Tips for making music video?

[Mark Swanson]

Hello, I am new to using VSX4. I have been a musician all my life and now I want to learn about making some music videos. I know my limits and don't expect MTV tomorrow, but I need to get started. I've done a few things already but I could use a few tips, or a tutorial, or someplace I can read about the processes others use. So does anyone have any pointers?
This is my first post here! A helpful place, too!

[lata]

Hi Mark

and welcome to the forums

I don’t think there is any thing different from a Music video as to a normal movie, each has a video track with composite audio, we can add additional sound tracks which may require synchronising.

If you can tell us what you are actually trying to edit.
Right click a video clip in the timeline and select properties, what are they?

If you are new to Video Studio then there are some settings that may help, Press F6 on the keyboard for preferences, set Clip Display mode Thumbnails Only. Explore the other settings.

Back on the timeline, viewing as Timeline View (icons left of undo arrows) will show the video as continuous frames,
Double click your video clip will open the options panel, below the library.
Under the video tab are some audio controls.

Open the Sound Mixer, music looking icon below the preview screen, the time line view will change, the clip will show a wave form, you may find this useful.

As I say if you can tell us what you are trying to do I am sure we can advise you further.

[Mark Swanson]

Hi Trevor, and thanks.
I have the book by Marc Bech about VS4 and that is helping me a lot. Just jumping in and working with things teaches me a lot too. I will look into your tips, I think I know most of them already.
I have been making audio recordings a long time, and am fluent in Pro Tools. So I want to use my finished audio recordings, and put them to video. I find that getting the video synced to the pre-recorded audio is a challenge, and so I am looking for a better, more solid way to get that done. Back in the old days we had SMPTE but that's gone now! <G>
Right now I am working with .MOV files, and one .WAV file. I'm saving for a better camcorder, but the one I have will allow me to work with the software which is what I really have to learn anyway.

[lata]

Hi

As you say "syncing" is a challenge.
Viewing Sound Mixer does show the wave form so should help with the sync'.

Adding a colour clip or image to the beginning of the video can sometimes help as you can increase/decrease its duration, frame by frame if you wished, effectively nudging the video to the left or right.

[Mark Swanson]

Ahhh! Just those things will help me a lot! I'll check it out, and thanks!

[pvreditor]

My first step in making a music video would be to start with a high-quality sound recording. Lay that onto an audio track in VideoStudio (it doesn't matter which audio track -- they all work the same).

Next, you want to shoot you (or whomever the performers are) lip-syncing to the music several times, using different camera angles and close-ups. If you want to tell some sort of story, write it out into something like a script and perform it -- again, using multiple camera angles. It will help greatly if you can hear the music in all these lip-synced segments, as you will need that sound to sync the clips to the master audio track.

Once you have all the lip-synced clips that you want, edit it all together. I know that some people here will say that syncing clips is difficult, but I do it all the time and find that it's not hard at all. That includes both music performance videos as well as videos where there is only speech. Click on the "Sound mixer" icon to see the audio waveforms in the clips and use those to help you sync the audio. Once you sync a video clip to the master audio track, do a right mouse click on the video track and select "Mute" to turn the clip's sound off.

One big tip: VideoStudio has what's known as "ripple editing mode." Ripple editing mode allows you to insert clips in the middle of a complex sequence and it automatically holds the relationships among the various elements that you are using. I had to use it a lot to understand exactly how it works, but now it's hard to live without. It might be a big help in editing a music video, although it can be a headache to learn.

Remember that music videos often play fast and loose with all the rules of video production, such as focus, syncing, lighting, framing and continuity. For example, look at the music video for "I Need You" by LeAnn Rimes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjQtfLoZSnE). There's zillions of clips, most poorly focused, moving wildly, out of sync and sometimes simply annoying. (Not to mention that the song is over-produced... :-/ ) So don't be afraid to experiment!

Bob Kovacs
http://www.bobkovacs.com

[cdoughertycd]

I video live orchestra performances. This last concert someone else audio recorded it. I have learned how to sync it but the problem I have is when I lay down the "external" audio on the audio line, the wave form is almost impossible to see. The audio is better to see in the video but still not very good. I'm using ProX5. What I've mostly had to do is sync the audio by playing both audios together and listening for an echo or also synching it by watching the orchestra's string section bow movements or any other video clues. I'm eventually able to get it synched but it's not that easy. I picked the brain of another video person doing video for a small chamber music group and he said he uses the "echo" method. Me not knowing, maybe this is how it is unless one is audio/editing for professional feature length movies?

Any suggestions?

Thanks for any ideas.

Candy

[pvreditor]

I also use the echo technique. If you use two video cameras, you can sync the two if there is a camera flash from a still-image photographer. There's one venue I go to where I have an arrangement with a photographer to take a flash photo near the beginning of each song. That lets me sync the video from my two cameras. Otherwise, it's the echo-and-waveform method. Obviously, you don't have the luxury of using a camera flash with an audio recorder, so you're stuck with the echo-and-waveform method.

There are two ways that professionals synchronize feeds from multiple cameras and other devices. One is to use multiple cameras to shoot the event, all feeding live through a switcher. A technician at the switcher (called the "technical director" or TD) switches from camera to camera, doing dissolves and other effects as called for by the show's director. The other way is to record everything separately and assemble the program in post-production (editing). To do this, the pros usually use "time code" to synchronize multiple sources. The easiest way is to feed the same time code to all the recorders, so every recorder captures the same moment in time when each device's time code is at 0001 (for example). Get all the time codes lined up and everything is synchronized.

The full name for time code is "SMPTE time code" -- SMPTE is the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, a very important standards body in the television and film industries. In the industry, SMPTE is pronounced SIMP-tee.

Bob Kovacs
http://www.bobkovacs.com

[cdoughertycd]

Bob, thanks for this info.

So to ask further about it, in the Youtube instruction I saw for making a music video using Final Cut Studio, the guy layed down the video tracks in 4 tracks shot with 4 cameras, then it looked like he cut them all at the same place, and then was able to turn off the segments leaving the ones he wanted when he wanted them.

Looks like ProX5 or Video Studio in general only has one video track, although there is the overlay track. If there were more video tracks, couldn't I be able to do the same thing basically?

thanks for your help,

Candy

[pvreditor]

So to ask further about it, in the Youtube instruction I saw for making a music video using Final Cut Studio, the guy laid down the video tracks in 4 tracks shot with 4 cameras, then it looked like he cut them all at the same place, and then was able to turn off the segments leaving the ones he wanted when he wanted them.

Looks like ProX5 or Video Studio in general only has one video track, although there is the overlay track. If there were more video tracks, couldn't I be able to do the same thing basically?

The overlay tracks in VideoStudio do exactly the same thing as the tracks you saw in Final Cut Pro, and VS x5 has at least five overlay tracks, maybe more. Find the "track manager" and turn on as many tracks as you need.

Otherwise, the technique you describe for FCP sounds pretty much like how multi-camera editing works in VideoStudio. I shot a tutorial on multi-camera editing with VideoStudio, which you can see here: http://youtu.be/azz9erpvnZ4. Yes, that's me in the video. I use VS x4, but it's the same as x5 for this application. I also have a tutorial on how to do crossfades (and other effects) from the main video track to the overlay tracks and back again, which is a technique you may want for your music video. You can see that tutorial at http://youtu.be/a2SgRd4u6ZM

Good luck!

Bob Kovacs
http://www.bobkovacs.com

[cdoughertycd]

Bob, thanks sooooo much!

I'm going to look at your tutorials and crossfading the overlay track is also exactly what I'll need.

Candy

[cdoughertycd]

Hi Bob,

Just watched your tutorial on main camera and camera B. I'm getting my 2nd camera clips tomorrow from someone so can't try it until then.

It looks like when you split camera B and move it to the right to have main camera take over, camera B holds its place meaning it isn't making a big black gap causing need to actually cut out that section of camera B, but rather holds the video sort of hidden in that gap? Is that how it works?

thanks again,
Candy

[pvreditor]

Hi Bob,

Just watched your tutorial on main camera and camera B. I'm getting my 2nd camera clips tomorrow from someone so can't try it until then.

It looks like when you split camera B and move it to the right to have main camera take over, camera B holds its place meaning it isn't making a big black gap causing need to actually cut out that section of camera B, but rather holds the video sort of hidden in that gap? Is that how it works?

Yes, you can describe it that way. You synchronize the B camera on the overlay track. Whatever is on the overlay track takes precedence on the screen, so if the B camera video stays in the overlay track for the length of the video, all you see is the B camera. Whenever you want to cut back to the main camera, simply cut the overlay track at that point. The B camera video stays synchronized even when sections are cut out.

On the main video track, when you cut out something, the video collapses to eliminate the space caused by what you just cut. However, on the overlay tracks, the video does not collapse -- it stays where it is, regardless of how many times you cut it. Once I figured that out, doing multi-camera videos became easy.

Glad I could help!

Bob Kovacs
http://www.bobkovacs.com

[cdoughertycd]

Bob, thanks again so much.

Also your tutorial on the crossfades will help me immensely.

Candy

[cdoughertycd]

Hi Bob:

Thanks to your tutorials I'm editing with two cameras and doing the fades.

The only problem I've had on two fades is I'm still getting audio "pops" on either side of the track despite the fact that camera 1 and camera 2 tracks are muted.

This is on a clip of the track where I decided to shorten camera 2 so had to make more splits on camera 1 for copying the crossfade. I shift clicked on the two sides of the track to capture them where the pop is and then right clicked to look for a "combine" clips but didn't see that figuring that might solve it.

Could be a factor of too many splits on camera 1 that is goofing up the audio? The other fades where I have one split to copy for the fade are working fine with no pops.

Any ideas?

thanks again for your help,
Candy