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Decent video editing software for Windows


Happy Jack

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18 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

So where is this video? You know what they say... a thread without err... videos...

The three I'm working on first are the ones that will support our first release, timed to coincide with a radio broadcast on 6th December.

Until then, it would be a bit premature to publish. Rest assured, they're coming towards you down the cliff like a landslide ...

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4 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

The three I'm working on first are the ones that will support our first release, timed to coincide with a radio broadcast on 6th December.

Until then, it would be a bit premature to publish. Rest assured, they're coming towards you down the cliff like a landslide ...

I'm expecting fade ins and outs, and lots of star wipes! 🤩

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One of the three new originals by Damo And The Dynamites should be played by DJ Lucky Lost Rockers on https://rockin247radio.com/   in his one-hour long programme at 9pm on the first Sunday of the month, in our case 6th Dec.

We're sending him MP3s we've registered and ISRC-stamped, but we're also preparing a Press Kit to send to him and other DJs and websites, for which we are preparing the videos as well. They will need to be ISRC-stamped in due course, after which we can publish them. :)

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK, so 6th December has now been put back to 20th December and that's a bit of a delay too far for us, so we've decided to launch our long-heralded Media Blitz pretty much immediately.

In the last two weeks I've done a helluva lot of video editing and my skills have moved along quite smartly. If I were to re-edit these videos today (which is perfectly possible, of course, but not overly attractive) then they would probably look slicker and more interesting.

I'm leaving them alone as a decent example of what can be achieved in a week or so, from a standing start, by someone with no prior knowledge or experience of either a DAW or of video editing in general.

Here's #1 of 3, Damo's first finished original Glove On The Gas (written in 2018).

 

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Bravo. In reference to your statement in the first post - remember that this game is all about practice. And done is preferable to things never making a final render.

Thats a decent effort there - obviously the constraints of the source footage are coming into play as you zoom and crop - but you know what, so what? Next advice would be looking at a bit of colour correction to get your skin tone a bit more realistic...

But you know what, that's already a hell of a lot better than most bands will ever put out... So well done! 

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17 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Thats a decent effort there - obviously the constraints of the source footage are coming into play as you zoom and crop - but you know what, so what? Next advice would be looking at a bit of colour correction to get your skin tone a bit more realistic...

Thanks for mentioning the colour correction - that was the first thing I suggested, but was shouted down by an already tired and over-stressed @Happy Jack. I had to insist that we added some sort of title to the beginning and credits to the end...

We have bought some new cameras that produce better quality video, and we're testing them, while Jack is studying the effect of digital zooming on each camera's output.

The light in that studio has the same disastrous effect on the quality of even our new Zoom Q2n 4k, as well as on that of the decent Canon 77D DSLR we are now using instead of what you see in those videos.

Edited by Silvia Bluejay
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20 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Bravo. In reference to your statement in the first post - remember that this game is all about practice. And done is preferable to things never making a final render.

Thats a decent effort there - obviously the constraints of the source footage are coming into play as you zoom and crop - but you know what, so what? Next advice would be looking at a bit of colour correction to get your skin tone a bit more realistic...

But you know what, that's already a hell of a lot better than most bands will ever put out... So well done! 

Why thank'ee, thank'ee kindly Young Master. :)

Colour correction is just one of many new skills I have acquired in the last fortnight!

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6 minutes ago, Silvia Bluejay said:

Thanks for mentioning the colour correction - that was the first thing I suggested, but was shouted down by an already tired and over-stressed @Happy Jack.

I don't know why you're making such a big thing out of it. We managed to get a bandage on it before you bled out, and the neighbours have apologised for calling the Police.

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Oops. I have to say, that colour correction is the single most difficult thing to get right... and it all stems from getting it right at source. The only reason I mention it, is to help you in the long run. The earlier start, the quicker you can start learning from your mistakes. Im battling with colour grading at the moment and a lot of that comes from getting your colour correction right... and I'm still not great at it. I can get it down in perfect conditions... but lets face it, videos shot like this tend to never be in perfect conditions.

If you want my absolute critique... I have to say I hate the opening titles. Sometimes static titles is where it's at. I always ask myself this... "Would I see this on the TV"? If the answer is no, you are probably putting yourself in the Microsoft Movie Maker camp. A lot of the transitions and special fx that are in the core offerings of applications are there because they have to be there because of what competitor products have included. Doesn't mean you have, or should use them.

Digital zoom is generally poor unless you are pixel binning from say 4k to a delivery format of 1080. Try to avoid at all costs - I tend to allow for 10% crop if I'm going into lossy crops but I would always choose to crop from 4 or 6k footage down to 1080.

I would wager your best future purchases would be lights by the way.. the more light you can get to your sensor the better... and and as you get your head around it all, you'll realise that the last thing you want is an 8 bit camera!

 

 

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2 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

If you want my absolute critique... I have to say I hate the opening titles. Sometimes static titles is where it's at. I always ask myself this... "Would I see this on the TV"? If the answer is no, you are probably putting yourself in the Microsoft Movie Maker camp. A lot of the transitions and special fx that are in the core offerings of applications are there because they have to be there because of what competitor products have included. Doesn't mean you have, or should use them.

 

LOL, I did those in Movie Maker and then Jack attached them! Or we wouldn't have had titles or credits at all! For a totally unknown, unsigned band, offering their first originals to the world, they are a must.

Edited by Silvia Bluejay
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Hi chaps.  Just seen this topic - and I'm probably a bit late to the table.  I've been making all of my videos using Sony Cyberlink Power Director.  I think I paid about £45 to it.  For gigs we normally use 4 or 5 "gopro" style cameras, and maybe a roving camcorder.  For lockdown videos the band has just used reasonable quality mobile phones!  Whatever the case, the nice thing about the software is that if you use a Wav file for your audio track (off the mixing desk or whatever) then the software will usually sync the camera shot to the music (even if the camera has recorded a terribly loud distorted sound).  I've found it really useful and it speeds things up a lot. 

With regards computers, at the beginning of lockdown I treated myself to a 2nd hand PC from a company that specializes in stripping out offices etc.  I got a pc with 128gb of RAM, and dedicated graphics card with 4 monitor outputs, a 1TB SSD, and 1TB bog standard drive, along with two 22 inch monitors for £900.  It has made video editing a breeze! (well - a lot quicker anyway!).  It had some fancy quad core processor too.

An example of a "lockdown" video using mobile phones is here -  

and a gig, using go-pros etc here:

Hope that's helpful.....

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2 minutes ago, EMG456 said:

Nice one(s) @Happy Jack.

Not sure if the upload to vimeo might have mangled your footage as well but as @EBS_freak says HD 1080p is a good target to aim for. If you shoot in 4k for example then you can crop and pan your shots whilst still retaining the target resolution in the output.

Good work!

 

I always set the go-pros to 1080 and 30 fps.  Just picked up an extra from Amazon today (not a genuine go-pro) - with all the accessories for £23!!  (Crosstour)

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29 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Digital zoom is generally poor unless you are pixel binning from say 4k to a delivery format of 1080. Try to avoid at all costs - I tend to allow for 10% crop if I'm going into lossy crops but I would always choose to crop from 4 or 6k footage down to 1080.

We're using such a bizarre crop of cameras (five last Sunday for a rehearsal with a new originals band) that I'm never going to be able to determine in advance which shots needing digital zooming will be captured by the 'right' camera. Also worth noting that one camera's HD is another's fuzzy, pixellated mess.

In time, I hope to get good enough to start worrying about this level of detail. For the moment, I'm just glad of the shot!

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33 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

I would wager your best future purchases would be lights by the way.. the more light you can get to your sensor the better.

Ah now, the proverbial elephant in the room. 

Am I learning video editing so as to get in touch with my inner Francis Ford Coppola, or in order to better publicise my pub bands?

Everything I've learned about getting pub gigs this last 15 years is that landlords/managers are turned right off by fancy studio-recorded demos ("Yeh, but what do you really sound like?") and I rather suspect that the same is true for video work. 

If you cast an eye over the vast majority of the videos on my channels, they are genuinely live warts'n'all recordings of actual performances in actual pubs. The camera angles are dodgy, the light is murky, punters keep wandering into shot, none of them are ever going up for a BAFTA.

And they go down an absolute storm with landlords and managers. If @Silvia Bluejay and I can get The Boss to spend just two minutes in front of our tablet showing our videos, we always come away with a bunch of gigs. The hard bit is getting them to actually look at the bloody things!

I'm practising the tricks I'm learning using footage shot under controlled conditions in a rehearsal space with a proper Green Wall ... I never lose sight of the fact that I'm preparing for the Dog & Duck.

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6 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

In time, I hope to get good enough to start worrying about this level of detail. For the moment, I'm just glad of the shot!

Yeah man - it's all rock n roll!  My first videos were used literally with just one Go-pro - and I used to zoom and over layer etc.  As time goes on, I've got more cameras, and some cool little brass adapters that turn mic stands into tripods...- very handy for a gig situation! It's more about a bit of video to accompany the sound track for me!  I've also got a Tascam audio recorder which is handy - for better audio than a camera can give.  Useful at times!

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27 minutes ago, Phil C said:

I always set the go-pros to 1080 and 30 fps.  Just picked up an extra from Amazon today (not a genuine go-pro) - with all the accessories for £23!!  (Crosstour)

I just bought something similar. Genuine case of "how on Earth can they possibly supply so much kit, and of such high quality, for so little money?".

It's not (yet) perfect. I'm struggling with controlling the gain on the on-board mic, and battery life is only about two hours ... but then it comes with two batteries!

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