The GAF Video and Filmmaking Thread

I hate to do this, but bump? I really would like some feedback before xmas if anyone has any suggestions, thanks!
 
kai3345 said:
Ok, fuck Movie Maker 7.

Movie Maker XP may not have been top of the line, but at least it was fucking useable.

Anyone know of any good free video editors? just looking to do the basics of cutting and pasting clips and adding music, preferably one that works with HD video.
Click to expand...

I've got access to Adobe Premiere, but when I want to do something quick and I'm not too bothered about HD I use Pinnacle VideoSpin (videospin.com)

You'll need to get the SpinPack video codecs to output to various formats, but its worth it in my view. *Really* good software. Nice and stable, renders effects / transitions quickly.
 
kai3345 said:
Ok, fuck Movie Maker 7.

Movie Maker XP may not have been top of the line, but at least it was fucking useable.

Anyone know of any good free video editors? just looking to do the basics of cutting and pasting clips and adding music, preferably one that works with HD video.
Click to expand...
I saw a few weeks ago that Lightworks had finally gone live with their initial release of the software they intend to eventually make fully open source. I haven't had the chance to spend any time with it, but I had a business acquaintance 6-7 years ago that swore by the non-open version of this. He said it had a slightly different paradigm than Premier or Avid, but once you got used to it, it was pretty efficient.

VideoSpin from Pinnacle looks like something else that might be up your alley, especially for light usage like you indicate.

Battersea Power Station said:
I use a Mac for editing, and have no experience with this, but if you're tolerant of potential crashes, you can try the early version of the VideoLan Movie Creator, from the guys that make VLC Player:

http://trac.videolan.org/vlmc/wiki/Downloads

If you do end up trying it, let me know how it is.
Click to expand...
I'll let you know since I've tried to use it in a couple of emergency "oh shit, this computer doesn't have a video editor on it" situations.

It sucks. Buggy and crashy and when I was able to output anything, it didn't seem to resemble anything like what I inputted. Some of that may be user error, I don't do this for a living, but it crashed all the time doing basic stuff like navigating the file system to input a clip. Keep in mind that I say this as a huge VLC fan. I expect this to eventually be worthwhile, but for now, I'd avoid.
 
peterb0y said:
Gaf, what is the absolute best camera one can get for 4k-ish or less?

i was looking at this:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/587210-REG/Panasonic_AG_HPX170_P2HD_Solid_State_Camcorder.html

But I'm open to options; I care a lot about video quality. Thanks!
Click to expand...

I own one of those and love it. Just note that it's not all that great at low light situations, which unless you're planning to use it to shoot in night clubs or something shouldn't be a problem, and even then there are workarounds.

If you can afford it, I'd say get it. Video quality is siiiick. As far as P2 cards go, I'd say just grab them on Ebay for the cheap, as they are pretty damn expensive.
 
Hey all, I'm thinking about buying a DSLR to bolster our shoots (currently we just have an HV40). While I was considering the Canon 60D, it's baseline price is a bit much, considering I'd also have to buy a lens or two, so I'm thinking about going with the Rebel T2i.

However, I'm a DSLR virgin. I know nothing about choosing the correct lens. Any guide out there that gives a breakdown of "typical" choices for lenses, and why?
 
Mr. Snrub said:
Hey all, I'm thinking about buying a DSLR to bolster our shoots (currently we just have an HV40). While I was considering the Canon 60D, it's baseline price is a bit much, considering I'd also have to buy a lens or two, so I'm thinking about going with the Rebel T2i.

However, I'm a DSLR virgin. I know nothing about choosing the correct lens. Any guide out there that gives a breakdown of "typical" choices for lenses, and why?
Click to expand...

I'm in the same position and would aslo appreciate any help.
 
I recently purchased a t2i and some lenses, nd filters, viewfinder........but now I need some ideas on how to capture good to decent sound.

I'd rather find something cheaper than not as I've spent so much already but Im willing to look at anything good. Any ideas?
 
Mr. Snrub said:
Hey all, I'm thinking about buying a DSLR to bolster our shoots (currently we just have an HV40). While I was considering the Canon 60D, it's baseline price is a bit much, considering I'd also have to buy a lens or two, so I'm thinking about going with the Rebel T2i.

However, I'm a DSLR virgin. I know nothing about choosing the correct lens. Any guide out there that gives a breakdown of "typical" choices for lenses, and why?
Click to expand...



http://ninofilm.net/blog/2010/03/01/pimp-t2i-550d-part1/


I found this page/site helpful :-)
 
I know this is probably frowned upon, especially on GAF, but my friend said he had some old Sony Vegas Pro 9.0 discs I could have, as he's upgraded to 10.0.

Does 9.0 edit in HD?
 
So the video in my preview tab is playing really choppy, but I'm able to play HD videos on YouTube and stuff just fine.
 
kai3345 said:
I know this is probably frowned upon, especially on GAF, but my friend said he had some old Sony Vegas Pro 9.0 discs I could have, as he's upgraded to 10.0.
Click to expand...

is it? i'm all about doing what you need to do to get things done, especially if you're a student. we used to edit on AVID at my job... aside from me absolutely hating the program, any time we'd get new hires or interns, the learning curve was always really steep.

i've argued that one of the biggest problems AVID has is that you can't just download it and go, you have to have the stupid dongle. premiere/vegas and maybe even finnal cut, are easy to pirate and learn how to make little films or other projects in. you don't necessarily need a class or "on the job" experience to learn it.

i say good for you if you if you can get it.

as far as the video being choppy in your preview window, a good idea to help it run is to change the viewing quality. it won't do anything to the quality of the actual project, it'll just make it easier for your computer to process it. it should be as easy as right-clicking the preview window, there should be an option. if not, google is your friend.

the video going through your player is a different beast than a simple youtube video, there's a lot more going on behind the scenes.
 
I think the problem is with NvIdia Optimus. Its not activating the Nvidia GPU even though i Put Vegas on the white list.

Anyone know if there is a way to force the Nvidia GPU to run on Optimus computers? Specifically the Alienware M11xR2?
 
"Cosam" by Pandametric [SD Cut #1]

A music video we made for a song my friend composed, he makes a cameo as the street-light-humping guy in the night scene.

As you can tell from this thread and the Gamer laptop thread, Vegas has been giving me a bunch of trouble when I try to edit in HD.

So I jsut decided to edit the thing in SD, resulting in god-awful motion blur and the video looking like crap :(

Also my text at the beginning blurs no matter what I do.

Anyway, I'm going to try and slog through my super slow HD-preview framerate and try to replicate these cuts in HD.
 
kai3345 said:
"Cosam" by Pandametric [SD Cut #1]

A music video we made for a song my friend composed, he makes a cameo as the street-light-humping guy in the night scene.

As you can tell from this thread and the Gamer laptop thread, Vegas has been giving me a bunch of trouble when I try to edit in HD.

So I jsut decided to edit the thing in SD, resulting in god-awful motion blur and the video looking like crap :(

Also my text at the beginning blurs no matter what I do.

Anyway, I'm going to try and slog through my super slow HD-preview framerate and try to replicate these cuts in HD.
Click to expand...


LOL, loved it. I just wish you guys would have done that gorilla style and danced in front of a totally unprepared crowd like at a bus stop or something... :)

What verison of Vegas? What format was the video recorded on? What were the project settings before you tried to rendered it?
 
MetalAlien said:
LOL, loved it. I just wish you guys would have done that gorilla style and danced in front of a totally unprepared crowd like at a bus stop or something... :)

What verison of Vegas? What format was the video recorded on? What were the project settings before you tried to rendered it?
Click to expand...
I suggested that but my friends didn't want to :(

But we live in the suburbs, so there isn't really a place that's constantly busy like a bus stop or anything

Edit: Its Vegas 9.0, its been everything from the default setting to the lowest it can go, and I constatly get sub 10 fps.

The video was recorded in 1080p i'm pretty sure, and then I rendered the final product it to 720p

I did a rough cut and that ran smooth after I rendered it at 720p. It was just I needed to do more precise cuts and I couldn't do that with 1080, so I converted it to SD and then upscaled it to 720p.

Is there any way to convert 1080p to 720p short of placing all of the files into vegas and rendering them as 720p?
 
i guess i'm ot completely sure what you're asking, but in premiere i just make a 720 timeline, import 1080 footage, scale it down to fit the frame size, then edit.

i did a similar thing for this video. shot it at 720 60fps, scaled it down to fit a standard def timeline. doing so allowed me to add digital zooms/tilts/pans because i had so much space to deal with on the full-res version. does that make sense?
 
What kind of camera do you have? I have vegas pro 8.1. I can edit 1080p 35mbps XDcam EX codec just fine but if I try to edit 16mbps 1080i AVCHD it chugs along at half the frame rate. I solved the problem by recording at a lower bitrate. At 9mbps AVCHD it is easier to deal with and it still looks nice.
 
I don't know if I've showed you guys these yet, but I consider these two to be the best movies my friends and I have ever made.

The first one is Chuckles: The Truth
This one is about the little brother of my friend, who decided to key my car after I told him "Lol your xbox broke" on Facebook. His xbox is his favorite thing to him, next to his laptop, as all he ever does is play Oblivion and watch 30 Rock reruns on Hulu, simultaneously I might add.

This is obviously a fictionalized version, but everything in the phone conversation was real.

We then decided to make a sequel after the older one (ethan) brought over a friend to play Halo, but his brother wouldn't let them.

Chuckles and Chaltain: The Unholy Way
 
Hey ya'll. Put together a new video. It's the first vid on my YouTube page:

http://www.youtube.com/sciulli999

I messed around with clip speed and focusing on this video. Lately I've been doing little exercise videos like this working on editing, camera movement, sound, etc. A few shots in the video are with my new Canon 135L, stunning lens!

This video was a pain in the ass to export. I think Premiere Pro CS5 has some issues exporting clips that are sped up. Some of the stuff in the video is set at 1000% speed.
 
Count Dookkake said:
Any tips on building the cheapest field audio package with acceptable results?
Click to expand...

I haven't kept up on if there is anything newer/better out, but I have the Zoom H4N and it's pretty awesome. Still learning how to use it, and I don't have any external mics for it yet, but it's provided very nice results w/ the built in mics. It has XLR inputs, ton of options for audio quality. I believe the H4N is around $300.

I'm kind of a weirdo though and make abstract/weird vids (as seen above), so I haven't recorded dialouge with it yet, but I intend to very soon on a future project.

I read a lot of people also like Rode video mics.
 
Just checked this out at the library:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/094118899X/?tag=neogaf0e-20

cut-by-cut-shadow2.gif


Has pretty much a 5 star review at Amazon. I realized that even though I've edited little videos and what not since I've been in like 4th grade, I've never taken a class or read a book on editing technique.
 
Any reccomendations for a budget HD camera for film making? Something under $500 preferably...

I was looking at the Canon HG10 and was pretty excited about it, until I read it is 3 years old... Still looking though.
 
Calamachino said:
Any reccomendations for a budget HD camera for film making? Something under $500 preferably...

I was looking at the Canon HG10 and was pretty excited about it, until I read it is 3 years old... Still looking though.
Click to expand...
I use the SONY HDR XR- 150

Meant really as a camera for home movies in HD and stuff, but its what I make my movies with.

Its around $600 depending on what model you goet
 
Calamachino said:
Any reccomendations for a budget HD camera for film making? Something under $500 preferably...

I was looking at the Canon HG10 and was pretty excited about it, until I read it is 3 years old... Still looking though.
Click to expand...

what does the age have to do with anything? you're asking for something at a really low price given how much newly released products cost. if you like the camera, and it's in your price range, then make it happen. otherwise, save up money and get something else.
 
brerwolfe said:
what does the age have to do with anything? you're asking for something at a really low price given how much newly released products cost. if you like the camera, and it's in your price range, then make it happen. otherwise, save up money and get something else.
Click to expand...

You make a valid point.
 
Thanks to those who gave suggestions for info on the T2i/DSLR's. I got my T2i and love it, but glad I have the HV40 to fall back on for certain shots.

My next step is picking a non-linear editing program and something for effects...I'm leaning toward Adobe Premiere and After Effects. But has anyone used Edius? Is there a resource that has a good comparison between the major products/programs?
 
Calamachino said:
Any reccomendations for a budget HD camera for film making? Something under $500 preferably...
Click to expand...

Great! There are a good amount of small camcorders that can get you started. The easiest way is too look at review sites and put in "below x" amount to give you an idea of what is available. I like the site trusted reviews (http://www.trustedreviews.com/camcorders/).

What I find to be the most important thing when looking at camcorders is what the footage looks like. Start browsing Vimeo using camcorder names to locate videos and see what people have shot. Then you start to get a good idea of what the color of the camcorder is like (I like the look of the panasonic hmc 150 and samsung hmx r10 personally).

Another thing to keep an eye out for is how you want to use the camcorder. Will you want a microphone port? Is digital image stabilization sufficient or do you need optical image stabilization? Another thing, how does the camcorder feel? Walking into a big (or little) box store and getting your hands on some camcorders can be helpful to see if you want a large or small body.

To save you a bit of time, you don't need to get an old camcorder just because it fits your price range (remember, look at the footage it produces). There are plenty of camcorders that have come out in the past year that fit the bill of being under $500 and of decent quality, here are some examples:

samsung hmx r10
I just found out about this camcorder this evening and it is pretty impressive for a small camcorder. The color is nice and has some fun modes (slo-mo and time lapse). Here are some links for research:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/camcorders/review/2010/05/17/Samsung-HMX-R10/p1
http://www.vimeo.com/12541199
http://www.vimeo.com/15599309

canon hf r10
Canon does quality work. They are one of the few companies that still put a microphone and headphone jack on their low end camcorders (I think the sony xr 150 has one...but that is not the point). There are some people who like the "color" that canon camcorders have. This is where it comes down to personal opinion, and what colors you like. As before, here are some links:
http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-camcorders/canon-vixia-hf-r10/4505-6500_7-33949022.html
http://www.digitalcamera-hq.com/camcorders/products/canon-vixia-hf-r10
http://www.vimeo.com/15113251
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BYflVNUSWo
 
GAF, I need your help. I recently shot a video on a Canon 5D Mark II@1080 24p. Log and transferred the footage in FCP so it's 422 Pro Res. Now I finished my edit and want to export to the highest quality on YouTube? Any suggestions on how to do this? I did a mp4 conversion and it looked highly compressed. Any help would be appreciated.
 
Sup film bros? Sorry I've been so in and out, I want to add more to discussion in my current favorite thread on the GAF.

Anyway . .

SCOUNDRELS update: Reshoots are done, editing is almost locked down and it's amazing to see everything finally come together. It's clocking it at an hour and twenty minutes so far and with the rest getting edited I might have a fucking 90 minute film to my name. That's . . surreal.

Anyway, a friend of mine and I also have locked down my next big project: putting on a four band tour for about three weeks and making a documentary of it. Very exciting times.

And now: a teaser for the movie. Tell me what you think!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKR9U7Edmno
 
ManiacMX said:
GAF, I need your help. I recently shot a video on a Canon 5D Mark II@1080 24p. Log and transferred the footage in FCP so it's 422 Pro Res. Now I finished my edit and want to export to the highest quality on YouTube? Any suggestions on how to do this? I did a mp4 conversion and it looked highly compressed. Any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
This is a decent tutorial video on how to encode it with Apple's Compressor for Youtube/Vimeo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vQM1rjY_ng&annotation_id=annotation_634703&feature=iv

If you've got more questions ask and I'll try to answer them here or through PM.
 
Fidelis Hodie said:
SCOUNDRELS update: Reshoots are done, editing is almost locked down and it's amazing to see everything finally come together. It's clocking it at an hour and twenty minutes so far and with the rest getting edited I might have a fucking 90 minute film to my name. That's . . surreal.
Click to expand...

Congratulations! :)

And the teaser was fantastic! You have excellent style.
 
Futureman said:
I haven't kept up on if there is anything newer/better out, but I have the Zoom H4N and it's pretty awesome. Still learning how to use it, and I don't have any external mics for it yet, but it's provided very nice results w/ the built in mics. It has XLR inputs, ton of options for audio quality. I believe the H4N is around $300.

I'm kind of a weirdo though and make abstract/weird vids (as seen above), so I haven't recorded dialouge with it yet, but I intend to very soon on a future project.

I read a lot of people also like Rode video mics.
Click to expand...


rode mics are decent if you dont have an audio guy. basically for a full kit, you need a zoom, a decent shotgun mic and a boom pole. it can get kind of expensive
 
ManiacMX said:
GAF, I need your help. I recently shot a video on a Canon 5D Mark II@1080 24p. Log and transferred the footage in FCP so it's 422 Pro Res. Now I finished my edit and want to export to the highest quality on YouTube? Any suggestions on how to do this? I did a mp4 conversion and it looked highly compressed. Any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

File > Export > Using Quicktime Conversion > Options:

Set Video Size to 1280x720. Keep it on BEST QUALITY (under encoding). I set mine to 6500kbps. I turn off Prepare for Internet Streaming.
 
sefskillz said:
weird question but, is that percy priest dam?
Click to expand...

. . . wow. Holy shit, yes it is. You from the area? I grew up in the davidson/brentwood area and all my filming for Scoundrels was around Nashville.
 
Fidelis Hodie said:
. . . wow. Holy shit, yes it is. You from the area? I grew up in the davidson/brentwood area and all my filming for Scoundrels was around Nashville.
Click to expand...
ha. grew up in murfreesboro, living in nashville now
 
Benjillion said:
Great! There are a good amount of small camcorders that can get you started. The easiest way is too look at review sites and put in "below x" amount to give you an idea of what is available. I like the site trusted reviews (http://www.trustedreviews.com/camcorders/).

What I find to be the most important thing when looking at camcorders is what the footage looks like. Start browsing Vimeo using camcorder names to locate videos and see what people have shot. Then you start to get a good idea of what the color of the camcorder is like (I like the look of the panasonic hmc 150 and samsung hmx r10 personally).

Another thing to keep an eye out for is how you want to use the camcorder. Will you want a microphone port? Is digital image stabilization sufficient or do you need optical image stabilization? Another thing, how does the camcorder feel? Walking into a big (or little) box store and getting your hands on some camcorders can be helpful to see if you want a large or small body.

To save you a bit of time, you don't need to get an old camcorder just because it fits your price range (remember, look at the footage it produces). There are plenty of camcorders that have come out in the past year that fit the bill of being under $500 and of decent quality, here are some examples:

samsung hmx r10
I just found out about this camcorder this evening and it is pretty impressive for a small camcorder. The color is nice and has some fun modes (slo-mo and time lapse). Here are some links for research:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/camcorders/review/2010/05/17/Samsung-HMX-R10/p1
http://www.vimeo.com/12541199
http://www.vimeo.com/15599309

canon hf r10
Canon does quality work. They are one of the few companies that still put a microphone and headphone jack on their low end camcorders (I think the sony xr 150 has one...but that is not the point). There are some people who like the "color" that canon camcorders have. This is where it comes down to personal opinion, and what colors you like. As before, here are some links:
http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-camcorders/canon-vixia-hf-r10/4505-6500_7-33949022.html
http://www.digitalcamera-hq.com/camcorders/products/canon-vixia-hf-r10
http://www.vimeo.com/15113251
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BYflVNUSWo
Click to expand...

Wow, thats what I needed! Thanks so much! Off the bat, the Canon you listed sounds like a good start; always nice to have a microphone jack just in case. I'm gonna do some more research though.
 
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