Edit Foundry

Our story for this post is Minimoto.

This story was on my Editor of the Year entry last year.  It’s a natural sound feature.

I added effects to this story.  This was part of a program I produced called Colorado Getaways Extreme.  My co-producer and I liked the show to look different.  Each story was driven with effects.

Like most stories I do with effects,

• the effects are really simple and easy to create.

• I’ll also use them over and over.

I’m going to take you through these and describe how I did them.  You don’t need a high end machine to do any of these.  In fact you could duplicate what I did using Final Cut Express or Avid Express.  All you need is a simple NLE that will let you do two layer of video.

The story starts right off with effects at [:01].  This is simply two layers of the same video.

Video layer 1 is normal. Video layer 2 is the exact same shot.  I increase the size to about 200 percent and drop the opacity to about 40 percent. This gives the feeling of speed and blur. The video is slowed down by about 50 percent as well.  This helps with the blur sensation.

Right after that is single frame edits at [:02] at half opacity of a swish pan my photographer shot.

If you read Part 15. The cut as an Effect.  You know how much I like single frame edits.

• I use single frame edits whenever and where ever I can.  I love them!

• You’ll see lots of single frame edits in this story.

Next is a shot of a minimoto moving left to right at [:03].  Video layer 1 is blurred.  Video layer 2 is cropped so you just see the body of a minimoto cycle, increased to 200% and blurred as well.

after that is more single frame edits using that same swish pan.  Using a swish pan and single frame edits create that motion feel.

This is a circle wipe.  I just layed the wipe onto the video like an effect.  Then moved it to match the contour of his face.  The wheel is blown up to about 200% to cover the entire screen.

This is the exact same crop used from earlier.  I saved the effect.  I do this in a lot of stories like this.  I’ll reuse and idea over and over.

More single frame edits.  I dropped the contrast down to make the bikes look darker here.  There is also a slight blur.  Very slight.  The quick cuts are edited to the music.

Same circle wipe from earlier at [:06].  Just moved to to the other side of the screen.

Same circle wipe again at [:09].  Moved down on top of her windshield.  Another slight blur to disguise the bikes a little.

At [:10] I speed up a driver putting on his helmet.

But the next shot I slow down another driver moving her head.  I like the look of  two speed juxtaposed together.

This is a cool wheel shot.  I like editing when movement has already started.

This isn’t an effect I created in the edit bay.  I field produced this story.  I had my photographer shoot with a forced perspective.  So as not to give away the true size of the minimotos. A good idea when doing a story when you want to use foreground but don’t want to give away all the story.

At [:11] Coming out of that interview above I have the video at 200% and then quickly resize it to normal.  All of these color effects I use I’m just playing with the contrast.  This is really simple to duplicate. In Final Cut use Color Correction. Drop your blacks down, increase the mids and highlights.  In Avid you can use Color Correction or just the color effect to duplicate this.

Another forced perspective.  I love these kinds of shots.

I like to using shot when photographer are zooming in or out of moving to another shot.  This is an example at [:15].  My photographer was zooming in to get the shot.  I used it.

• I like using photographer mistakes or the moments before they set up for great shots.

This is two layers of the same video at [:23].  Layer 2 opacity is dropped.  And I doing a resize starting big and pulling back to 100%.  In this same sequence is single frame edits using the same swish pan I’ve been using.  I’m also using the same color effect from above.

Reiterating what I said before.

• All my effects are really simple

• I use the same effects over and over in  stories.

At [:25] Resize, single frame edits, playing with the opacity, using color correction or color effect and some cropping and that is most of the effects I use.

This theme of using the same effects continues throughout the story.

Those simple things are all you need to create effects like these.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 7:40 pm Filed under Feature Editing and. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.