Video Editing

This subject draws some fierce cringing by most people. It just sounds difficult. It isn't... really. I have to warn you that if you are a true video professional this article isn't for you. If you plan to make video your profession this isn't the place. What I will talk about is putting some video together for your children's classes.

Software
How much do you want to spend? In video you can go from virtually free to tens of thousands of dollars. I have no interest in the high end. I am not producing feature films that will be played on 40 foot screen in high definition surround sound. Let's look at the cheap and easy.

Windows Movie Maker (WMM)
This product is FREE and is already on your computer if you own Microsoft Windows XP. In fact if you have the Service Pack 2 update, you have the latest version (2.1). This is an easy to use product. Most functions use some type of wizard to guide you through the process. The left hand task bar has an easy 1-2-3 menu.

1 - Capture Video: This is where you hook up your camcorder to the computer and get all of the video information off of it. You can manually select what is captured or let WMM capture the whole tape in one fail swoop. WMM will break up all of your captured video into scenes for you based on when you hit the pause button when you recorded. If you already have video on your computer you want to use you can import it in this step. It is the same for audio music and pictures.

2 - Edit Movie: This is the place where you drag scenes onto the video storyboard. Alternatively you can change to the timeline view to perform cuts and fine adjustments. In between the items you placed on the storyboard you can add transitions. These perform functions like fading from one scene to another. Try out different transitions to see what you like. You can always click on the transition and click delete. If you don't add a transition the clips will play one after the other. To add video effects like slow down or speeding up or adjusting the brightness just drag an effect on top of the video piece on the storyboard. You can also add titles and credits at this step.

3 - Finish Movie: Here is where you will save it to your computer or a CD or send the finished product back to your camera tape. To make a DVD you have to save it to a your computer using the DV-AVI setting. At this point you will have to use another program to actually make and burn the DVD. If you are going to use your computer to play it back through a projector just save it as 'Best Quality for playback on my computer'. The saving of the movie at this point will take a bit a of time depending on what is in the movie. This is called rendering. It is always the longest part of the making the video process.

Here are some links for Windows movie maker for tutorials and downloads of extra video effects:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/default.mspx
http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net
http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/Tutorials/Index.aspx

I have also used Sony's Movie Studio. It's is the younger brother to the full professional version of Sony's Vegas. It costs near $100. It works more on the timeline and allows the layering of video and audio. It's a little nicer package than WMM with more features. I used it to produce a 40 minute camp video and had no troubles at all integrating pictures and video and music.

http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/Products/ShowProduct.asp?PID=977