. Log and capture is just one example of the effort-saving features that advanced video-editing programs can offer. All the editing programs listed here look and work very similarly because they were designed to imitate the professional video-editing workstations used for years by broadcast pros. One of the things I really like about programs like Premiere or Final Cut Pro is the flexibility of their timelines. You normally have an almost infinite number of tracks to work with — very helpful when you want to overlay video images on top of each other. It may look like a very complex project, but I was able to assemble it quickly. The timeline currently has three video tracks and three audio tracks, but I can add more as I need them. Special effects are also a lot easier to work with in advanced editing programs. For example, suppose I want to make a video clip appear in its own little box (like a picture-in-picture display found on some TVs) and move the box across the screen. In Premiere, opening a Motion Settings dialog box for the clip is a simple matter,. Using simple point-andclick techniques with the mouse, I can draw a motion pattern for the clip and adjust zoom settings to make the clip bigger or smaller. Advanced video editors can also be powerful business productivity tools.
Corporate communications directors are finding that modern computers and
software make in-house video production more feasible (in the past it was usually
farmed out to a contractor). Businesses can use video editors to make

Training and orientation videos
Kiosk videos
Marketing materials
Presentation videos

One advantage of using video software for presentations is that once a presentation is exported to tape or DVD, you can show it almost anywhere. All you need is a TV and a VCR or DVD player. Although you lose some of the interactivity of, say, a PowerPoint presentation, you can still make a very professional-looking video using media of almost any type. Last year, for example, I used Adobe Premiere to develop a kiosk video to demonstrate some software. Using animation tools, I could simulate the movement of a mouse pointer on the screen. I can’t possibly show you all the advantages that advanced video-editing programs can offer, but this chapter shows some possibilities. Programs like Final Cut Pro, Edition, and Premiere are so advanced that the movie magic you can create is limited only by your imagination.

Stepping Up to More Advanced Editing

2009-07-30T20:58:00.000-07:00

If it hasn’t happened to you yet, rest assured that it will: You want to do a certain kind of edit, but the software you’re using right now just won’t let you. Or you may find that some tasks are difficult or tedious to perform.
Before you get mad and break a keyboard or something, consider upgrading
to a more advanced editing program. Some well-regarded advanced editing
programs include

Adobe Premiere (Mac/Windows): Adobe kicked the affordable video editing revolution into high gear a few years ago with Premiere. It remains a popular choice among video professionals and hobbyists, although it has slipped in popularity in recent years as Final Cut Pro and others offer viable alternatives. Adobe Premiere retails for $549, although if you shop around, you may get a better deal by buying Premiere packaged with a high-quality video-capture card.
Avid Xpress (Mac/Windows): Avid has been making broadcast videoediting
software and equipment for years, and many professionals prefer the Avid Xpress video-editing software. And after years of spending tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars for Avid editing workstations in the past, pros don’t mind the $1699 retail price of Avid Xpress. For the typical amateur moviemaker, however, some of the more affordable solutions make more sense.
Apple Final Cut Pro (Mac): Quickly becoming one of the most popular editing programs among pros and dedicated hobbyists, this program, which retails for $999, can do it all.
Apple Final Cut Express (Mac): If Final Cut Pro’s price tag is out of your reach, consider the $299 Express version. Unless you’re editing video professionally for broadcast TV or Hollywood movie studios, this is a better, much more affordable choice.
Pinnacle Edition (Windows): Pinnacle definitely knows video. Whether you’re a broadcast professional or DV newbie, Pinnacle has software and hardware worth considering. Edition is Pinnacle’s answer to Adobe Premiere and other high-end video editors. Pinnacle Edition DV retails for $699 with a FireWire card included, although if you already own Pinnacle Studio, you can upgrade to Edition for a lot less (at this writing, Pinnacle advertised an upgrade special of just $199).
Sonic Foundry Vegas (Windows): Vegas from Sonic Foundry has been quietly building a strong reputation among video editors, many of whom prefer Vegas to Adobe Premiere for Windows-based editing. The Vegas software retails for $699, though Sonic Foundry occasionally has special offers.

Although you may expect advanced editing programs to be more complex, I actually find them easier to use. For example, consider the process of capturing video from your camcorder. In Apple iMovie and Pinnacle Studio, you have to be quick with your mouse and buttons to start and stop capture. If you want to capture a lot of different scenes from a tape, this process can grow tedious because you have to sit there in front of your computer manually starting and stopping capture for each piece of video. And because you probably won’t actually capture a piece of video until you’ve reviewed it at least once, you’ll spend a lot of time rewinding the same video over and over.

Using Video Effects in Studio

2009-06-29T21:51:00.000-07:00

Pinnacle Studio doesn’t have built-in special effects, per se, but it does offer tools to let you modify the appearance of your video clips. Here’s a summary of the tools and effects available in Studio:

Adjust color and lighting: You can modify colors and lighting in video clips using controls in the Adjust Colors toolbox. To open this toolbox, select a clip in the timeline and choose Toolbox➪Adjust Color. The toolbox appears above the timeline, as shown in Figure. Most of the time you won’t want to make any extreme adjustments, but you can correct color problems in video images with a little fine-tuning. If you’re going for a black-and-white look in your movie, you don’t need any special effects. Simply adjust the Saturation slider all the way to zero to remove color from the video image.
Blur: As you might guess, the Blur slider blurs the video image. If you set the Blur slider to number one, it does a fair imitation of a soft filter. Any higher setting, though, and the image just looks, well, blurry.
Emboss, Mosaic, and Posterize: These controls are of limited use, in my opinion, although they can be useful when you’re creating a custom background image (for a DVD menu, for example):

Emboss gives the appearance that your video image has been embossed into plastic or metal.
Mosiac changes the image into a pattern of colored square blocks. As you adjust the slider farther to the right, the blocks become larger, further distorting the image.
Posterize reduces the number of colors in the image to create a cartoon-like appearance.

Vary playback speed: Studio has a really nice toolbox for adjusting the playback speed of video clips. To open this toolbox, choose Toolbox➪ Vary Playback Speed.
Overlay graphics: You can use the title editor to lay simple graphics over a video image_ Hollywood FX Pro: Pinnacle offers Hollywood FX Pro, a tool that can create some advanced video effects. Hollywood FX Pro is available as a plug-in for Studio for $99.

Controlling effects with keyframes

2009-06-29T21:49:00.000-07:00

When you apply an effect to a clip, you may want the effect to appear only for part of the clip, or you may want the effect to change as the clip plays. In iMovie, you can make an effect appear or disappear gradually. More advanced video-editing programs like Adobe Premiere and Apple Final Cut Pro control effects by using keyframes. A keyframe is simply a frame of the movie that you set as a landmark (as you would the points you create and adjust on audio rubberbands when you edit audio). In advanced video-editing programs, you can set as many keyframes as you like, and you can change the properties of effects at each keyframe.
For example, suppose you use a rain effect on a video clip, and you want the rain to increase and decrease in intensity throughout the clip. Several seconds into the clip, you can set the rain to be very heavy. A few seconds later, create another keyframe where the rain is very light. The software automatically adjusts the Rain between those keyframes to make the change appear gradual.
Using keyframes effectively take a while to learn, and if you use a program like Adobe Premiere, I recommend you get a book that more fully describes the features of that programBut the keyframe feature does give you almost infinite control over the effects in your movies, so it’s definitely worth seeking out if you plan to move up to a more advanced editing program.

Customizing effects in Video Editing

2009-06-29T21:47:00.000-07:00

Most effects can be customized to some extent. When you click an effect, controls relating to that effect should appear in the Effects pane, as shown in Figure. The exact controls that will be available vary depending on the effect, so some experimentation may be necessary. In Figure, I am adjusting the Virtix Flame effect, which is available as a free iMovie plug-in from Virtix (www.virtix.com). Slider controls at the bottom of the Effects pane let me control the height and appearance of the flames. Some other controls on the Effects pane are common to all effects. These include

Effect In: This slider lets you control when the effect begins. If you adjust this slider to create a delay, the effect appears gradually as the clip plays. If you want the effect to apply to the whole clip, leave this slider set to 00:00.
Effect Out: Like the Effect In control, this slider lets you end the effect before the clip ends.
Preview: If the tiny little preview screen in the Effects pane isn’t big enough to see the effect, click the Preview button. A short preview of the effect appears in the main iMovie viewer window, as shown in Figure.
Apply: Click this to apply the effect to the currently selected clip in the timeline.

After you apply an effect to a video clip, iMovie must render the effect. A thin progress bar will appear on the clip in the timeline. Rendering is a process where iMovie applies your effect to the clip and creates a new video file on your hard disk that incorporates the change. If you decide later that you want to remove an effect from a clip, select that clip in the timeline, and then use the effect controls in the Effects pane to reduce the amount of the effect in the scene. You can’t remove the effect completely, but most effects can be

Reviewing iMovie’s effects

2009-05-31T10:14:00.000-07:00

For a free program, Apple’s iMovie sure comes with a lot of great features, including some special effects that can quickly transform the look and feel of your video clips. Besides the effects that come with iMovie, you can add effects by installing plug-ins from Apple and third-party software vendors. To view a list of iMovie’s effects, click the Effects button. The Effects pane appears. To preview an effect, just click it in the list of effects. A small preview of the effect appears at the top of the Effects pane, using whatever video is located at the current position of the play head in the timeline.

Earthquake: As the name implies, this effect shakes the video image as if an earthquake were happening. Use a short earthquake effect combined with the sound of a large thud when someone falls down in your video.
Electricity: This one has a shocking effect on your video by creating a continuous lightning bolt in your video. Use this effect in conjunction with the Electricity sound effect in the Audio pane
Fairy Dust: This effect looks more like a burning fuse to me, but the folks at Apple call it “Fairy Dust,” so who am I to argue?
Flash: The Flash effect makes the video image flash periodically. Combine the Flash effect with the Earthquake effect to create a more disorienting scene, or combine it with the Aged Film effect to make your video look really old and deteriorated.
Fog: Add some mystery to your scene with the Fog effect. This effect is a classic example of an image that is often easier to edit into your video via software than to actually photograph. Use the Fog and Black & White effects together for a film noir look.
Ghost Trails: Slight ghost trails are added to moving objects in the video image. Here’s another effect that can be used to make a scene look disorienting.
Lens Flare: Lens flares are bright spots or streaks that occur when the sun or another bright light source reflects on the camera lens. You need to avoid lens flares when shooting video, but sometimes you may want to add a lens flare to make a mostly-imaginary scene look “photographed.” Professional moviemakers often add “fake” lens flares to animated or computer-generated images to make the scene look more realistic.
Letterbox: Simulate that Hollywood movie “widescreen” look with this effect, which puts a black bar across the top and bottom of the video image. Just keep in mind that the top and bottom of your video image will be cut off.
Mirror: iMovie actually offers two Mirror effects that turn half your video picture into a mirror image of the other half. One Mirror effect reflects only horizontally; the other can reflect both horizontally and vertically.
N-Square: Ever wonder how a housefly would see your video? The N-Square effect may show just that. This effect divides the screen into squares and copies the video clip to each square. You can adjust the number of squares from four up to 64 as shown in Figure.
Rain: Add some fake weather to your scene with this effect. The fake rain drops added to a video clip by this effect show up much better onscreen than real rain, yet the scene still looks realistic. Use this effect in conjunction with the Rain sound effect in the Audio pane.
Soft Focus: Simulate a soft filter on the camera with this effect. The Soft Focus effect works well in dream sequences, or to cover up blemishes on a video subject.

Using Video Effects in iMovie

2009-05-31T10:10:00.000-07:00

When I mention “special effects,” what’s the first thing that pops into your mind? You’re probably envisioning spaceships soaring between the stars, giant monsters destroying a city, or a superhero soaring unassisted through the sky. Such effects are indeed special, but they only scratch the surface of how effects can be used in movies. Special effects can

Transport the viewer to a different place and time.
Show subjects that would be otherwise impossible or too expensive to photograph.
Change the mood or feel of a piece of video.
Add visual excitement or a sense of the exotic. Special effects aren’t all about spaceships and monsters. Consider the scene in Figure. I have used a Mirror effect in iMovie to create a kaleidoscopic image. This effect would look right at home in a music-video-style project.

Generating background music with SmartSound

2009-05-31T10:03:00.000-07:00

Pinnacle Studio comes with a tool called SmartSound, which can automatically generate music in a variety of styles to match your project. To generate some music from SmartSound, open a project in Studio and choose Toolbox➪ Generate Background Music. The audio toolbox appears. SmartSound offers music in a variety of styles. Each style includes several songs; most have a few different styles available. Click the Preview button to preview a style, song, and version. When generating background music, figure out approximately how long you want the musical piece to play. For example, when the three sample clips are placed in the timeline, their total length is a little more than 21 seconds. Adjust the duration of the music by typing a new time in the Duration box (in the upper-right corner of the audio toolbox). When you click Add to Movie, SmartSound automatically generates a piece of music in the chosen style, song, and version, and it plays for approximately the duration you chose. You can also name the selection if you want, using the Name field at the top of the toolbox.
One advantage of SmartSound’s automatically generated music is that you can use it without paying royalties every time someone views your movie. Even so, remember that SmartSound does have some licensing restrictions. They’re worth reviewing before you use them in a movie you plan to show to the public. For SmartSound license details, click the SmartSound button in the Studio audio toolbox.

Adding music from a CD

2009-04-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

I’ve shown you how to import music from audio CDs or MP3 files. After you have inserted an audio file into your editing program, you can add the file to the music track in your timeline. The procedure varies depending on which editing program you are using:

In Apple iMovie, use iTunes to import music from audio CDs into your iTunes library. Then click the Audio button in iMovie, choose iTunes from the menu at the top of the audio pane as shown in Figure, and click-and-drag a song from your iTunes library to an audio track on the iMovie timeline.
In Pinnacle Studio, place a music CD in your CD-ROM drive and choose Toolbox➪Add CD Music. The Add CD Music toolbox appears. Choose the audio track that you want to use in the Track menu, and then click Add to Movie. Close the Add CD Music toolbox, and then click Play under the preview window to play your timeline. The first time you play the timeline, Studio will import the music from the CD. After the music is imported, you can remove the CD from your CD-ROM drive.

Using sound effects in Pinnacle Studio

2009-04-29T20:55:00.000-07:00

Pinnacle Studio comes with a diverse collection of sound effects. To view a list of them, click the Show Sound Effects tab on the left side of the album or choose Album ➪ Sound Effects. When you view the Sound Effects tab of the album, you may not actually see a list of effects, particularly if you’ve used this tab to import MP3 audio or other sounds not directly connected with Pinnacle Studio. If sound effects aren’t shown, you’ll have to click the folder icon at the top of the album and browse to the following folder on your hard drive:

C:\Program Files\Pinnacle\Studio 8\Sound Effects

In that folder, you will see a selection of 13 subfolders, each of which contains a category of sound effects. For example, if you want to find chirping birds, double-click the Animals folder and then click Open. A list of animal sound effects will appear in the album (as shown in Figure). To preview a sound effect, simply click it in the album. To use it in your movie project, click-and-drag it to the sound effects/narration track in the timeline.

Using sound effects in Apple iMovie

2009-04-29T20:52:00.000-07:00

To view a list of sound effects in iMovie, click the Audio button above themtimeline and choose iMovie Sound Effects from the menu at the top of thenaudio pane. A list of soundneffects appears (as shown in Figure), includingbstandard sound effects as well as special Skywalker Sound Effects that were new with iMovie 3. Skywalker Sound, as you may know, is the brainchild of George Lucas of Star Wars fame, and the sound effects included with iMovie are very high-quality. To preview a sound effect, choose it from the list and click Play in the audio
pane. To use a sound effect in your project, simply click-and-drag it to an audio track in the timeline. You can trim and adjust the volume of sound effects just as you would any other audio clip.

Working with sound effects

2009-03-31T03:11:00.000-07:00

Sound effects can really separate a good movie from a great movie. I suggested that if a picture is worth a thousand words, sometimes a sound is worth a thousand pictures. Consider how various sound effects can affect the mood of a scene:

A quiet room somehow seems even quieter if you can hear the subtle ticking of a clock.
Applause, cheering, or laughter suggest how the viewer should feel about an event in the movie.
Chirping birds suggest peace and serenity.
Footsteps make movement seem more real, even when the feet are not shown in the video image.

Those are just a few examples, but you get the idea. You can create and record your own sound effects if you want. Fortunately, most video-editing programs now come with ready-to-use libraries of common sound effects to enhance your movie projects.

Adjusting volume dynamically

2009-03-31T03:08:00.001-07:00

Believe it or not, I very seldom adjust the overall volume of an entire clip or track. Usually I prefer to adjust volume dynamically throughout the clip. Adjusting volume dynamically allows me to fine-tune audio to better match other things that are going on in the project. I adjust volume dynamically at times like these:

Narration is about to begin: I may reduce the volume of background music a bit so that the spoken words are more easily heard.
The sound changes between video clips: Such a change often sounds abrupt or harsh. I can reduce that by fading audio in at the beginning of the clip, and fading it out at the end. Studio has handy Fade In and Fade Out buttons, which automatically make fade adjustments to the audio rubberbands for a clip.
I can eliminate unwanted sounds from a clip: For example, the Scene 1 sample clip from the companion CD-ROM shows a motorcycle passing by the camera on a racetrack. But the beginning of the clip has the sound of another motorcycle that is actually behind the camera. I can eliminate the sound of that other off-camera motorcycle by dynamically adjusting volume as I’ve done in Figure.

Dynamic volume adjustment is where audio rubberbands really come in handy. Click once on a rubberband for one of your audio clips. When you click the rubberband, you’ll notice that a little dot appears. You can click-anddrag that dot up or down to adjust the volume of the clip. Not only can you place as many dots as you can squeeze onto a rubberband, you can also move those dots around on the rubberband to make constant adjustments throughout the clip. Like real rubberbands, audio rubberbands are stretchy and can be moved quite a bit, but unlike real rubberbands, they don’t snap back when you stop moving them. Play around a bit with the rubberbands to see just how fun volume adjustments can be!
Those little dots on audio rubberbands act like pins to hold the bands in place. If you want to get rid of a dot, click-and-drag it off the top or bottom of the clip. Twang! The dot will disappear and the rubberband will snap back into place.

Adjusting overall volume

2009-03-31T01:01:00.000-07:00

Modifying the overall volume for an audio clip or a whole track is pretty simple, but the procedure varies a bit depending on which program you are using.
In Apple iMovie, follow these steps:

Click a clip to select it. (To adjust multiple clips simultaneously, hold down the Ô key as you click each clip.) Be careful not to click the purple rubberband line. If you accidentally click the rubberband and a dot appears on the line, press Ô+Z to undo the change.
With the desired clip(s) selected, adjust the Volume slider leftward to reduce volume or right to increase volume.

As you adjust the slider , you see the rubberband lines move up or down.
Pinnacle Studio provides a variety of volume controls in the audio toolbox, as you can see in Figure. To open this toolbox, click an audio clip in the timeline and choose Toolbox➪Change Volume. The toolbox contains a separate set of controls for each of the three audio tracks:

Left: Main audio track
Middle: Sound effects/narration track
Right: Background music track

To adjust the overall volume for an entire track, turn the knob at the top of the track’s volume controls. As you turn the knob, you see the blue audio rubberband line for the entire track move up or down in the timeline. If you want to adjust the volume for a specific clip, place the play head at the very beginning of that clip in the timeline and move the volume slider for that track up or down. Then place the play head at the end of the clip, and adjust the volume slider back to the middle to restore the volume of subsequent clips in the timeline.
You can also mute whole tracks in the timeline if you want. In iMovie, simply remove the check mark from the right side of the timeline next to the track you want to mute. In Studio, click the icon at the top of the volume controls in the audio toolbox to mute a given track.

Adjusting volume

2009-02-28T08:58:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the most common thing anyone does to audio tracks is adjust the volume. As you preview your project, you may notice that the background music seems a little too loud or the narration isn’t loud enough. You may also have sounds in the main audio track that you want to get rid of altogether, without affecting the rest of the audio clip. Virtually all video-editing programs allow you to adjust volume in two different ways:

You can adjust the overall volume of an entire clip or track.
You can adjust volume dynamically within a clip, making some parts of the same clip louder and some parts quieter.

If you don’t have audio clips of your own to work with. Place all three scenes in the timeline in sequential order.
To begin adjusting volume in iMovie, place a check mark in the Edit Volume check box at the bottom of the timeline. In Studio, click the clip you want to modify and then choose Toolbox>Change Volume so that Studio’s audio toolbox appears above the timeline.
Each program displays audio rubberbands across audio clips. Rubberbands aren’t just for holding together rolled up newspapers or your hairdo; in video programs, they show you the volume for an audio clip, and they allow you to make dynamic adjustments to the volume throughout the clip.

Adding audio to the timeline

2009-02-28T08:55:00.000-08:00

Adding audio to the timeline is pretty easy. Record and import your and then simply drag-and-drop it to an audio track.
Video Sound effects Background music You can move clips by dragging them left or right in their respective tracks, and you can trim them by dragging on the edges. In fact, you’ll find that editing audio tracks is a lot like editing video tracks. Sometimes you’ll want to edit main audio independently of the video clip with which it is associated. In iMovie, first extract main audio from the video clip by selecting the clip and choosing Advanced>Extract Audio. In Studio, click the track header on the left side of the timeline to lock either the main video or main audio track. When the main video track is locked, you can edit the main audio track without affecting clips in the video track. One nice feature of iMovie is that it allows you to link audio clips to video clips. For example, suppose you’ve recorded some narration to go along with a video clip. If you decide to move that video clip to a different part of the timeline, you have to move the narration clip as well. If the two clips are linked, moving one will also move the other. To link an audio clip to a video clip in iMovie, follow these steps:

Position the audio and video clips that you want to link in the timeline.
Move the play head to the beginning of the audio clip.
Click once on the audio clip to select it.
Choose Advanced>Lock Audio Clip at Playhead.

A yellow pin appears on both the audio and video clips. If you move the video clip to a different place in the timeline, the linked audio clip moves with it. To unlink the clips, select the audio clip and choose Advanced>Unlock Audio Clip.

Understanding audio tracks

2009-02-28T08:54:00.000-08:00

A movie program can play several sources of audio at once. For example, while you hear the audio that was recorded with a video clip, you may also hear a musical soundtrack and some narration that was recorded later. When you’re working on a movie project in your editing software, each of these unique bits of audio would go on its own separate audio track in the timeline. Most editing programs provide audio tracks for main audio (the audio that was recorded with a video clip), music, and narration. More advanced editing programs offer you many more audio tracks that you can use any way you see fit. Adobe Premiere, for example, can provide up to 99 separate audio tracks in the timeline. Although it’s difficult to imagine anyone actually needing that many audio tracks, having too many is better than not having enough. Pinnacle Studio provides three separate audio tracks. To lock a track in Studio, click the track header on the left side of the timeline.
Apple iMovie handles audio tracks a little differently, but you still have essentially three audio tracks to work with. The main audio track is actually hidden inside the video track. Two other audio tracks handle sound effects and background music. You can extract audio from video clips if you want (simply select the clip in the timeline and choose Advanced>Extract Audio), but doing so causes the main audio to take up one of the other two audio tracks. You can enable or disable audio tracks by using the check boxes on the right side of the timeline. This is helpful during editing when you want to hear just one or two audio tracks at a time.

Using Audio in a Project

2009-01-30T09:58:00.000-08:00

Most movie-editing programs follow similar patterns. They all use storyboards and timelines for assembling the project, and most programs have similar windows for organizing and previewing clips. You’ll also find that most programs have a lot in common when it comes to editing audio. For example, even the most affordable editing programs usually have separate audio tracks in the timeline for background music, narration (or sound effects), and the audio that accompanies the video clips in the timeline. Many movie-editing programs can also show audio waveforms. A waveform is a line that graphically represents the rising and falling level of sound in an audio clip. In Figure above shows the waveform for some narration I recorded in Pinnacle Studio. Waveforms are useful because they allow you to edit your audio visually, often with pinpoint accuracy. By looking at the waveform, you can tell when loud sounds or extended periods of quiet occur. Although many movie-editing programs use audio waveforms, Apple iMovie isn’t one of them. You can still edit audio (as I show later in this chapter); you just won’t be able to do it visually in iMovie. Fortunately there are plenty of other programs that can display audio waveforms — including Apple Final Cut (both the Express and Pro versions), Adobe Premiere, Pinnacle Studio, and Windows Movie Maker.

Changing the Length of Titles

2009-01-30T09:57:00.001-08:00

After you’ve added some titles to your movie project and previewed them a couple of times, you’ll probably find that you need to change how long some of them appear. Does the title flash by so quickly that you don’t have time to read it? Does the title seem to linger a few seconds too long? Changing the length for titles is pretty easy, but you must be viewing the timeline in your editing program, and not the storyboard. The timeline is where you perform “fine-tuning” edits such as changing the length of a title.
If you want to change the length of a title, you can do it in a couple of ways:

In almost any video-editing program, hold the mouse pointer over an edge of the title in the timeline, and then click-and-drag the edge back and forth to make the title longer or shorter. This method is quick and easy but not very precise.
In Pinnacle Studio, double-click the title to open the Title Editor. Change the time listed in the Duration field near the top of the Editor. You can either type a new number in the Duration field, or use the arrows next to the Duration field to increase or decrease the duration.
In iMovie, move the Speed slider left or right in the title designer window. In addition to altering the duration of your title, you can change which clip your overlay titles appear over. Just drag the titles left or right in the timeline if you want to change when they appear.

Creating Titles in iMovie

2009-01-30T09:48:00.001-08:00

Apple prides itself — and rightfully so — on providing computers and software that are easy to use. Adding titles to your iMovie project could hardly be easier. To create a title, follow these steps:

If you’re creating an overlay title, click the video clip in the timeline that will appear behind the title. This operation ensures that the proper clip appears in the preview window as you edit and preview your title. If you’re currently working in storyboard mode, I recommend that you switch over to the timeline by clicking the Timeline button, which appears to the lower-left of the monitor. If you’re creating a full-screen title (one that is over a black background instead of superimposed over a clip), don’t worry about selecting a clip in the timeline: Just go straight to Step 2.
Click the Titles button above the timeline. The iMovie title designer appears.
Type the words for the title in the text boxes near the bottom of the title designer (as in Figure).
Choose a title style for your title from the Titles list (not to be confused with the brand of golf ball). Most of the listed titles are for moving titles. When you click one, a preview of the motion appears in the preview window at the top of the title designer. If you want a static title that doesn’t move, choose a Centered, Stripe, or Subtitle title.
If the movie will be output to videotape or DVD for viewing on conventional TVs, make sure the QT Margins option is not checked. The QT option allows titles in movies destined for the Web to use a little more screen space, but this isn’t recommended for movies that will be shown on TVs. The problem is overscan, which I described earlier in the section, “Making Effective Titles.”
If you want to create a standalone title with a black background, place a check mark next to the Over Black option. 7. Click the Color box to choose a new color for the title.
Use the Font menu to choose a new font face, and adjust the size of the title using the size slider.
When you’re ready to add the title to the project, drag the title from the Titles list and drop it into the timeline, just before the clip over which you want the title to appear. The title will appear in the timeline. If you created an overlay title, it will be automatically superimposed on the video clip before which you placed the title. If you choose the Over Black option in Step 6, the title will be a standalone clip in the timeline with a black background.

If you decide to edit a title you created earlier, select the title in the timeline, make your changes, and then click the Update button at the top of the title designer window.

Changing backgrounds

2009-01-14T19:53:00.000-08:00

If you’ve read this blog section from the beginning, you’ve already heard me preach about how white words over a black background are easier to read than any other style of title. But face it: Plain black backgrounds are a little, er, boring. If you want to spice up the appearance of your full-screen titles a bit, use the Title Editor to add a background. Here’s how:

Double-click a full-screen title in your timeline to open it.
Click the Backgrounds button to show the background controls.
To change the color of a solid background, click the background color radio button, and then click the color box to choose a new color. You can also choose the gradient or transparent radio buttons if you want.
To use a background image instead of a solid color or gradient, click the Background Picture radio button, and then click a picture in the list.

In Figure, I have chosen a winter-themed background for my full-screen title. If you have a picture you’d like to place in the background, click the Pictures button, and then click the Folder icon in the pictures list to browse to the picture file on your hard disk. You can then click-and-drag the picture onto the title and position it anywhere you’d like.

Three sections of the Custom tab control

2009-01-14T19:40:00.000-08:00

To change the color of your text, click the Custom tab on the right side of the title editor screen. As you can see in Figure, this tab offers a variety of useful controls for text. The controls are divided into three sections: Face, Edge, and Shadow. Each section has a radio button for color, gradient, or transparent. If you want the element to be a solid color, choose the color radio button, and then click the color box next to it to open a color picker and choose a specific color. If you want the element to be a gradient (a color that gradually changes from one color at one side of the letter to a different color at the other side), click the gradient radio button and then click the gradient box next to it to specify the colors used in the gradient. If you want the element to be transparent, choose the transparent radio button.
The three sections of the Custom tab control separate elements of the title text:

Face: This section controls the basic face of the text. You can choose a solid color, make the color a gradient, or make the text face transparent. Only choose the transparent radio button if the text has a thick, visible edge. You can also blur the appearance of the face using the slider control at the bottom of the Face section.
Edge: Here you can change the color and size the edges of characters. Like the text face, edges can be a solid color, a gradient, or transparent. Choose the transparent option if you simply don’t want the text to have an edge at all. Adjust the upper slider in the Edge section to change the size of the edge. Move the slider right to make the edge thicker, or move it left to make the edge thinner. Remember, very thin lines will flicker when the movie is viewed on a TV screen, so try to make the edge at least three pixels thick. An indicator to the right of the size slider tells you the current thickness in pixels. To blur the appearance of the text’s edge, adjust the lower slider in the Edge section.
Shadow: Add — and color — a shadow for your text, and control the direction of the shadow using the round direction control. Shadows can help make text easier to read over some backgrounds. Like other text elements, shadows can be a solid color, a gradient, or transparent.

The upper slider in the Shadow section changes the apparent distance between the text and the shadow, and the lower slider blurs the shadow slightly. Generally speaking, the farther a shadow is beneath the text, the more you should blur the shadow. The radial control underneath the sliders lets you control the direction of the shadow. Click a radio button around the A to change the direction of the shadow. When you’re done editing your title, click OK in the lower-right corner of the Title Editor to close it and return to the Studio timeline. As you play with the Title Editor a bit, you’ll probably find that creating titles from scratch takes a while. That’s why I normally use one of the ready-made text styles (on the Standard tab of the Title Editor) as a starting point.

Editing titles

2009-01-14T19:36:00.000-08:00

The Title Designer window is one of the most complex windows in the Studio software. If you are working with a predesigned title, double-click it in the timeline to change the text. The title will open in the title editor. To change the text, click once on the title and start typing. Highlight unwanted words and press the Delete key to delete them.
You can change the font style or size for the title if you don’t like it. Select the text you want to change, and then choose a new font in the font menu at the top of the Title Editor. In Figure, I have changed the font to Trendy because I didn’t like the Pretext font that was used in the “Snow Boarding” title. Figure also shows the basic controls of the Title Designer. Some of the most important controls include

Roll: Click this to make the title roll vertically up the screen. This is especially useful if you have a long list of credits that you want to roll at the end of the movie. If you choose the Roll option, the Title Editor allows you to scroll down the editing area to add more rows of titles. You can make a roll title as long as you want. Each time you add a new line of text to the bottom of a rolling title, the title screen gets a little longer.
Crawl: Click this to make the title crawl across the screen from right to left. Crawl useful text across the bottom of the screen, such as, “Order now! Quantities are limited!” Like rolling titles, you can make a crawling title wider by simply adding more text to the right side of the title.
Text styling: Select some text in your title, and then click one of these buttons to style the text. Just like in a word processor or almost any other computer program, click B to make the text bold, click I to make it italic, and click U to underline the text.
Text justification: Click this button to open a submenu of text justification and alignment options. You can choose to align text left, right, or centered. If you click the Shrink to Fit button, the text will automatically shrink to fit in the text box if you make the box smaller. If you click Scale to Fit, the text shrinks or grows to fill the entire text box if you make it smaller or bigger. If you want long lines of text to automatically wrap to the next line, click the Word Wrap On button. Otherwise, click the Word Wrap Off button. Click the Close (X) button in the upper right corner of the Text justification menu to close the menu.
Add Text Field: Click this button and then click-and-drag a text box in the editing area to create a new line of text from scratch.
Text styles: Use these predefined styles to quickly format text. To apply a style to some existing text, select the text in the editing area and then click a style in the list.

When you edit titles in Studio, make sure that the words stay inside the title safe boundaries, which are the red dotted lines around the edges of the title editor window. Text that falls outside of those boundaries may be cut off when the movie is viewed on a TV screen.

Using Studio’s Title Editor

2008-12-31T04:19:00.002-08:00

Pinnacle Studio comes with a remarkably advanced title designer considering the price. Studio’s Title Editor is based on Pinnacle’s Title Deko, a high-quality title designer used by many professional video editors. Studio also provides a selection of predesigned titles that are ready to drop right into any video project. To access these titles, click the Show Titles tab on the left side of the album. Click the arrow in the upper-right corner of the album to view additional pages. To see a preview of the title, click it once in the album. The title will appear in the viewer window. To add a title to your project, simply drag it from the album down to the timeline just as if it was a video clip. If the title is dropped on the video track, the title will be a fullscreen title which by default has a plain black background. If you use a predesigned title, chances are you’ll want to change some of the text. For example, even though I like the style of the “Snow Boarding” title, I don’t want the words Snow Boarding to appear because that’s not what is happening in the video. To edit the title, double-click it after you have added it to the timeline. The Studio Title Editor will open. You can also open the Title Editor and create a new title by double-clicking any blank space in the Title track of the timeline. The next section shows you how to edit a title.

Making effective titles

2008-12-31T04:15:00.000-08:00

When using titles in your movies, you should follow some basic guidelines to make them more effective. After all, funny or informative titles don’t do much good if your audience can’t read them. Follow these general rules when creating titles for your movies:

Less is more. Try to keep your titles as brief and simple as possible.
White on black looks best. When you read words on paper, black letters on white paper are easier to read. This rule does not carry over to video, however. In video images, light characters over a dark background are usually easier to read. An exception would be if you already have a relatively light background. But what if I want to put that same title near the top of the screen instead? The dark-colored title won’t work as well at the top of the screen because trees in the background will make it harder to read. As an alternative, I can create a small, dark background shape behind lighter colored text. (I’ll show you how to control title colors and styles in the next couple of sections.) Video displays such as TVs and computer monitors generate images using light. (You can think of a TV screen as a big light bulb.) Because TV displays emit light, full-screen titles almost never have black text on a white screen. Most people find staring at a mostly white TV screen about as unpleasant as staring at a lit light bulb: If you watch viewers look at a white TV screen, you may even see them squint. Squinting is bad, so stick to the convention of light words over a dark background whenever possible.
Avoid very thin lines. In an interlaced display —such as a TV — every other horizontal resolution line of the video image is drawn in a separate pass or field. If the video image includes very thin lines — especially lines that are only one pixel thick — interlacing could cause the lines to flicker noticeably, giving your viewers a migraine headache in short order. To avoid this, choose fonts that have thicker lines. For smaller characters, avoid serif fonts such as Times New Roman. Serifs (the extra strokes at the ends of characters in some fonts, such as the one you’re reading right now) often have very thin lines that flicker on an interlaced video display.
Think big. Remember that the resolution on your computer screen is a lot finer than what you get on a typical TV screen. Also, TV viewers typically watch video from longer distances than do computer users — say, across the room while plopped on the sofa, compared to sitting just a few inches away in an office chair. This means the words that look pleasant and readable on your computer monitor may be tiny and unintelligible if your movie is output to tape for TV viewing. Never be afraid to increase the size of your titles.
Think safety. Most TVs suffer from a malady called overscan, which is what happens when some of the video image is cut off at the edges of the screen. You can think of TVs as being kind of like most computer printers. Most TVs can’t display the far edges of the video image, just as most printers can’t print all the way to the very edges of the paper. When you’re working on a word processing document, your page has margins to account for the shortcomings of printers as well as to make the page more readable. The same applies to video images, which have title safe margins. To ensure that your titles show up on-screen and are not cut off at the edges, make sure your titles remain within this margin (also sometimes called the title safe boundary). Apple iMovie doesn’t show these margins on-screen; instead, it automatically keeps your titles inside the margins. If you know your movie will be viewed only on computer screens, place a check mark next to the QT Margins option in the Titles window. This places the margins closer to the edge of the screen.

Pinnacle Studio’s Title Editor works like most video-editing programs:

The margins are displayed on-screen and you have to remember to keep your titles inside them. The margins appear in the Title Editor window as red dotted lines.
Play, play, play. I cannot stress enough the importance of previewing your titles, especially overlays. Play your timeline after adding titles to see how they look. Make sure the title is readable, positioned well onscreen, and visible long enough to be read. If possible, preview the titles on an external video monitor.

You can use transitions between full-screen titles and other video clips. Dissolves often look nice when used to transition from a full-screen title to the video.

Creating titles for your movies

2008-12-16T06:50:00.001-08:00

It’s easy to think of titles as just words on the screen. But think of the effects, both forceful and subtle, that well-designed titles can have. Consider the Star Wars movies, which all begin with a black screen and the phrase, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . .” The simple title screen quickly and effectively sets the tone and tells the audience that the story is beginning. And then, of course, you get those scrolling words that float three-dimensionally off into space, immediately after that first title screen. A story floating through space is far more interesting than white text scrolling from the bottom to top of the screen, don’t you think?
Titles can generally be put into two basic categories: Full-screen and overlays. Full-screen titles are most often used at the beginning and end of a movie, where the title appears over a background image or a solid color (such as a plain black screen). The full-screen title functions as its own element in the movie, as does any video clip. An overlay title makes words appear right over a video image

Giving Credit with Titles

2008-12-16T06:40:00.000-08:00

In their rush to get to the pictures, folks who are new to video editing often overlook the importance of titles. Titles — the words that appear on-screen during a movie — are critically important in many different kinds of projects. Titles tell your audience the name of your movie, who made it, who starred in it, who paid for it, and who baked cookies for the cast. Titles can also clue the audience in to vital details — where the story takes place, what time it is, even what year it is — with minimum fuss. And of course, titles can reveal what the characters are saying if they’re speaking a different language. Virtually all video-editing programs include tools to help you create titles.

Adjusting transitions in Studio

2008-12-16T05:41:00.000-08:00

Adjusting transitions in Pinnacle Studio works a lot like adjusting regular video clips. To modify a transition, here’s the drill:

Double-click the transition in the timeline. The Clip Properties window appears above the timeline.
Adjust the Duration of the transition in the upper-right corner of the window by clicking the up or down arrows next to the Duration field at the top of the Clip Properties window.
If you’re working with sample clips, change the duration to 15 frames.

You can also reverse the direction of some transitions (for example, the Horizontal Snake Wipes on page two of the Standard Transitions) by placing a check in the Reverse check box. (If this box is grayed out, the current transition cannot be reversed.)

Modifying iMovie transitions

2008-12-16T04:49:00.000-08:00

The iMovie transition window doesn’t just provide a place to store transitions; it also allows you to control them. To adjust the length of a transition, follow these steps:

Click the transition in the timeline to select it.
Adjust the Speed slider in the transitions window. If you’re working with sample clips, adjust the transition between Scene 1 and Scene 2 down so it’s only 15 frames long. The length of the transition will be shown in the preview window.
Click Update in the transitions window to update the length of the transition in the timeline.
Click the Play button under the preview window to preview your results.

Some iMovie transitions, such as Push, allow you to control the direction of travel for the transition. When you click the Push transition to select it in the transition window, the directional control becomes active. Then you simply click the arrows in the directional control to change the direction in which the Push transition moves.

Adjusting transitions

2008-12-16T04:46:00.000-08:00

Video transitions usually have some features or attributes that can be adjusted. Most important, perhaps, is the length of the transition. The default length for most transitions is about two seconds. If you added a dissolve transition between the Scene 1 and Scene 2 sample clips (as described in the previous section), the two-second interval covers the time when wisps of Scene 2 just barely start to appear, ending when the last trace of Scene 1 fades out of existence.
Sometimes a two-second transition is too long — or not long enough. When applied to the sample clips Scene 1 and Scene 2, a two-second dissolve really is too long because it obscures a spectacular crash at the end of Scene 1. The next two sections show you how to adjust the length of transitions and make other changes where possible.

Adding a transition to the timeline

2008-11-30T06:24:00.000-08:00

Adding a transition to a project is pretty easy and works the same way in almost every video-editing program available. For now, add a simple dissolve (also called a fade) transition to a project. If your editing program currently shows the storyboard for your project, switch to the timeline. Next, click-and-drag the Dissolve (in Pinnacle Studio) or Cross Dissolve (in iMovie) transition from the list of transitions and drop it between two clips on the timeline. Drop the transition between the first two scenes. The transition will now appear in the timeline between the clips.
The appearance of the transition will vary slightly depending on the editing program you are using. Pinnacle Studio displays the transition as a clip in the Timeline. Apple iMovie, on the other hand, uses a special transition icon that overlaps the adjacent clips, when you first apply a transition in iMovie, the program must render the transition before it can be viewed. Basically it’s a process that allows the computer to play back the transition at full speed and quality.
To preview the transition, simply play the timeline by clicking Play under the preview window or pressing the space bar on your keyboard. If you don’t like the style of the transition, you can delete it by clicking the transition to select it, and then pressing Delete on your keyboard.

Previewing transitions in Pinnacle Studio

2008-11-30T06:21:00.000-08:00

Pinnacle Studio comes with 142 (yes, 142) transitions. In fact, so many transitions are provided with Studio that they don’t all fit on one page. To see a list of Studio’s transitions, click the Show Transitions tab on the left side of the album. There are several pages of transitions, and you can view additional pages by clicking the arrows in the upper-right corner of the album.
To preview a transition, simply click it in the album window. A preview of the transition will appear in the viewer window to the right of the album. A blue screen labeled “A” represents the outgoing clip, whereas the incoming clip is represented by the orange “B” clip.

Reviewing iMovie’s transitions

2008-11-30T06:18:00.000-08:00

Apple iMovie offers a selection of 13 transitions from which to choose. That may not sound like a big number, but I think you’ll find that iMovie’s 13 transitions cover the styles you’re most likely to use anyway. To view the transitions that are available in iMovie, click the Trans button above the Timeline.
As you look at the list of transitions, most of the names probably look pretty foreign to you. Names like “Circle Closing,” “Radial,” and “Warp Out” are descriptive, but really the only way to know how each transition will look is to preview it. To do so, click the name of a transition in the list. A small preview of the transition briefly appears in the transition preview window. Oops! You missed it. Click the transition’s name again. Wow, it sure flashes by quickly, doesn’t it? If you’d like to see a larger preview, click the Preview button. A full-size preview appears in iMovie’s main viewer screen. If your transition preview window shows nothing but a black screen when you click a transition, move the mouse pointer down and click a clip in the timeline or storyboard to select it. The selected clip should now appear when you preview a transition.

Choosing the best transition

2008-11-30T06:13:00.000-08:00

When Windows Movie Maker first came out in 2000, choosing what type of transition to use between clips was easy because you only had two choices. You could either use a straight-cut transition (which is actually no transition at all) or a cross-fade/dissolve transition. If you wanted to use anything fancier, you were out of luck.
Thankfully, most modern video-editing programs — including Windows Movie Maker 2 — provide you with a pretty generous assortment of transitions. Transitions are usually organized in their own window or palette. Transition windows usually vary slightly from program to program, but the basics are the same.
How do you decide which transition is the best? The fancy transitions may look really cool, but I recommend restraint when choosing them. Remember that the focus of your movie project is the actual video content, not showing off your editing skills or the capabilities of your editing software. More often than not, the best transition is a simple dissolve. If you do use a fancier transition, I recommend using the same or a similar transition throughout your project. This will make the transitions seem to fit more seamlessly into the movie.

Using Fades and Transitions Between Clips

2008-11-14T02:02:00.000-08:00

One of the trickiest aspects of movie editing (for me, anyway) is making clean transitions between clips. Often the best transition is a simple, straight cut from one clip to the next. Other times, you want to fade gently from one scene to the next. Or you may want a more fancy transition — say, one that makes it look like the outgoing scene is being rolled apart like drapes to reveal the incoming scene behind it. Most transitions can be generally divided into a few basic categories:

Straight cut: This is actually no transition at all. One clips ends and the next begins, poof! Just like that.
Fade: The outgoing clip fades out as the incoming clip fades in. Fades are also sometimes called dissolves.
Wipe: The incoming clip wipes over the outgoing clip using one of many possible patterns. Alternatively, the outgoing clip may wipe away to reveal the incoming clip.
Push: The outgoing clip is pushed off the screen by the incoming clip.
3-D: Some more advanced editing programs provide transitions that seem to work three dimensionally. For example, the outgoing clip might wrap itself up into a 3-D ball, which then spins and rolls off the screen. Pinnacle’s Hollywood FX plug-ins for Studio provide many interesting 3-D transitions. See Appendix D for more on Studio plug-ins.

Whatever style of transition you want to use, modern video-editing programs like Apple iMovie and Pinnacle Studio make the process easy. But before you can use any transitions, you need a project that already has several clips in its timeline. If you don’t yet feel comfortable with editing clips into the timeline. The following sections show you how to select and use transitions in your movie projects.

Modifying light and color in Apple iMovie

2008-11-14T01:58:00.001-08:00

Although Apple iMovie doesn’t have specific image controls (as does, say, Studio), you can still modify color and light characteristics using some of iMovie’s effects. Start by selecting a clip that you want to adjust, and then click the Effects button in the upper-right portion of the timeline. The Effects window appears (as shown in Figure). Then you can use any of several effects to improve the appearance of the clip. Most effects have controls you can adjust by moving sliders. You can also control how the effect starts and finishes. Effects that can modify color and lighting include the following:

Adjust Colors: Allows you to adjust hue, saturation (color), and lightness.
Aged Film: If the clip looks really bad, you can avoid blame by applying this effect to make it look like it’s from really old film. (“See, it’s not my fault that the colors are all wrong — this was shot on 8mm film 40 years ago!”) Your secret is safe with me. The Aged Film effect lets you adjust three different factors:

The Exposure slider lets you make the aged effect appear lighter or darker.

The Jitter slider controls how much the video image “jitters” up and down. Jitter makes the clip look like film that is not passing smoothly through a projector.

The Scratches filter lets you adjust how many film “scratches” appear on the video image.

Black & White: Converts the clip to a black and white image.
Brightness & Contrast: Adjusts brightness and contrast in the image. (In Figure, I have increased brightness and contrast to improve the appearance of a backlit video clip.) Separate sliders let you control brightness and contrast separately.
Sepia Tone: Gives the clip an old-fashioned sepia look.
Sharpen: Sharpens an otherwise blurry image. A slider control lets you fine-tune the level of sharpness that is applied.
Soft Focus: Gives the image a softer appearance, simulating the effect of a soft light filter on the camera. Three slider controls let you customize the Soft Focus effect:

The Softness slider controls the level of softness. Move the Softness control towards the Lots end of the slider for a dreamsequence look.

The Amount slider controls the overall level of the Soft Focus effect.

The Glow slider increases or decreases the soft glow of the effect. Setting the Glow slider towards High tends to wash out the entire video clip.

To see a full-screen preview of an effect, click Preview. If you are happy with the effect, click Apply to apply the effect to the clip. When you click Apply, you may see a red progress bar appear on the clip. This shows the progress of the rendering, the process that actually applies the effect to the clip. The rendering process actually creates a temporary file on your hard disk that iMovie uses to show how the clip looks after the effect has been applied.

Adjusting image qualities in Pinnacle Studio

2008-11-14T01:46:00.000-08:00

Pinnacle Studio provides a pretty good selection of image controls. You can use these controls to improve brightness and contrast, adjust colors, or add a stylized appearance to a video image. To access the color controls, doubleclick a clip that you want to improve or modify. When the Clip Properties dialog box appears, click the Adjust Color or Add Visual Effects tab on the left side of the Clip Properties window. The Color Properties window appears as shown in Figure.
At the top of the Color Properties window is the Color Type menu. Here you can choose a basic color mode for the clip. The normal mode is All Colors, but you can also choose Black and White (shown in Figure), Single Hue, or Sepia. Below that menu are eight controls (listed in the order they appear) that you manipulate using sliders:

Hue: Adjusts the color bias for the clip. Use this if skin tones or other colors in the image don’t look right.
Saturation: Adjust the intensity of color in the image.
Brightness: Makes the image brighter or darker.
Contrast: Adjust the contrast between light and dark parts of the image. If the image appears too dark, use brightness and contrast together to improve the way it looks.
Blur: Adds a blurry effect to the image.
Emboss: Simulates a carving or embossed effect. It looks cool, but is of limited use.
Mosaic: Makes the image look like a bunch of large colored blocks. This is another control you probably won’t use a whole lot.
Posterize: Reduces the number of different colors in an image. Play with it; you might like it.

Adjusting playback speed in Pinnacle Studio

2008-11-14T01:42:00.000-08:00

Pinnacle Studio gives you pretty fine control over playback speed. You can also adjust Strobe if you want to create a stop-motion effect that you may or may not find useful. The only way to really know is to experiment, which you can do by following these steps:

Switch to the timeline (if you’re not there already) by clicking the timeline view button (refer to Figure).
Double-click a clip in the timeline to open the Clip Properties window.
Click the Vary Playback Speed tool on the left side of the Clip Properties window (as in Figure). The Vary Playback Speed controls appear as shown in Figure.
Move the Speed slider left to slow down the clip, or move it to the right to speed up the clip. An adjustment factor appears above the slider. Normal speed is shown as 1.0 X. Double speed would be 2.0 X, and so on. If you slow the playback speed down, a fraction will appear instead. For example, half speed will be indicated as 5/10 X.
Move the Strobe slider to add some strobe effect.
Click Play in the preview window to view your changes.
If you don’t like your changes and want to revert to the original speed or strobe setting, click one of the Reset buttons.
Click the Close (X) button in the upper-right corner of the Clip. Properties window when you’re done making changes.

The Clip Properties window closes. If you speeded up playback of the clip, the clip will now appear narrower in the timeline. If you slowed down playback speed, the clip will be wider in the timeline.

Adjusting playback speed in Apple iMovie

2008-11-14T01:37:00.000-08:00

Changing playback speed in iMovie couldn’t be easier. If you look closely, you’ll see a slider adjustment for playback speed right on the timeline. To adjust speed, follow these steps:

Switch to the timeline (if you aren’t there already) by clicking the timeline view button (refer to Figure).
Click the clip that you want to adjust to select it. The clip should turn blue when it is selected.
Adjust the speed slider at the bottom of the timeline, as shown in Figure. To speed up the clip, move the slider toward the hare. Move the slider toward the tortoise to (surprise) slow down the clip.
Play the clip to preview your changes.
Giggle at the way the audio sounds after your changes.

If you don’t want to include the audio portion of the clip after you’ve made speed changes, choose Advanced.Extract Audio to extract the audio, and then delete the audio clip after it is extracted. Another neat thing you can do to video clips in iMovie is reverse the playback direction. To do so, select the clip and choose Advanced.Reverse Clip Direction. The clip will now play backward in your movie. To reverse it back to normal, just choose Advanced.Reverse Clip Direction again.

Adjusting playback speed

2008-10-31T04:07:00.000-07:00

One of the coolest yet most unappreciated capabilities of video-editing programs is the ability to change the speed of video clips. Changing the speed of a clip serves many useful purposes:

Add drama to a scene by slowing down the speed to create a “slow-mo” effect.
Make a scene appear fast-paced and action-oriented (or humorous, depending upon the subject matter) by speeding up the video.
Help a given video clip better fit into a specific time frame by speeding it up or slowing it down slightly. For example, you may be trying to time a video clip to match beats in a musical soundtrack.

Sometimes this can be achieved by slightly adjusting the playback speed of the video clips. Of course, you want to carefully preview any speed changes you make to a video clip. Depending on the software, you could encounter some jittery video images or other problems when you play around with speed adjustments. Pay special attention to audio clips when you adjust playback speed. Even though a small speed adjustment might be barely perceptible in a video clip, even the tiniest speed changes have radical effects on the way audio sounds. Usually, when I adjust video speed, I discard the audio portion of that clip. Pinnacle Studio is unusual in that when you change the speed of a video clip, the audio portion of that clip is automatically discarded.

Undoing what you’ve done

2008-10-31T04:06:00.001-07:00

Oops! If you didn’t really mean to delete that clip, don’t despair. Just like word processors (and many other computer programs), video-editing programs let you undo your actions. Simply press Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Ô+Z (Macintosh) to undo your last action. Both Pinnacle Studio and Apple iMovie allow you to undo several actions, which is helpful if you’ve done a couple of other actions since making the “mistake” you want to undo. To redo an action that you just undid, press Ctrl+Y (Windows) or Shift+Ô+Z (Macintosh). Another quick way to restore a clip in iMovie to its original state — regardless of how long ago you changed it — is to select the clip in the timeline and then choose Advanced➪Restore Clip. The clip reverts to its original state.

Removing clips from the timeline

2008-10-31T03:45:00.000-07:00

Changing your mind about some clips that you placed in the timeline is virtually inevitable, and fortunately removing clips is easy. Just click the offending clip to select it and press the Delete key on your keyboard. Poof! The clip disappears.
If you’re using iMovie, you should know however that when you delete a clip by pressing the Delete key, the clip goes to iMovie’s trash bin. After the trash is emptied (by double-clicking the trash icon at the bottom of the iMovie program window), the deleted clip will no longer be stored on your hard drive, meaning that if you decide you want it back later, you’ll have to re-capture it. Thus, if you simply want to remove a clip from the timeline, I recommend that you first switch to the storyboard, and then drag the unwanted clip back up to the clip browser so you can use it again later if you want.

Trimming clips in Apple iMovie

2008-10-19T07:36:00.000-07:00

iMovie’s approach to trimming is typical Apple — simple and effective. iMovie uses the preview window for clip-trimming operations. If you look closely at the lower-left corner of the preview window, you’ll see two tiny little triangles. These are in-point and out-point markers; you can use them to trim clips in the timeline.
To trim a clip, follow these steps:

Click a clip in the timeline to select it. When you click the clip, it should load into the preview window. If it does not, make sure that the desired clip is actually selected in the timeline. The clip should turn blue when it is selected.
Click-and-drag the out-point marker in the lower-left corner of the preview window to a new location along the playback ruler.
Click-and-drag the in-point marker to a new position if you wish. The selected portion of the clip — that is, the portion between the in and out points — will turn yellow in the preview window playback ruler.
Choose Edit>Crop The clip will be trimmed (cropped) down to just the portion you selected with the in and out points. Subsequent clips in the timeline will automatically shift to fill in the empty space on the timeline. If you trim a video clip from which you have extracted the audio, only the video clip will be trimmed; you’ll have to trim the audio separately.

Trimming clips in Pinnacle Studio

2008-10-19T07:34:00.000-07:00

The easiest way to trim clips in the Studio timeline is to use the Clip Properties window. To reveal this window, double-click a clip in the timeline. The properties window will appear above the timeline. The left pane of the properties window shows the in point frame, which is the first frame of the clip. The right pane shows the out point, or the end of the clip. To adjust the in and out points, click and drag the in-and out-point razor tools back and forth. You can also adjust the in and out points by typing new numbers in the timecode indicators under each pane.
The playback controls in the Clip Properties window include a Play Clip Continuously button. Click this button to preview the clip so it loops over and over continuously. This can help you better visualize the effects of any changes you make to the in and out points. When you’re done trimming the clip, click the Close (X) button in the upper
right corner of the Clip Properties window. The Clip Properties window closes and the length of your clip in the timeline will be changed accordingly.

Fine-Tuning Your Movie in the Timeline

2008-10-19T07:24:00.000-07:00

After you’ve plopped a few clips into your timeline or storyboard, you’re ready to fine-tune your project. This fine-tuning is what turns your series of clips into a real movie. Most of the edits described in this section require you to work in the timeline, although if you want to simply move clips around without making any edits or changes, you’ll probably find that easiest in the storyboard. This is especially true if you’re using iMovie. To move a clip, simply click-and-drag it to a new location .

Dropping clips into the storyboard or timeline is a great way to assemble the movie, but a lot of those clips probably contain some material that you don’t want to use.

What did iMovie do with my audio?

2008-09-29T23:12:00.000-07:00

Apple iMovie 3 offers some useful improvements over previous versions of the software — and a few changes that are less welcome. One thing I find a little aggravating is that the timeline does not automatically show the audio clips that accompany video clips. Each clip in the timeline includes both audio and video, but the timeline shows only a single track. To view combined audio and video clips separately in iMovie, you must
extract the audio from each video clip individually. To do so, follow these steps:

Click once on a clip in the timeline to select it.
Choose Advanced➪Extract Audio, or press Ô+J. The audio will now appear as a separate clip in the timeline.
Repeat Steps 1 and 2 for each clip in the timeline. It may be a good idea to wait until later (like, when you’re done editing the video portion of the movie) to extract audio from your video clips. If you still need to trim the video clip, you’ll have to trim the audio clip separately if it has been extracted

How to lock timeline tracks in Pinnacle Studio?

2008-09-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

Pinnacle Studio offers a handy locking feature on timeline tracks. Locking the track doesn’t prevent burglars from stealing it late at night, but it does allow you to temporarily protect a track from changes as you manipulate other tracks. For example, if you want to delete the audio track that came with some video, but you don’t want to delete the video itself, follow these steps:

Click the track header on the left side of the timeline. A lock icon appears on the track header, and a striped gray background is applied to that track.
Perform edits on other tracks. For example, if you want to delete the audio track for one of your video clips, click the audio clip once to select it, and then press Delete on your keyboard. The audio portion of the clip disappears, but the video clip remains unaffected.
Click the track header again to unlock the track. You can undo changes (such as deleting an audio clip) in Pinnacle Studio by pressing Ctrl+Z. If you followed the steps just given, press Ctrl+Z once to relock the track, and then press Ctrl+Z again to undelete the audio clip.

Tracking timeline tracks

2008-09-13T23:10:00.001-07:00

As you look at the timeline in your editing software, you’ll notice that it displays several different tracks. Each track represents a different element of the movie — video resides on the video track; audio resides on the audio track. You may have additional tracks available as well, such as title tracks or music.
Some advanced video-editing programs (such as Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro) allow you to have many separate video and audio tracks in a single project. This advanced capability is useful for layering many different elements and performing some advanced editing techniques. When you record and capture video, you usually capture audio along with it. When you place one of these video clips in the timeline, the accompanying audio appears just underneath it in the audio track. Seeing the audio and video tracks separately is important for a variety of editing purposes.

Zooming in and out on the timeline

2008-09-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

Depending on how big your movie project is, you may find that clips on the timeline are often either too wide or too narrow to work with effectively. To rectify this situation, adjust the zoom level of the timeline. You can either zoom in and see more detail, or zoom out and see more of the movie. To adjust zoom, follow these steps:

Apple iMovie: Adjust the Zoom slider control in the lower left corner of the timeline.
Microsoft Windows Movie Maker: Click the Zoom In or Zoom Out magnifying glass buttons above the timeline, or press Page Down to zoom in and Page Up to zoom out.
Pinnacle Studio: Press the + key to zoom in, or press the - key to zoom out. Alternatively, hover your mouse pointer over the timeline ruler so the pointer becomes a clock, and then click-and-drag left or right on the ruler to adjust zoom.

Using the timeline

2008-09-13T23:05:00.000-07:00

Some experienced editors prefer to skip the storyboard and go straight to the timeline because it provides more information and precise control over your movie project. To switch to the timeline, click the timeline button.
One of the first things you’ll probably notice about the timeline is that not all clips are the same size. In the timeline view, the width of each clip represents the length (in time) of that clip, unlike in storyboard view, where each clip appears to be the same size. In timeline view, longer clips are wider, shorter clips are narrower.
Adding a clip to the timeline is a lot like placing clips in the storyboard. Just use drag-and-drop to move clips from the clip browser to the timeline. Clips that fall after the insert are automatically shifted over to make room for the inserted clip.

Visualizing your video project with storyboards

2008-09-13T23:01:00.001-07:00

If you’ve ever watched a “making of” documentary for a movie, you’ve probably seen filmmakers working with a storyboard. It looks like a giant comic strip where each panel illustrates a new scene in the movie. The storyboard in your video-editing program works the same way. You can toss scenes in the storyboard, move them around, remove scenes again, and just generally put your clips into the basic order in which you want them to appear in the movie. The storyboard is a great place to visualize the overall concept and flow of your movie.
To add clips to the storyboard, simply drag them from the clip browser down to the storyboard at the bottom of the screen.
The storyboard should show a series of thumbnails. If your screen doesn’t quite look like this, you may need to switch to the storyboard view. The storyboard is possibly one of the most aptly named items in any videoediting program because the thumbnails actually do tell the basic story of your movie. The storyboard is pretty easy to manipulate. If you don’t like the order of things, just click-and-drag clips to new locations. If you want to remove a clip from the storyboard in iMovie, Studio, or most any other editing program, click the offending clip once to select it and then press Delete on your keyboard.

Turning Your Clips into a Movie

2008-09-13T22:59:00.000-07:00

You’re probably wondering when the fun begins. This is it! It’s finally time to start assembling your various video clips into a movie. Most video-editing programs provide the same two basic tools to help you assemble a movie:

Storyboard: This is where you throw clips together in a basic sequence from start to finish — think of it as a rough draft of your movie.
Timeline: After your clips are assembled in the storyboard, you can switch over to the timeline to fine-tune the movie and make more advanced edits. The timeline is where you apply the final polish.

The storyboard and timeline are basically just two different ways of showing the same thing. In most editing programs — including iMovie, Studio, and Windows Movie Maker — you can toggle back and forth between the storyboard and timeline whenever you want. Some people prefer to use one or the other exclusively; for now, starting with the storyboard will keep it simple.

Understanding timecode

2008-08-27T18:51:00.000-07:00

A video image is actually a series of still frames that flash rapidly by on-screen. Every frame is uniquely identified with a number called a timecode. All stored locations and durations of all the edits you perform on a movie project use timecodes for reference points, so a basic understanding of timecode is important. You’ll see and use timecode almost every time you work in a video-editing program like Pinnacle Studio or Apple iMovie. Timecode is often expressed like this:

hours : minutes : seconds :frames

The fourteenth frame of the third second of the twenty-eighth minute of the first hour of video is identified as:

01:28:03:13

You already know what hours, minutes, and seconds are. Frames aren’t units of time measurement, but rather, the individual still images that make up your video. The frame portion of timecode starts with zero (00) and counts up to a number determined by the frame rate of the video. In PAL video, frames are counted from 00 to 24 because the frame rate of PAL is 25 frames per second (fps). In NTSC, frames are counted from 00 to 29. The NTSC and PAL video standards are described in greater detail in Chapter 3. “Wait!” you exclaim. “Zero to 29 adds up to 30, not 29.97.”

You’re an observant one, aren’t you? As mentioned in Chapter 3, the frame rate of NTSC video is 29.97 fps. NTSC timecode actually skips the frame codes 00 and 01 in the first second of every minute, except every tenth minute. Work it out (you may use a calculator), and you see that this system of reverse leap-frames adds up to 29.97 fps. This is called drop-frame timecode. In some video-editing systems, drop-frame timecode is expressed with semicolons (;) between the numbers instead of colons (:).

Thus, in drop-frame timecode, the fourteenth frame of the third second of the twenty-eighth minute of the first hour of video is identified as

01;28;03;13

Why does NTSC video use drop-frame timecode? Back when everything was broadcast in black and white, NTSC video was an even 30 fps. For the conversion to color, more bandwidth was needed in the signal to broadcast color information. By dropping a couple of frames every minute, there was enough room left in the signal to broadcast color information, while at the same time keeping the video signals compatible with older black-and-white TVs.

Although the punctuation (for example, colons or semicolons) for separating the numerals of timecode into hours, minutes, seconds and frames is fairly standardized, some videoediting programs still go their own way. Pinnacle Studio, for example, uses a decimal point between seconds and frames. But whether the numbers are separated by colons, decimals, or magic crystals, the basic concept of timecode is the same.

Trimming out the unwanted parts

2008-08-27T18:47:00.000-07:00

Professional Hollywood moviemakers typically shoot hundreds of hours of footage just to get enough acceptable material for a two-hour feature film. Because the pros shoot a lot of “waste” footage, don’t feel so bad if every single frame of video you shot isn’t totally perfect either. As you preview your clips, you’ll no doubt find bits that you want to cut from the final movie. The subject scratches his lip for a few moments at the beginning of the clip, which would be fine, except that it kind of looks like he’s picking his nose. We can’t have that in the final movie. Besides, the clip is about 11 seconds long, and we really only need about five seconds or so.
The solution is to trim the clip down to just the portion you want. The easiest way to trim a clip is to split it into smaller parts before you place it in your movie project:

Open the clip you want to trim by clicking it in the browser, and move the play head to the exact spot where you want to split the clip. Use the playback controls under the preview window to move the play head. If you’re using the Scene 2 sample clip, place the play head about four seconds into the clip. If you’re using Pinnacle Studio, the timecode will actually read about 0:00:16.20 because the timecode is for the entire sample file and not just the selected clip.
In Pinnacle Studio, right-click the clip in the browser and choose Split Scene from the menu that appears. In Apple iMovie, choose Edit➪Split Video Clip at Playhead. You now have two clips where before you had only one.
To split the second clip again, choose the second clip by clicking it in the browser and move the play head about five seconds forward in the clip. Again, in Pinnacle Studio the timecode will actually read about 0:00:21.20 because the timecode displayed is for the entire sample file.
Repeat Step 2 to split the clip again. You will now have three clips created from the one original clip. Splitting clips like I’ve shown here isn’t the only way to edit out unwanted portions of video. You can also trim clips once they’re placed in the timeline of your movie project. But splitting the clips before you add them to a project is often a much easier way to work because the unwanted parts are split off into separate clips that you can use (or not use) as you wish. In the next section, I show you how to add clips to the timeline or storyboard of your editing program to actually start turning your clips into a movie.

Don’t worry! Trimming a clip doesn’t delete the unused portions from your hard drive. When you trim a clip, you’re actually setting what the video pros call in points and out points. The software uses virtual markers to remember which portions of the video you chose to use during a particular edit. If you want to use the remaining video later, it’s still on your hard drive, ready for use. If you want, you can usually unsplit your clips that you have split as well. In Pinnacle Studio, hold down the Ctrl key and click on each of the clips that you split earlier.
When each clip is selected, right-click the clips and choose Combine Scenes. Unfortunately, Apple iMovie doesn’t have a simple tool for recombining clips that you have split. If you just split a clip, you can undo that action by choosing Edit➪Undo or pressing Ô+Z.

Previewing clips

2008-08-27T18:46:00.000-07:00

As you gaze at the clips in your clip browser, you’ll notice that a thumbnail image is shown for each clip. This thumbnail usually shows the first frame of the clip; although it may suggest the clip’s basic content, you won’t really know exactly what the clip contains until you actually preview the whole thing. Previewing a clip is easy: Just click your chosen clip in the browser, and then click the Play button in the playback controls of your software’s preview window.
As the clip plays, notice that the play head under the preview window moves. You can move to any portion of a clip by clicking-and-dragging the play head with the mouse.
As you preview clips and identify portions you want to use in your movies, you’ll find precise, frame-by-frame control of the play head is crucial. The best way to get that precision is to use keyboard buttons instead of the mouse. If you’re using different editing software, check the manufacturer’s documentation for keyboard controls.

As you can see, some controls are fairly standardized across many different video-editing applications. In fact, the Spacebar also controls the Play/Stop/Pause function in professional-grade video editors like Adobe Premiere and Apple Final Cut Pro.
If you don’t like using the keyboard to try to move to just the right frame, you may want to invest in a multimedia controller such as the SpaceShuttle A/V from Contour A/V Solutions (www.contouravs.com). This device connects to your computer’s USB port and features a knob and dial that you can use to precisely control video playback. It’s so much easier than using the mouse or keyboard, you’ll wonder how you ever got by without one!

Organizing clips

2008-08-27T18:43:00.000-07:00

Virtually all video-editing software stores clips in a grid-like area called a clip browser or album. Apple iMovie and Pinnacle Studio further subdivide clips by content. Each program has separate browser panels for video clips, audio clips, and still images. In Studio, you can access these panels using tabs along the left side of the clip browser or album, as it is called in Pinnacle’s documentation. In iMovie, you can access the panels using buttons at the bottom of the clip browser or pane, as Apple’s documentation calls it.

The clip browser doesn’t just store your clips, it also tells you some important information about them. One of the most important bits of info is the length of the clip. If you’re using the sample clips from the CD-ROM, you’ll notice the numerals 19.04 or 19:04 next to Scene 5. This tells you that the clip is 19 seconds and four frames long. If you don’t see names or lengths listed next to clips in the Studio clip browser, choose Album➪Details View. A video image is actually made up of a series of still images that flash by so quickly that they create the illusion of motion. These still images are called frames. Video usually has about 30 frames per second. The clip also has a name, of course, and you can change the name if you wish. If, for example, you think that “Bridge” would be a more descriptive name than “Scene 5,” click the clip once, wait a second, and then click the clip’s name once again. You can then type a new name if you want. When you’re done typing a new name, just press Enter or click in an empty part of the screen.

If you have a lot of clips in the browser, they might not all fit on one screen. In iMovie, simply scroll down (using the scroll bar on the right) to see more clips. In Pinnacle Studio, you can select different groups of clips from the menu at the top of the browser. If there are too many clips in a group to fit on a single page all at once, you can click the arrows to view additional pages.
In iMovie’s clip browser, you can manually rearrange clips by dragging them to new empty blocks in the grid. You can move the clips wherever you want. This handy feature allows you to sort clips on your own terms, rather than just have them listed alphabetically or in some other arbitrary order.

Working with Clips

2008-08-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

As you make movies, you’ll quickly find that “clip” is the basic denomination of the media that you work with. You’ll spend a lot of time with video clips, audio clips, and even still clips (you know, those things that used to be called “pictures” or “photos”).
A still clip usually consists of a single picture; an audio clip usually consists of a single song or sound effect; and a video clip usually consists of a single scene. A scene most often starts when you press the Record button on your camcorder, and ends when you stop recording again, even if only for a second. When you import video from your camcorder, most video-editing programs automatically detect these scenes and create individual clips for you. As you edit and create your movies, you’ll find this feature incredibly useful.

Starting a New Editing Project

2008-08-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

Your first step in working on any movie project is to actually create the new project. This step is pretty easy. In fact, when you launch your video-editing program, it will usually start with a new, empty project. But if you need to create a new project for some reason or just want to be sure that you’re starting from a clean slate, choose File➪New Project. No matter if you’re using Apple iMovie, Pinnacle Studio, or almost any other video-editing program —a new, empty project window should appear.

After you have a new project started, your first step is usually to capture or import some video so you have something to edit. If you have some video to capture. Captured video will appear as clips in the clips pane (in iMovie) or the Album (in Studio), where it will be ready to use in your movies.
If you don’t have any video of your own to import or capture right now, you can still practice editing using sample videos from the CD-ROM that accompanies this book. If you plan to use those sample clips, insert the disc into your CD-ROM drive. To import the sample clips using Pinnacle Studio on a PC, follow these steps:

Click the Edit view mode tab or choose View➪Edit to ensure that you’re in Edit mode. If this is the first time you’ve used Studio, you’ll probably see the sample clips from Pinnacle’s Photoshoot sample movie.
Click the Select Video Files button in the clip browser The generic Open File window common to virtually all Windows programs appears.
Browse to the folder Samples\Chapter8.
Choose the newport file and click Open. The file is imported; Studio should automatically detect five scenes in the movie. If you’re using a Mac, import the clips into iMovie by following these steps:

Open iMovie and choose File➪Import. The generic Open File dialog box common to virtually all OS X programs appears.
Browse to the folder Samples\Chapter8 on the CD-ROM.
Click-and-drag over all five scene clips to select them and then click Open.

The five clips will be imported and will appear in the Clip browser. The Macintosh-compatible sample files on the CD are in Apple QuickTime format. If you’re using Apple iMovie, you need version 3 or higher of iMovie to import QuickTime-format video files.

After you have imported the clips, I recommend that you save and name the project by clicking File➪Save Project. Saving early is important because it not only preserves your work, but it is also required before you can perform certain editing tasks later on.

Basic Editing

2008-08-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

By themselves, digital video cameras aren’t that big a deal. Sure, digital camcorders offer higher quality, but the video quality of analog Hi8 camcorders really wasn’t too bad. Digital video doesn’t suffer from generational loss (where some video quality is lost each time the video is copied or even played) like analog video does, but again, this isn’t something that should motivate millions of people to instantly trash their old analog camcorders.

But video editing . . . now, that’s cool. Until recently, high quality video productions with special effects, on-screen titles, and fancy transitions between scenes were magical productions made by pros using equipment that cost hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars. But thanks to the dual revolutions of digital camcorders and powerful personal computers, all you need for pro-quality video production is a computer, a digital camcorder, a little cable to connect them both, and some software. Within just a few mouse clicks, you’ll be making movie magic!

Ripping MP3 files in Windows

2008-08-15T08:04:00.000-07:00

As I mention earlier, the process of turning audio files into MP3 files is sometimes called encoding or ripping. Microsoft provides a free audio-player program called Windows Media Player — WMP for short. It comes with Windows, and you can download the latest version from www.windowsmedia.com. Like Apple’s iTunes for the Macintosh, WMP allows you to copy music from audio CDs to your hard drive in a high-quality (yet compact) format. Unfortunately, as delivered, WMP does not rip files in MP3 format. Instead, it uses the Windows Media Audio (WMA) format.
Windows Media files are about as small as MP3 files, but it’s a proprietary format: Most video-editing programs (including Pinnacle Studio) cannot import WMA files directly. If you want to import music from CDs into a Studio movie project, it’s better to copy the music directly from within Studio.

If you really want to be able to copy music onto your hard drive in MP3 format, you’ll have to obtain commercially available MP3 encoding software. Such programs are available at most electronics stores, and you can also download software from Web sites such as www.tucows.com. I use a tool called CinePlayer from Sonic Solutions (www.cineplayer.com). This $20 tool works as a plug-in for Windows Media Player in Windows XP, and allows WMP to both encode MP3 files and play DVD movies. After it’s installed, I simply open Windows Media Player and choose Tools➪Options.
Then, on the Copy Music tab of the Options dialog box,
I can choose MPEG Layer-3 Audio in the Format drop-down box, and adjust quality settings as I see fit. The MPEG Layer-3 option is available here only because I have the CinePlayer plug-in installed. With these settings, WMP uses the MP3 format instead of WMA when I copy music to my hard disk.

How to Rip MP3 files on a Mac?

2008-08-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

The process of turning an audio file into an MP3 file is sometimes called ripping or encoding. Apple has thoughtfully provided the capability to create MP3 files with its free audio-library-and-player program, iTunes. To download the latest version of iTunes, visit www.apple.com/itunes/ and follow the instructions there. After iTunes is installed on your computer, copying audio onto your hard drive in MP3 format is quite simple:

Insert an audio CD into your CD-ROM drive.
If iTunes doesn’t launch automatically, open the program using the Dock or your Applications folder.
With the iTunes program window active choose iTunes➪Preferences. The iTunes Preferences dialog box opens.
Click the Importing button at the top of the Preferences dialog box.
Make sure that MP3 Encoder is selected in the Import Using menu, and then click OK. The iTunes Preferences dialog box closes and you are returned to the main iTunes window.
Place check marks next to the songs you want to import. You can use the playback controls in the upper-left corner of the iTunes window to preview tracks.
Click Import in the upper right corner of the iTunes screen.The songs are imported; the process may take several minutes. When it’s done, the imported songs are available through your iTunes library for use in iMovie projects.

Working with MP3 Audio

2008-08-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

MP3 is one of the most common formats for sharing audio recordings today. MP3 is short for MPEG Layer-3, and MPEG is short for Motion Picture Experts Group, so really you can think of MP3 as an abbreviation of an abbreviation. I’m sure that in a few years an MP3 file will simply be called an “M” or “P” (or maybe even a “3”) file — but whatever their collective nickname, MP3 audio files are likely to remain popular.

The MP3 file format makes for very small files — you can easily store a lot of music on a hard drive or CD — and those files are easy to transfer over the Internet. Who am I kidding? You probably already know all about MP3 files. You might even have some MP3 files already stored on your computer. If so, using those MP3 files for background music in your movie projects is really easy:

In iMovie: Pull MP3 files directly from your iTunes library into iMovie, using the procedure described earlier in this chapter for importing CD Audio. Simply choose iTunes from the pull-down menu at the top of the audio pane.
In Studio: Choose Album➪Sound Effects to show the sound-effects album. Click the folder icon and browse to the folder on your hard drive that contains the MP3 files you want to use.

When a list of MP3 files appears in the album, simply drag-and-drop them on the background music track of your timeline. Storing audio on your hard disk is handy because the audio will be easier to plop into your movie projects. MP3 is a great format to use because the audio sounds about as good as CD audio, but it takes up a lot less storage space. If you’re not sure how to copy music from audio CDs onto your hard disk in MP3 format — the process of converting audio to the MP3 format is often called encoding or ripping — check out the next two sections.

Understanding music copyrights

2008-07-29T05:16:00.000-07:00

Music can easily be imported into your computer for use in your movies. The tricky part is obtaining the rights to use that music legally. Realistically, if you’re making a video of your daughter’s birthday party, and you only plan to share that video with a grandparent or two, Kool and the Gang probably don’t care if you use the song “Celebration” as a musical soundtrack. But if you start distributing that movie all over the Internet — or (even worse) start selling it — you could have a problem that involves the band, the record company, and lots and lots of lawyers.
The key to using music legally is licensing. You can license the right to use just about any music you want, but it can get expensive. Licensing “Celebration” for your movie project (for example) could cost hundreds of dollars or more. Fortunately, more affordable alternatives exist.
Numerous companies offer CDs and online libraries of stock audio and music, which you can license for as little as $30 or $40. You can find these resources by searching the Web for “royalty free music,” or visit a site such as www.royaltyfree.com or www.royalty freemusic.com. You usually must pay a fee to download or purchase the music initially, but after you have purchased it, you can use the music however you’d like. If you use audio from such a resource, make sure you read the licensing agreement carefully. Even though the music is called “royalty free,” you still may be restricted on how many copies you may distribute, how much money you can charge, or what formats you may offer.
Another — more affordable — alternative may be to use the stock audio that comes with some moviemaking software. Pinnacle Studio, for example, comes with a tool called SmartSound which automatically generates music in a variety of styles and moods. Although you should always carefully review the software license agreements to be sure, normally the audio that comes with moviemaking software can be used in your movie projects free of royalties.

How to Import CD audio in Pinnacle Studio?

2008-07-29T05:12:00.000-07:00

Pinnacle Studio provides an audio toolbox to help you work with CD audio and other formats. To open the audio toolbox in Studio, place an audio CD in your CD-ROM drive and choose Toolbox➪Add CD Music. You may be asked to enter a title for the CD. The exact title doesn’t matter, so long as it’s something you will be able to identify and remember later. The audio toolbox allows you to perform a variety of actions:

Choose audio tracks from the CD using the Track menu.
Use playback controls in the audio toolbox to preview audio tracks.
Add only a portion of the audio clip to your movie by adjusting the in point and out point markers.
Add a track to the movie as a clip in the background music track at the bottom of the timeline by clicking the Add to Movie.

The clip is at the current position of the play head. After you add a CD audio track to your movie project, play the project to preview your addition. The first time you preview the movie with the CD audio track added, Studio captures the required audio from the CD. If the disc isn’t in the CD-ROM drive the first time you try to play the project, Studio asks you to insert the disc before the process can continue.

How to Import CD audio in iMovie?

2008-07-29T05:09:00.000-07:00

If you’re using Apple iMovie, you can take audio directly from your iTunes library or import audio from an audio CD. Here’s the basic drill:

Put an audio CD in your CD-ROM drive, and then click the Audio button above the timeline on the right side of the iMovie screen. The audio pane appears.
If iMovie Sound Effects are currently shown, open the pull-down menu at the top of the audio pane and choose Audio CD. A list of audio tracks appears.
Select a track and click Play in the audio pane to preview the song.
Click Place at Playhead in the Audio panel to place the song in the timeline, beginning at the current position of the play head.

Recording voice-over tracks in Pinnacle Studio

2008-07-29T05:05:00.000-07:00

Recording audio in Windows is pretty easy. Most video-editing programs —including Pinnacle Studio and Windows Movie Maker — give you the capability to record audio directly in the software. Before you can record audio, however, your computer must have a sound card and a microphone. (If your computer has speakers, it has a sound card.) The sound card should have a connector for a microphone as well. Check the documentation for your computer if you can’t find the microphone connector.
After your hardware is set up correctly, you’re ready to record audio in Pinnacle Studio or most any other movie making program. To record audio in Studio, follow these steps:

Open the movie project for which you want to record audio, and switch to the timeline view if you aren’t there already.
If you’re working with a current movie project, move the play head to the spot where you want to begin recording.
Choose Toolbox➪Record Voice-over. The voice-over recording studio appears.
Say a few words to test the audio levels. As your microphone picks up sound, the audio meter in Studio should indicate the recording level. If the meter doesn’t move at all, your microphone probably isn’t working. You’ll notice that as sound levels rise, the meter changes from green to yellow and finally red. For best results, try to keep the sound levels in or near the yellow part of the meter. You can fine-tune the levels by adjusting the Recording Volume slider.
Click Record. A visible three-second countdown appears in the recording-studio window, giving you a couple of seconds to get ready.
When recording begins and your movie project starts to play, recite your narration.
When you’re done, click Stop.

An audio clip of your narration appears in the timeline,