How did you two get involved with video editing?

So R&E, how did you two get into video editing? How did it all begin?

I actually have to give a lot of credit to a friend of mine named Ric Turner.

For YEARS I had wanted to put together some videos of our 'home movies', but most of you know that home movies suck. You take tons of footage and end up finding about 5 minutes of it that was interesting.

Well, back in 1999 Ric introduced me to the world of digital editing on the Mac and Adobe Premiere. I took about 10 hours of footage that I had and edited down to about a 45 video that I gave to friends and family. I did the same thing in 2000, and then by 2001 so many people wanted copies of our videos that we decided to make them availabe to anyone who wanted them.

I got Elissa into it in 2001 and pretty much did the same thing that Ric did with me. Sat her down in front of the computer, showed her how all the tools work, and let her make a video. Some people have a 'knack' for it, some people don't. Personally I think Elissa is a little better at it than I am! She did the Tokyo Disney and the Parque Espana videos and I think both of them are AWESOME!

Anyway, that's my story...sorry it isn't more exciting!

--Robb

So Robb, do you keep the camera rolling almost all the time your at a park, just to catch those spontanious crazy moments? Or do you only turn it on when you know something is going to happen? And how much tape do you usually go through?

I used to keep the camera on a LOT. But what I realized is that the more you film, the more you make your editing job that much harder! :shock:

Over time I've learned what I want to shoot ahead of time and you get pretty good at capturing those spontaneous moments. My camera is ALWAYS in my hand, so I'm pretty good at getting it going in a pinch if I need to.

If it's a park we've never been to before, or a park we know we're only going to get to once this year, I usually shoot about 45 to 60 minutes, depending on how much the park has to offer.

Otherwise, I probably shoot about 20 minutes on average per park visit.

Keep in mind that most video segments we do are 2-5 minutes, so if I've got 20 to 40 minutes of GOOD raw footage, that's enough to make a segment out of.

--Robb

When/Where did you get the idea to edit the video to songs? Is that a technique you credit to Ric Turner also? I first discovered great application of this technique by seeing your videos. (You've created a monster!).

I pay alot of attention to your vids as they set a great standard of quality to strive for.

^ I kind of credit it to Ric, but I also credit it to the fact that most raw audio SUCKS!!!!

That's the real reason to edit it to music. Unless you have really professional sound equipment, the background noise from amusment parks, is...well, "noise" and most of the time un-equal.

Having a balanced music track in the background 'hides' a lot of the inconsistencies in the raw audio, and in instances where you have to turn off background audio, it gives you something to fall back on.

There have been a few videos lately that we did without music tracks (Journey, Limo, and Pooh onride video, Manhatten Express, etc) but it's rare.

I originally wanted to do the Journey to Atlantis segment without any audio, but the raw soundtrack was just too inconsistent and it sounded terrible!

Even the Steeplechase/Wacky Soap Box Racers video I just did sounded bad without background music. There was talking during some of the POVs, the sound was unbalanced, etc so it just made sense to give it an 'ambient' background track.

Besides....overall it's kind of fun to make 'music videos.'

Anyway, that's my answer!

--Robb

So Rob what do you actually use now for editing and stuff? Just kinda curious because Apple's Final Cut seems to be growing in popularity(real time transition and effects previews)... And I've been amazed by how easy Apple's iDVD is to use (drag and drop is great ). Every time they show it I want to get a machine with a Superdrive... Then I remember that I don't have a video camera nor anything worth shooting...

I use Premiere 6.5 on the PC.

I ditched the Mac when PC's starting becoming more and more powerful and Mac's kept becoming more and more expensive.

Since I develop games on the PC at work, it didn't make sense for me to have a Mac just for video editing, when I can now do everything I was doing on the Mac on the PC.

--Robb "Who was using the Mac in the day when there was no firewire support for the PC!" Alvey

So do you do any editing of the music itself? As in stretching or repeating certain parts?

Because the one thing I've found most challenging so far is getting a song to fit to my videos. I always find it a challenge to find a song long/short enough to fit the amount of video I have. quite often I'll find a song that I would like to use, but just can't make it fit in. If you have a situation like this how would you stretch out the song without just repeating it, or cutting it off at a weird spot?

Though I've gotten better at getting stuff to fit as I've practiced. I've only got 1 year of video under my belt. and that's just with a digi-cam(which takes surprising good video). But this year I'll be getting a camcorder.

Um Robb just out of curiosity can you cite any time when Macs became more expensive? This seems like typical PC owner Mac bashing... There is now a Mac that is less expensive than most PC's and actually has a real video card. Besides that it comes with all the software you need to make a DVD and edit your own music.

I'm not meaning to create tension just point out that really Macs have never gone up in price. They have consistently come down in price and were only stuck at 500Mhz for a year because of Motorolla. Now working with IBM the Macs are easily comparable with any PC. Hopefully we will see Apple adopting the Cell chip at some point and once again becoming the top performing personal computer.

^^ Oh, yeah, we constantly edit the songs. We've gotten better at it so you can't tell as much, but we'll extend a song if we need to. For example, the song we used for Hirikata was only 1:30, but we extended it to 2:00.

^ Gee...it sounds to me like a typical Mac user doing typical PC bashing! Seriously, I don't have a biased between one or the other. I just do more work on PCs. If we had an office full of 200 Macs, I'd be working on Macs. But the fact is we CAN'T buy Mac's that will 1. be as inexpensive as the PC's we buy, or 2. purcahse Mac's that can do what we can do on PCs.

Quite simply, if you could develop games on a Mac, more companies would be doing it. But you can't. It's a very specified type of machine that we need, and Apple doesn't make one. No "bashing" at all there, just the honest truth.

I mean, I have a G4 sitting in my office so we can test Mac versions of our games, but there isn't any development we can on them, sorry.

--Robb

Robb if you can tell me anything in my post that was a bash I will be happy to change it. The comment about video cards might be construed that way but I believe most people would agree that an Intel Extreme Graphics sharing memory isn't a real graphics card....

I can understand completely that it is what you use at work. I was just adressing the comments in your post about cost. The truth is that there is a lot to be desired in mac development circles. Documentation isn't great and is quite spotty in places. There are many programs that are only on Windows thus shutting Macs out. Doesn't mean it can't be done. Just means that many companies choose not to because they decide they can't live without X program. But I'm not even gonna argue that because if you are making a game for computers you aren't going to be targeting macs because the market is just too small for a first run.

^ I was joking.

--Robb "I do that a lot sometimes!" Alvey

Rob, fellow IT/Video guy here..Just curious, what kind of camera do you use? Are we talking a straight low to medium end consumer handicam or do you have one of those 3500-4000 dollar Sony or Canon digital jobs indie film makers today use to make their short films?

I have a question about the music, do you pre plan what song your going to use, or do you get it after you have all the b-roll footage?