UNIT VI: Video

OBJECTIVE: To make a three minute video using Adobe Premiere Pro in response to another students audio soundscape.

GOAL: To learn how to edit and mix video with sound to build a visual space and create a story that evolves over time.

PROJECT:  The view outside my window slurs the vastness of our oceans, part 2.

BASIC PROCESS:

1.     Capture Audio / Video

2.     Import Audio / Video

3.     Assemble and refine Audio / Video in a sequence

4.     Add Titles

5.     Add Transitions and Effects

6.     (Mix Audio)

7.     Export

DEATILED PROCESS:

1.     Read over additional handouts on Premiere Pro workflows and video shots.

2.     Pull a randomly selected wav file from the HIDA shares AUDIO file and add it to your Assets>Audio folder.

3.     Double click your new audio file to give it a listen. What does it make you think of?  Story board at least three different video narrative posibilities for your new audio track. Consider abstraction.

4.     Using the Free Clips links in 4D Training on the class blog, find video files to use in your movie.  Pay careful attention to creative commons vs copyright material.  In addition, you may shoot some of your own video for this project outside of class if you have your own video camera / iDevice.  Or, you may be able to shoot some video in class using our equipment, but you will need your own mini DV tape.  Now is also a good time to decide if you will be working with HDV(16:9) or DV(4:3) video – choose one type and be consistent, mixing different aspect ratios of video never works out well.  Put all your clips in your video assests folder.

5.     Open Premiere Pro and select New Project.  Select the appropriate capture format to your media.  Check the scratch disks.  In an ideal set up your scratch disks are on a seprate high speed drive from your editing drive.  In the New Sequence dialog, be sure to select a format matching some of your found footage. 

6.     In premiere, go to File>Import and select all your video clips and your audio file, they will appear in your project pane. 

7.     Drag your exchanged audio file into the audio timeline so that it starts at time 0 in a new audio layer. 

8.     In the project pane, scroll over until you see the Descriptions category, and add detail text about each of your clips.

9.     To stay organized it is a good idea to make separate bins, or folders, for your audio and video files by clicking the new bin button and dragging your files into the appropriate folder.

10.  Double click each of your clips, which opens them in the viewer.  Add in and out points for each clip, and then drag them into the video timeline.  The clip will then appear in the canvas, which shows your whole movie.  It’s good to set ins and outs so that if you add transitions the effect has some media to work with.

11.  While in the viewer, you can click the effects tab to make adjustments to the basic effects: Motion, Oppacity, and Time Remapping, and any other effects you have added.

12.  In the timeline you can readjust your clips to match events in the audio track.  Click and drag over the ends of a clip to make it longer.  Holding down the command key to ripple edit the end of a clip so that all the clips after it are pushed down in time.  Click the top bar of a clip and drag to change its position in time. 

13.  If you drag a clip into the timeline and place it on top of other clips it will remove those clips!  If you hold down the command key while doing so it will ripple edit the clips underneath further down the timeline so that they are not lost. 

14.  In the time line toggle Audio Track 1 off so that you don’t hear the audio that came in with your video clips.

15.  You can preview your movie at any time by pressing the space bar or play in the canvas.  You can aslo drag the blue time head in the time line.

16.  Make sure all your clips fill up the whole canvas.  If not, you can scale them by dragging their corners.  Hold shift to do so proportionally. 

17.  Add Titles by going to Title>New Title>Defsult Still.  Name your title, click ok, and add text to your window view.  Keep text within the border lines to make sure people on all TVs can read it.  You can adjust a slew of properties on the right side.  You can set the alignment in the lower left. 

18.  Use the roll crawl options on the top to add motion to your title.  When you’re down, just close the titles window.

19.  Your title will appear in the the Projects pane.  Just click and drag it onto the timeline as you would a regular video clip.  If you want it to be on top of another video clip, drag it to the next video layer up in the timeline stack.

20.  The best transition is usually a simple cut.  But sometimes it’s nice to have a fade, particularly at the beginning and end of a movie.  Try some transitions in the Effects pane Video Transisiton folder.  Under Dissolve, drag a dip to black to the beginning of your first clip in the timeline and the end of your last clip.  You can also trya  cross disolve or other transition between any two clips on your timeline.  Pay attention to how it gets placed though, if you don’t have lead in and out time on your clip, it may not look the way you want it.

21.  You can change the duration and attributes of a transition by double clicking it and then using the viewer.

22.  Use the same process for video effects.  One you might want to try is Video Effects>Color Correction>Change to Color and Adjust>Auto Contrast.

23.  If you loose the windows, you can always try the menu system, Window>Effects and Window>Effects Control.

24.  Use the effects tab of the viewer pane to adjust your new effect.  Unlike a transition, it changes the entire clip, not just the beginning or the end.  The amazing thing about premiere is that you can preview effects and transitions live before rendering.

25.  Go to Sequence>Render Entire Work Area.

26.  When you’ve got everything finished, export your moving by going to File>Export>Media.  Be sure to check that the source and output tabs are the same!  You may need to adjust your pixel aspect ratio.  I like quicktime as a format, and H.264 as a codec.  Makes ure export audio and video are selected, and hit export.  Rendering and exporting can take a long time, be prepared to hang around for at least half an hour for your video to render.

27.  Add copies of your premiere project and your quicktime export to the VIDEO folder in HIDA Shares.

28.  Upload your video to the blog with a one paragraph descirption of the video.

PREMIERE EDITING TIPS:

READING:      Launching the Imagination Ch. 13 Aspects and elements of Time (cmap) & Ch. 8 Constructing Meaning (cmap)

           

VOCABULARY: track, clip, volume, amplitude, frequency, key frame, limit, mix, multitrack, noise, transition, effect, title, layer, aspect ratio, widescreen, HD

REFERENCES:  Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Bruce Nauman, Peter Campus

GRADING:  (15pts)

Technical: (5pts) Do you have three different storyboards? Are there at least five distinct shots?  Does your video last three minutes?  Did you save your work in the appropriate formats? Does it include titles and credits?  Did you upload to the blog?

Aesthetic: (5pts) Do your transitions and cuts make sense?  Are there a variety of shot types: medium, close and wide? Are these shots well composed?

Conceptual: (5pts) Does your video tell a story?  Does it have a plot?  Is there a climax?           

NOTES:

For extra help / reference / practice, see the Premiere Pro CS4 videos on the blog.