This free video tutorial will help you learn to edit video using Final Cut Express, or any software package really.  I am demonstrating on Final Cut Express, but so much of what I show is fairly universal, no matter what program you are using.

If you are new to video editing, and particularly if you are interested in Final Cut Express or Final Cut Pro, watching this ten-minute tutorial will show you how the programs are laid out and how they work.

Final Cut Express is an inexpensive option for anyone wanting to dive into professional-level editing without spending much.  FCE is now $199, compared to Final Cut Studio which is $999.

If you desire a high level of control over all the details of your video, then a program like Final Cut Express is what you want.  It’s got a fairly steep learning curve, but once you get the basics down, it’s not that hard at all. In fact, I find it a lot of fun and a very creative outlet.

I cover all the basics in this video.   I’m in the middle of editing a second tutorial on Express that will go into more detail on how you actually manipulate and change images.

Final Cut Express and its big brother Final Cut Pro are really not that different.  On a creative level, Express can do about 95% of what pro can do.  The single biggest difference in the two programs in what they come bundled with and how many file formats they work with.  Pro works with more professional formats that Express can’t handle.

Unless you are working in a professional situation, that probably won’t be an issue since Express takes the majority of common formats and Apple has already worked AVCHD into Express’ capabilities.

Final Cut Express is a great program for editing video and this free tutorial will get you started with it.  But like I already said, even if FCE is not your program of choice, this tutorial will teach you a lot about editing in general.

Here is a second, more advanced tutorial on FCE. It covers altering video through the motion tab and adding filters. Watch this after you view the first one that covers the basics.

Thanks for reading VPT

Lorraine Grula

Are you always losing your car keys; or do you know precisely where they are?  Needless to say, hunting for lost keys is a frustrating waste of time.  So is hunting for lost video files while you are editing video.

To avoid that problem, it helps to know how your program creates and stores files.  Do yourself a big favor and develop a good file management system and stay organized right from the very beginning.

An external hard drive will give you plenty of room for large media file storage.

File management when it comes to video editing is one of the basics that rarely gets talked about. Probably because it’s kind of boring, but it’s so critical let’s risk a bit of yawning.

The first thing you should do when you begin a video editing project is launch your application and create a brand new project.  Immediately do a “save as” of your empty project.   Give it a logical name that will be easy to recognize or remember.  Save it in a specific place that you have set aside for video projects.  Set yourself a clear pathway of folders that is logical so you will not want to move them later.  Some programs do this for you by default others need to be told.

It is especially important to have someplace specific on your computer where you put all your big media files.  When you capture video or audio on your computer, you need to know where it is going so you can locate it later.  As you capture, one of the decisions you make is to tell the computer where you want it saved.  Moving media files after you begin editing can create huge headaches so put it in a good place right off the top.

Let’s get some terminology down before we go any further.  In video editing, there are various types of files:

• Media Files: All video and audio clips you use in your project.
• Project files: Created by your editing program while you edit.
• Sharing files: For your finished video.

Video Files:  Project Files vs. Media Files vs. Sharing Files, What’s the Difference?

Let me explain the difference between media files, project files and sharing files. Project files are the skeleton of a video editing project.   The media files cover the skeleton so to speak.  The sharing file is what you actually upload to the web or duplicate on disc.

Media files are your actual clips of video or audio.  If you shoot ten minutes of video of at the beach then capture it into your computer, it becomes a video clip media file.  If you record some narration, it becomes an audio clip media file.  Media files are huge.  Video files are substantially larger than audio files but both need plenty of room.

The project files are what your edit program creates to tell itself all the critical information about the project settings and all of the edit decisions you make.   Project files are created and read by the program you are using.  No other program will be able to read these files.  Project files are tiny compared to media files.

Project files contain information about where the media files you are working with are located.  Project files also tell the program how you want those media files manipulated and presented, but they do not contain the media files themselves, just notes on those media files.  The project files can be thought of as a list of detailed information about where your media is stored and what to do with it so that it’s edited in the way you want.

When you save your project, you are saving all your editing decisions, the media files were saved when you captured.  Now this is important….NONE OF YOUR ORIGINAL MEDIA FILES ARE ACTUALLY ALTERED BY ANYTHING YOU EDIT.  Those media files remain exactly as they were when you captured them.  This is called “non-destructive editing,” and it is a good thing.   You ALWAYS want to keep your original video and audio.

Your editing program and all of its project files manipulate the media files and create new media files if need be.  That is what rendering is all about.  When your video editing program renders, it is creating a brand new media file that contains all the video, audio, graphics and special effects you just edited together.  The new media file is called a render file and will be located in a render folder by default.

A sharing file is the video file you create at the very end of an editing project.  Once you have everything the way you want it, you convert it all into one file that can easily be read by any one of the common video players.  Remember, project files can only be read by whatever program created them but your final video needs to be read by anybody with a computer so sharing files are used for that.  These are the common file formats you hear about like .wmv, .mov, .flv, MPEG4, and so forth.

Sharing files are for sharing your final video, but what if you want to share your project with another video editor?  If you want them to have access to your project so they can work on it on their computer, you will have to give them not only the project files but all the media files too.   If you just gave them the project files, it would just be the bare bones skeleton and they could not do anything with it.

If you want to learn the meaning of “panic” move your media files in the middle of a big video editing project and watch your project files get confused.  The project file contains the path to locate your media and if that changes, then the program has no idea where to fetch it.

Your video application will send you some kind of warning message, maybe a big red X to let you know it’s missing the media it needs.  If you know where it has been moved, reconnecting is simple.  But if you moved them without a thought to a logical file management system, then it is a lot like hunting for your lost car keys you laid down at 2 a.m. without thinking!

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips

Lorraine Grula

If you want to learn how to edit your own videos, then watch this free tutorial demonstrating Windows Movie Maker. 

WMM is similar to most other programs so no matter what program you use, this tutorial will help you.

Video editing is not terribly difficult once you learn how.  But as with anything, if you do not know what you are doing, then it can be terribly confusing.  I personally do not think video editing is intuitive at all and beginners often get so frustrated they give up.  In order to avoid that, I made this free tutorial that clearly explains the basics.

If you get the basics down, the rest comes more easily.  First, you need to fully understand the layout of a video edit program.  The user interface of video editing software is more detailed than any other genre of programs and that really confuses beginners.  This video editing lesson shows you exactly what the multiple windows do and how they are all used together in the process of video editing.

This video tutorial will show you all the basics you need to know in order to use Windows Movie Maker and other, similar programs.    Different editing programs share many similarities so even if you do not use WMM, you can learn a lot by watching this eight minute tutorial.

Thanks and Happy Editing!

Lorraine Grula

Video Editing Software Basics: Watch this Free Tutorial

Video editing software has a fairly high learning curve, but if you master one program, you will probably find others easier to learn since most edit programs have similar layouts.

Just like cars all have the same basic features: a steering wheel, brakes and an accelerator; video editing programs also have similar features and layouts.

In this free video editing tutorial, I demonstrate the similarities between three programs: Sony Vegas, Camtasia Studio, and Windows Movie Maker.  Although turned around a bit, all three programs have essentially the same basic user interface.

The user interface with any video editing program consists of multiple windows that all function independently yet work together. No other genre of software has so much going on in so many windows at once.   That confuses a lot of people.

Why are there so many windows?

One way you can think of it is to remember that before computers, it took at least five to fifteen different components to edit video.  Once computers came along, all those different machines were duplicated inside the editing software, but each one required its own window.  You can see what I mean in the two pictures below.  One is an old analogue edit system and the other is  WMM with four separate windows open.

This is an analogue video editing system I bought in 1986. This was actually a very small system that could not do a whole lot. A larger system would have had twice this many components.

Windows Movie Maker 4-Window Interface

Once you learn what all the windows do, how they function apart yet together, video editing will make a lot more sense. If you do not understand this basic concept, then video editing will befuddle you to no end.

No matter what video editing software you wish to use, this free editing tutorial from Video Production Tips will help you learn how to use the program.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips

Lorraine Grula

One of the most common questions I get is, “What is the best FREE video editing software?”

People want to edit their video on the cheap!  Fortunately we can do that these days.  Read on for advice on which free video programs are high enough quality to be a bargain at twice the price.

Windows Movie Maker and iMove are the two most common “free” programs.  They come pre-loaded if you buy either a new Mac or PC.  If you want to buy iMovie without the computer, it’s part of a suite of programs (iLife) that sells for around 70 bucks.  That’s not free of course, but we count it as free when it comes preloaded.

Movie Maker is not for sale, but I have heard rumblings that Microsoft is going to beef it up and offer it for sale.

At this point in time, iMovie is LOTS better IMHO.   But WMM is a decent little program.  If that’s what you have easy access to, it will do the basics.  In comparison to others it’s fairly limited.  You can NOT do green screen with it for example.

The video editing market is full of dozens of additional free video editing programs.  Are they any good?  Yes, some of them are fantastic.  Others are unstable and difficult to use and this list will help you steer clear of them!

Listed below is a collection of my top 6 free editing programs that you can download and begin using right now.  Click on the title to each one to be taken to its download page.  Many of the sites feature more free software than just the one program I have mentioned.  You can also get free conversion software and other helpful programs.

1.  TABZS4

–> TABZS4 is a free video editing and compositing tool from Zwei-Stein. It uses a timeline, like most all video editing programs.  It has more functionality than Windows Movie Maker as you can apply filters for special effects lie “Green Screen’ (or Chroma key), distortions and color manipulations.

2.   Wax -

Another free tool with fairly powerful editing and compositing abilities. This is actually quite a flexible tool along the same lines as Blender but isn’t as complicated as Blender so it’s easier to learn. Wax can be used as a stand-alone editor but can also be used as a plug-in to larger video editing tools such as Vegas and Adobe Premier.

3.   Video Spin -

Video Spin is the free video editing tool from Avid, which acquired Pinnacle. Avid is truly a long time industry leader in making editing software.  In the professional world, their products are considered superior and have been for a very long time.  Video Spin is one of the more promising free video editing tools on the market because it comes from Avid.  The software is actually a low functional version of Pinnacle Studio that has been rebranded and given away.

4.  Avidemux -

One of the more stable and complete free tools available. Apart form being able to cut and handle video it can apply various filters for special effects.  Of the programs on this list, this one is probably the most complete and stable.

It also exports to quite a few different formats such as DVD, MPEG2.  One drawback is that it does not support multiple audio tracks.  Certainly it is much less functional than a big package such as Adobe Premier, but whadda ya want for nothing?

5.  Blender -

Blender is a powerful, multi-use editing/compositing and modeling tool. It’s one of the best freebies on the market.     This tool that will allow you to edit, create 3D graphics, add effects, manage your sound and render out your movies.  That’s more than most free programs can handle.

The problem with Blender is that it’s complex and not easy to learn. Honestly, this is the nature of the beast though.  What makes video editing complicated is when it can do so much neat stuff!  So if you want to be able to wow the world with awesome digital editing and do not mind a steep learning curve, go for blender!

6.  Hyperengine-Av

This is one video editing program that breaks the mold a bit.  They call it “trackless editing” and it works on a Mac. It does away with the multi-track time line concept and replaces it with a trackless set-up. This means that things like audio and video, transitions and effects can be placed randomly across the timeline without being stuck on a particular track in the timelines. It makes for a different-looking editing layout!

Now one word of caution:  If what you want to do is complicated, you may need more than one software program to create your final vision.   It is quite common to import graphics, effects or animations made in another program.  It’s also common to need another program for file conversion, either into or out of your edit program.  The more advanced the program, the more likely it is to cover all functions.

That said, don’t be fooled by the fact that some of these are free – they are good pieces of software.  To get this kind of digital editing power for free is really quite remarkable.

Especially if you are new to video editing, take a look at these free options.   You can gain tremendous experience and learn a lot about video editing without ever going beyond the free tools on this list!

Who said video making was expensive?

I hope these free video editing tools will help you.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips

Lorraine Grula

If you want to make videos frequently, setting up a small video studio might be the most cost effective way to go about it.

Making video in a studio is easier, faster, and therefore a lot less expensive than making video using field production method, which by definition uses only one camera.

Not only would a studio be set-up be more permanent, and therefore you do not have to take the time to set-up and tear down every time you use it, but studio production is edited live, on-the-fly, which saves HOURS of post-production editing time.

How would you go about setting up a simple video studio?

Here is some advice and a list of the basic equipment you would need.

A typical TV studio has three cameras on tripods with wheels for easy maneuverability.   The wheels are part of a tripod stand known as a dolly.  With a good director and decent camera operators, three cameras could be made to look like one-hundred, so you do not really need more than three.

All three of the cameras are then hooked into a piece of equipment known as a video switcher.  (Today you can get computers that operate like video switchers, but for the purpose of this article, I will just use the term video switcher.)

The video switcher is used to edit your production live and this is the reason why studio production is so much faster than field production.  Post production editing is extremely time consuming.  Depending on the complexity, an hour-long program could easily take ten to even one-hundred hours to edit.   At a professional level, edit time is estimated at one hour per finished MINUTE.

An hour-long studio produced program on the other hand is finished and ready to go at the end of the hour-long taping session.

Any and all equipment that creates a visual element is hooked into the switcher, not just the cameras.   A graphics generator, a video tape machine or DVD player, a special effects generator.  The director then adds and removes whatever video elements he wants, when he wants, using the switcher.  Think of it as functioning like a router.

A DVD player or videotape player is used to run video clips during the show.  Next time you are watching a football game, realize that all the player profiles and so forth are pre-edited videos being played on a bank of machines that are fed into the switcher.  Or, when you are watching the news and they switch from the anchor person to a video of the crime scene, that crime scene video is also a pre-edited video being played on a separate player.

Audio is handled the same way with it’s own switcher, which is usually called an audio mixer.  All microphones, all music/sound effects generators, all audio sources of any kind are plugged into the audio mixer.  The audio engineer mixes, adds and removes whichever audio source is appropriate.

close up of video switcher

The output of both the video switcher and the audio mixer are then plugged into whatever device you are using to record your finished show.

Each video source also needs its own monitor.  If you’ve ever noticed the shots of the control room during a news show there is an entire wall of monitors.  That’s not just there for show.  The director needs to know exactly what the video source looks like before he punches it up and the only way to do that is for each source of video to have its own monitor.

A video studio usually has lights mounted on the ceiling, hanging off a metal grid.  If you are setting up in a house this might not be feasible.  However you can get small, simple ceiling mounts that do not require a grid.  Or you can use lights on a stand, same as you would out in the field.

The control room should be as sound-proof as possible.  The people working in the control room need to have the freedom to talk to each other without being picked up on the microphones being used in the studio.

A head-set system is  used for the crew to communicate.  Everybody wears one.  This way, the folks in the control room can speak to the crew in the studio without interfering with the audio being recorded.  The studio crew usually has to come up with some kind of “puff code” or “tap code” so they can answer back without actually saying anything.

In summary, here is a list of the standard equipment needed for a TV production studio:

• Multiple cameras
• Tripods with dollys for each camera
• Multiple microphones
• Video switcher
• Audio switcher
• Lights
• Light mounts
• CD player
• DVD player (or videotape player)
• Graphics generator (AKA titler)
• Cables
• Head set communication system
• Monitors for each video source

Once you have your studio set up, you can crank out polished, professional looking videos quite easily.  If you are planning on making LOTS of videos, going to the trouble and expense of setting up a studio can pay off in the long run.

For more information on this subject, here is another blog post.  The post itself is quite similar, but there are tons of comments on that post which provide additional insight.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips

Lorraine Grula

Learn more about video editing with instructions on how I edited this gorgeous video celebrating America the Beautiful.

How I Made this Video

I love making videos like this one celebrating America the Beautiful.  More importantly, almost everyone likes watching videos like this.  Gorgeous visuals and quality music blended together with a peaceful, natural ease.

If you added some narration, you could turn this video into a message on many subjects other than the obvious:  Celebrating the Fourth of July in the United States.  Add some narration with a subtle sales message using a theme of solidarity and strength for your online audience, no matter what niche you are in.

To make this video, I gathered all the elements I needed into a new editing project in Final Cut.  I knew EXACTLY what kind of video I wanted to make, so it was just a matter of hunting for all the individual elements and then putting them together.

LAY DOWN A BACKGROUND

I first took a full screen, slowly waving flag animation and laid it down on video line one for the background.  I slowed it down further than it already was, bringing it down to about 50% speed.  To access speed in final cut, highlight the clip and control/click to bring up a menu for several attributes including speed.   The flag stays constant throughout the video so to make the clip long enough, I had to loop the animation several times.  It really did not loop well, I was a tad disappointed.  There was a pretty bad shadow jump but I lived with it.  Did you notice?  Probably not.  One in 10,000 people would probably notice a detail that small so I decided it was not worth the time and effort it would take to dump the clip and finding another one.

As I often do with background clips, I took the flag out of focus with a gausian blur filter.  Doing this makes the video you stack on top of it pop-out better.  The flag is a background, and it needs to be unobtrusive as it adds to the overall affect.

I then got a shot of the Statue of Liberty and put it on video line #2 in my timeline.  I matted out the background, which was mostly blue sky, with an 8-point garbage matt filter.  I softened the edges of it quite a bit, so some sky still shows around her.  The blue sky looks pretty on top of the flag.

DIGITAL, KEYFRAME ZOOM-IN

Then I keyframed the zoom-in to Lady Liberty’s face.    The original shot was just a static wide shot.  I wanted a zoom in on her face so I did it digitally with keyframes.  To do this, you put a keyframe at the beginning of the shot.  Then you add another keyframe at the point where you want the movement to stop.  On the first keyframe, you give the clip one size attribute and on the second keyframe, you give it another, closer-in size attribute. To zoom in on the face and get it centered correctly, it was also necessary for me to keyframe the center point of the 8-point garbage matt.    An 8-point garbage matt is a filter where you select 8 points within the clip to design the shape of the matt.  You use this for odd-shaped objects.

I brought the opacity (transparency) down of the clip just a touch so you could see the flag waving thru her face.  The Statue of Liberty also stays all the way through the video and I wanted it to blend well with the flag, so I made her semi-transparent, and gave her an 80% opacity.   Fiddling with the opacity of clips is one of the easiest ways to give a video an artistic touch.

ROYALTY FREE MUSIC IS ALWAYS BEST

The music is a one-minute royalty free clip of America the Beautiful.  With a classic song like that, the song itself is in the public domain but the performance is usually not.  It would not be lawful for me to take a performance by a popular artist singing America the Beautiful and use it with my video.  Since it is a public domain song, I could sing and record it but TRUST ME, no one with ears wants to listen to me sing.  So I stick with a royalty free clip.

FILL IN THE VIDEO

Now, the rest of the edit job consisted of filling in the rest of the timeline with visual images that flowed together nicely, and giving the overall piece a soothing cadence.

I gathered up lots of royalty free video clips I already own and have stored on my computer.  Any shot the could be labeled “Americana” I selected and put into the bin.  City skylines, national parks, gorgeous scenery.  I drug the clips into my bin in my final cut project.

I spent the next few hours putting them on top of  the flag.  I adjusted the size, gave nice, soft edges for the borders, added drop shadows.   Some clips looked better if I cut them out with an oval matte.  The oval matt is found in “filters.”    I adjusted the position of the clips with keyframing.  I made the clips move in from outside of the frame using key framing.  I added keyframe to the clips and adjusted the center position to make them move into the frame and snuggle close to Lady Liberty.

DISSOLVES ARE GREAT EDITING TRANSITIONS

I mix the shots in and out using good, old-fashioned dissolves and fades.  Nothing beats a dissolve or fade.  (A dissolve is where one shot fades out and another fades in.  A fade is where there is only one shot, and it fades in from nothingness.   This is actually an adjustment to the opacity of the shot.)

I adjusted the speed of many of the dissolves here to make the pace a bit slower and to make it all blend more smoothly.  The default dissolve is 1 second, or 30-frames.   I like to slow that down to 2 or 3 seconds for a more peaceful feeling.  You do this by double clicking on the dissolve icon once it is in the timeline.  this pouts it back into your viewer window.  From the viewer window, you can adjust the length of the dissolve.

Once I am done tweaking my keyframes and getting the movement speeds to fit the moment, I pronounce in done.

Finis!

Last step is to convert the video into a sharing format for upload to the web.  I export the timeline as an MPEG4 for upload to the internet. MPEG4 is one of my favorites because it looks good but has a small file size.  The video host I use, veeple, converts it to flash.  Veeple gives me some embed code which I copy/paste into the blog so you can see the video.

And there you have it folks!  Another exciting video editing journey with Lorraine Grula, Internet Video Gal.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips!