Vidding Workshop!

[chaila]

Welcome to the wiscon_vidparty vidding workshop! We hope this will be a chance for new or potential vidders to find out more about what’s involved in making a vid and to see the wide variety of ways vidders make vids, and for vidders of all skill levels to discuss vidding and share tips and ideas. Everyone is welcome to participate!

This workshop will be discussion- and question-based, so please, start or jump into any discussions you want to have and ask any questions about any aspect of vidding! Finding ideas, getting source, clipping (or not), editing programs, codecs, rendering, effects, specific technical issues you’re having, discussion about specific vids, discussing your own ideas, links to useful resources, tutorials, cheerleading--any and all vidding related topics are welcome.

We’ve created a few categories to keep some of the major topic threads organized. If you have a comment or question or want to start a discussion on a certain topic, just comment below the relevant subject. (We’re flexible though, so don’t fret too much about getting things in the right place. If in doubt, just give your thread a descriptive subject line so people can find it).

Feel free to add new threads if what you want to talk about isn't covered by the categories, but please give your comment a descriptive subject line so readers can tell what’s being discussed.

We have several awesome vidders who have volunteered to participate and introduce themselves at their convenience. We will be linking to their introductions as they appear. Keep an eye out and feel free to ask them specific questions!

Topics (to get you started--add your own threads and subthreads!)

• Vid Idea Development -- Finding and developing ideas for new vids

• Tech Questions -- Hardware and software (PC, Mac or Linux), codecs, aspect ratios, exporting and rendering, effects, etc.
          Questions asked/discussed:
          -- Software to use on a PC? (including discussion of Windows Movie Maker & Lightworks)
          -- Vidding with iMovie09?
          -- Codec rec: Avid DNxHD
          -- Converter recs for Macs?
          -- Linux clipping?

• Getting Started (and Finished) -- From beginning to end, how do you make a vid? Getting source, clipping, editing workflows, tips for getting started, etc.
          • Subthread: Editing workflows/processes
                --chaila (VirtualDub, Vegas, Zarx264gui)
                --heresluck (DVD Decrypter, DGIndex, Premiere, Zarx264gui)
                --thingswithwings (Handbrake, Mac the Ripper, MPEG Streamclip, Final Cut Pro, Sound Studio)
                --ghost_lingering (Adobe Premiere & AfterEffects, Mac the Ripper, and mpeg streamclip)
                --eruthros (DVD Decrypter, VirtualDub, AvsPmod, Premiere, Zarx264gui)
                --such_heights (Switch, audio editing/conversion, Final Cut)
                --beccatoria (avidemux, Cinelerra)

          • Other questions/discussion
           -- How to time clips to the beat?
           -- Using markers
           -- Approaching editing/revising? & how to deal with ambition outstripping effects/transition knowledge?
           -- Free/cheap editing software for Macs?
           -- Ripping DVDs vs. downloaded source?
           -- Note re: codecs & compression

• Links and References -- Link helpful resources from elsewhere on the internet.
          -- Various lists of resources, including subtitling
          -- Mac vidders: how to get the shiniest source
          -- Lots of links, especially about vidding creativity
          -- Panel notes on song choice
          -- A&E's Technical Guide to All Things Audio and Video
          -- Audio editing
          -- Multiple aspect ratio tutorials
          -- Understanding codecs & containers, & Autodesk software for students

• VIDDING SQUEE - All things happy, fun, and inspiring.
          • The first vid you made you're still proud of?
          • Vids/vidders that inspired us!

Meet the Vidder Threads

• Meet the Vidder: Rhi
• Meet the Vidder: metatxt
• Meet the Vidder: such heights
• Meet the Vidder: kiki_miserychic
• Meet the Vidder: Garrideb
• Meet the Vidder: ghost lingering
• Meet the Vidder: here's luck
• Meet the Vidder: chaila

ETA 3/3/14: The main part of the workshop has concluded, but please feel free to add answers or info if you've got them! We've organized a list of the threads, questions and answers for ease of browsing. And don't forget that you can sign up to be a vidding mentor to a newer vidder, or sign up to get a mentor!

Comments

Re: Tell us about your editing workflow/process!

[eruthros]

My process is really similar to chaila's technically and thingswithwings's in terms of organization, but there are a couple differences where I'm dealing with different technical problems so I thought I'd mention them! I vid on a Windows machine that's too old to vid on easily, so I have to figure out workarounds sometimes in order to deal with not having enough memory / processor / GPU.

1. After I find a song and an idea, the first thing I usually do is type up the lyrics of the song (and any notable instrumental bits) in an outline and listen to it a bunch; this is where I decide what audio editing to do and what kind of general arc I want and stuff like that. I might decide what verse to edit out but not actually do that part for ages, because I end up doing it in audacity, and I hate audacity. (Recs for better audio editing that are free or cheap would be great, because I find audacity infuriating. I tried some of the pay stuff as trials - Sony and Adobe - and they use so much processing power that they don't really work for me and are way more program than what I need.)

2. I assemble source. For a single-source vid that's usually downloaded blu-ray rip mkvs or ripped DVDs.

2a. If I'm working with DVDs, I use DVD Decrypter to make VOBs (there are better options now but I already have it installed), analyze with DGIndex, and import the DGIndex files into AvsPmod to edit them. I'm really lucky that the first vid I made (with thingswithwingsjdownloader or jdownloader 2 beta) to get higher-quality youtube source. When you put "completionism problem" together with "multi-source vid" I end up watching a lot of source but that's kind of fun for me? A lot of people really hate it but I kind of enjoy it even when I'm watching terrible movies - it's like a weird scavenger hunt where I finally find what I'm looking for in a season eight episode of Smallville that was mentioned on imdb!

4. Getting ready to clip finally! I clean up the source as needed right before I clip it - so I get rid of interlacing or crop the letterboxing or whatever at this stage. I use virtualdub to clip; where chaila uses a plugin, I use an avisynth script (in AvsPmod) that lets me open any type of file in virtualdub, because I like the tools avisynth gives me for cleaning up footage and standardizing frame rates and stuff. Avisynth initially sounded difficult to me because it's a text-based way to think about video, but the way I use it is basically to a checklist. Like "Is this source interlaced? If yes, try this command" - and I got that checklist from the AMV.org technical guide, which is very useful! Plus AvsPmod comes with some useful extra tools, like a crop calculator that lets me get rid of letterboxing really easily.

4a. If I'm making a multi-source vid this is the point at which I pick a frame rate. This is not mandatory but it makes editing much easier if all my clips are in the same frame rate, so I use the AssumeFPS() command in avisynth to tell virtualdub to pretend that all my source is the same frame rate.

5. Clipping! If I'm already familiar with the source, I watch the footage with the sound off; if I'm not, I watch it with the sound on so I'll know what the heck is going on and then I'll pause and make clips as needed. If I'm doing super targeted clipping - "I hear there's a clip of someone jumping on an alligator in this tv episode" - I can zoom through in fast-forward. I clip in virtualdub, using the lagarith lossless codec to make avi files. The annoying thing about the version of vdub I use is that I have to set the codec every time.

I clip a lot, and I use long descriptive titles when I can - the characters, some scene description, and sometimes where the camera is or notable effects (shakycam, dramatic lens flare). If I already know how some of the vid is going to go I tack some song lyrics in the filename. And I put the episode number or movie title there too. So, loooooong filenames. I also clip into folders - for characters, for emotions, for anything I can think of. I just want to maximize my chances of finding it fast later when I use the search function in Premiere! As I clip, I also note stuff down in the lyrics outline I have - so my general arc note "a bunch of clone troopers being cloned" becomes "YC1 - Dooku putting Jek into cloning chamber shot over Dooku's shoulder." And I stick all the great clips I don't know what to do with at the end so I won't forget I have them. That helps me solve holes in the vid later - I'll scroll down there and go "oh hey Yoda holding a tiny stormtrooper totally fits there!"

6. Clip review! I basically vid like I write essays - read all the things, pick out the important parts, reread those parts, etc. I watch all my clips again, folder by folder, filling out my outline as I go and maybe moving stuff from one folder to another or refining file names. I play the song on repeat while I do this and often get good clip pairings by accident. I also get a lot of "wtf was I thinking why did I clip this."

7. Finally vidding! I am vidding on an old Windows XP laptop with an NVIDIA graphics card but not enough memory, so to do the actual vidding part I have to basically close everything else! That's part of why I do so much structure beforehand and why I don't start working in Premiere while I'm still doing the main clipping. If I have to reclip while I'm vidding I often have to close Premiere to do it, so I always try to figure out as much as possible early on! I vid in Premiere CS3, in the original source aspect ratio and frame rate if there's just one source, but I render the files at reduced resolution while I'm vidding so that I can actually play the video back while I'm working. (This is a Premiere CS3 thing and people using later versions don't have to worry about it thank god.) I throw clips on the timeline and often overlap them at first - two different ways this sequence could go that I'll choose between later - and when I get stuck I often jump ahead in the timeline because it's easier for me to conceptualize a bridge between A and B than to think about all the things that could follow A. I export in reduced resolution, too, both for me to watch and to send it to betas basically as soon as I have anything on the timeline, because I like feedback.

8. When I decide the project is done I still have to do the most annoying part! Which is part of why I'll dither over clips for a long time - this stage is terrible and doing it more than I have to is super terrible. I delete all my rendered files, reset my project to render in the correct resolution, and wait for Premiere to chug along. After that's done I can't view my video in Premiere itself without dropping frames, but I have to look for single-frame rendering problems - if my computer coughs while rendering, I'll get a single frame with a single pixel red line at the top or with a choppy block of failed rendering. So I have to scrub through my vid frame by frame looking for that before I can export. This is a "vidding in better quality than your computer can really handle" problem :) Then I export to lagarith lossless and end up with a large .avi file (though not as big as the people who can export uncompressed)! It is beautiful but my video player will stutter playing it - so I can't look at it until I convert it to a smaller mp4 using zarx264gui, which is a tool for making online-release quality video using the H264 codec. Yay now I can watch it! And I'd better not decide I want to change anything or I have to do this whole thing again.

9. Online distribution stuff: upload the files to mediafire for download, make the posts, upload to a streaming video site, make the srt subtitle file.

Re: Tell us about your editing workflow/process!

[frayadjacent]

Re: audio editing, I also found Audacity frustrating, and eventually I realized I could do better audio editing directly in Final Cut. It could be the same for you in Premiere? I have never done anything fancier than cuts and cross fades with my audio though.