Probably the toughest one was this:
http://blip.tv/file/194414?filename=Bli ... ina608.MOV
For those of you ignorant of Salsa, this is a Rueda de Casino, apparently a Cuban invention. Normally it's quite dynamic to watch and fun to dance, but doing it in ski boots on a slope is a totally different challenge.
Plus: there was no music. The leader just counted 1-2-3 5-6-7.
So, naturally, as time went on the guys got faster and faster, but sometimes stopped dead because of some group member's mistake etc.
How did I do it:
My camcorder records directly to DVD - 16:9 MPEG2 (of course), 5.1 Dolby sound
1) I've used SUPER to export some samples of the sound (difficult to hear because of wind noise, too) into WAV files.
2) Then I analysed the audio tracks (the counting), selected the most common speed and adjusted the speed of a nice Salsa tune (Mambo Italiano) using a program called MixMeister. This program allows you to change the BPM of any music (without changing the pitch) and export it to a WAV file. (And since I didn't want to bore viewers to death I selected a good cut off point for the music at about 3 minutes - the original music is over 5 minutes long).
3) Now it was time to import the WAV into MediaStudio Pro 8. I put it onto the audio track and played through the whole song in "preview" hitting F5 every other beginning of a beat ("on one").
4) Now I imported the videos to the project tray, splitting off the sound except for very few scenes (the counting near the beginning and some ahhhs and applause towards the end) and trimming them to the interesting parts
5) I looked at every scene in "source" mode, hitting F5 whenever I detected a "one" in the dance. (BTW, I forgot to click the checkmark in the source window quite a few times, losing those cues)
6) Then I put the scenes on the timelime, one by one, stretching them in some cases to align the cues in the scene to the cues in the music
7) And finally I moved the scenes around on the timeline so that there's a good mix of long and short shots etc.
I've exported to MPG2 with smart rendering, actually nearly in real-time. The MOV you see on the web is transcoded with SUPER using an MP4 codec.Final thought: it looks and sounds much less work than it actually is.
Hope you like it
Wolf
PS and if you want to see (or rather hear) the real power of MixMeister, check out this other film:
http://www.blip.tv/file/194513?filename ... zin391.MOV
It has Sister Sledge's "We are a family" speeded up to match a remix that the girls were dancing to. There are two places in the beginning were I mix from the remix to the original and back again.
