Croppping A Video? Not Today!

[weaver]

Hi bill in pa

No problem I am always ready to help. Please do not forget the VS is just a creative tool but the creativity must come always from the user side, like a brush in my hand will make surely different traces as it made in hands of Picasso etc.
The main advantage of VS is the variety of options to change the raw material ( in many other editors you have to pay lot of money for the same or similar effects) and everybody from us must learn how to use them. I do not think anybody from Corel or from us can offer you a complete guide what and how to use. This is a matter of talent, artistic blood in us, personal preferences, experiences, sometime fashion etc. Everybody from us is different, has different taste and skills ie also our videos even from the same source will be edited and modified in different way.

[tletter]

Corel does write some good programs but getting that information into their customers hands is often a bit rough.

Have a look at the gripps2211 YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF15vJ ... cHMh2UOvDg). Although he hasn't been active for a couple of years, his videos are very good and still relevant.

tletter
https://www.youtube.com/user/tletter

[bill in pa]

Sorry for the late mail as I just got back into it this evening,’
JBC’s instructions were just fine and I have been like a child
with a new toy.

Weaver, your comments were well taken. I have little if any,
so-called talent, but I do try hard to edit and try to be as concise as
possible in the video. One friend wanted me to “blend” a five
part video of some forty years past into or onto, a video of vacation last
week and of course blend it together without making it look like
the dogs breakfast! You try, what can I say! You try to work in different
areas to hold interest in what’s on the screen and not what your Aunt Polly
made for snacks.

We all have that one relative who simply videos everything on the planet
and then hands the work, of about three hours of filming and says simply
“see if you can do anything with this will you”?<g>

I also wanted to thank “tletter” for that link of those videos. Just looking over that
site made me realize just how many of those VS programs I have bought over
the years. A lot of programs? I guess so but in using them, I’ve made some new
friends from all over the world! For that reason alone they were worth their price.

My thanks again to all who took time to help me,

bill in pa

[weaver]

Hi bill in pa
I fully agree with you and what is very often missing from the amateur videos is the storyboard. It is a long story before one should cut the first clip in editor. I remember from the beginning of my professional carrier, that they brougth us few dozens of 1 hour tapes and the editor had to take out few minutes or seconds from the each tape.
Today it is much easier, every clip is in your HDD, you just need to know which scene is where ( not an easy task, especially when the videos were not made by yourself).
Last time I was involved in one documentary video project, I have got over 400 hours video material and from that we should create a 30 minutes documentary film. You can imagine how much time was it. I saw most of the original videos first time in my life.
The next challenge is the length. I saw many boring few hours long videos, and few times we reedit them and the owner was very suprised when we could show more in 10-15 minutes long stories as the original video in 2-3 hours. Of course it requires a preparation, watch all originals and have some idea how and what to present. For that you need an idea and collect the best clips for the project.
My films usually have 5-40 times more original shots ( 5-40 min > 1 min) and I sometimes reedit them even for shorter version. Sometimes my friend made a complete different film from my original shots It depends on the content what to include and what not and how long is every scene in the final version. Somewhere I heard that one scene should not be longer than 7 sec. It is always the question of the theme and the taste of the editor or director.

Eugen

[bill in pa]

Many years ago I had seen a...... .documentary on a documentary, if you will. I think the
program came from the BBC. They showed the “idea” of a story board. That portion
of the program left an impression on me. I have kicked myself many times for
not recording it because it was never repeated. The part about the story board made sense.
At first I thought it a pain but they showed it to be just the opposite,

A time saver! Although I only do video work for friends and family I always set up some sort of storyboard by asking as many things as possible about exact time & date. By doing
this, it automatically gives the video direction. Some times I have a number
of things written down & sometimes I use a recorder. This saves my hands but also adds another dimension to the video. Listening to their voices describe an event you get the
feeling of how happy-sad-funny they felt about these events. This gives me more to evaluate and in doing so allows me to enunciate parts of the video and diminish others.

In the beginning I also had video, pictures, film; 8, super 8, yes and even some 16mm film
sound and all. Straight away I could see rules needed to be laid down! Only one type of
media at a time. After all, they didn’t use all the media at once when they recorded the stuff and I was never sorry I enforced some sanity to prevail! Now everything comes in dvd, portable HDD, older VHS tape and of course USB thumb drives. Peace!

bill in pa