Sound Designing – CineBattle
This is another “Cinebattle” from the guys at Cinecom and this week they have done a particularly interesting challenge.
The idea is to mute the existing soundtrack of a video and then build their own audio track to go with it.
The reason I think this one is particularly interesting is this.
On the surface of it sure, you get some good tips on what can be done to achieve a decent sound design and that all great.
However if you think about it a little deeper it is an awesome example of just how powerful the audio track of any video really is.
Years ago there was a video meme going around called Dramatic Chipmunk. (Just Google it).
The original clip was just of a chipmunk turning around and was not really anything of note.
However then some smart person added some dramatic music to the action of the chipmunk and Dramatic Chipmunk was born!
How to Make Slow Motion Video (Slow Motion Tutorial for Beginners)
One of the earliest features that was added to video editing software many years ago was the ability to create slow motion videos.
At the time everybody was all excited about doing that only to be very disappointed by the results!
The reason for that was that most video at the consumer level at that time was being shot either at 25 frames per second or 29.97 frames per second depending on your location.
Still cameras were useless for video and so your only choice was a camcorder and as I said, you only had the default frame rate to choose from.
Once you loaded any of that footage into an editor and tried to slow it down things went bad very fast!
The reason for that was that in order to create the slow motion effect the software could only do it by playing each frame twice and that in turn, completely messed up any motion in the video.
These days things are much better but it is surprising just how many people still get poor slow motion results without really understanding why.
The video below is one of the best I have come across for quite a while on the subject and explains the technical side of slow motion (but not too technical!) and how to get great results.
Most modern video recording devices whether they be camcorders, cameras or even smart phones actually now have the features you need built-in to get perfect footage that can be displayed in slow motion without image degradation of any kind.
IsoBuster 4.5 Update
Dang but it seems to be all about the updates this week!
OK so one of the key software programs I keep on my computer and have done for years now is Isobuster.
Isobuster is a data recovery program that can extract seemingly lost data from a whole range of things such as optical discs, hard drives, USB memory sticks, SD Cards and just about anything you can think of.
My original use for it was to recover video data from damaged DVDs but since those dark days the software itself has been actively developed to encompass all sorts of scenarios.
I am definitely not going to list the new updates for Isobuster here because quite frankly I have no idea what any of it actually means!
Here’s an example from the “Improvements” section of the update release: “Rewrote parts of the ISO9660 parsing to get rid of the annoying memory allocation warnings in case of extremely large buffer allocations.”
What the hell that’s all about is anybody’s guess!
Not to worry, the interface is much easier to deal with!
Filmora9 Version 9.3 Update
In addition to the update of Filmora Pro somewhere else in this week’s blog post, Wondershare have also released a full update of Filmora9 to version 9.3.
I always get a bit nervous when they release updates because the beauty of Filmora9 is that it is simple to use and very easy to learn.
That’s the reason I recommend it as a simple editing solution for either beginners or those that don’t want to plough their way through a complicated user interface full of features they would never use.
Anyhoo there was no need for me to worry becuase this new update doesn’t interfere with those great attributes and in all reality this update is mainly enhancements to existing features.
In the new version they have added a Beat Detection feature that can analyse any music added to the timeline and place markers at the point of the beat.
That way it is far easier to edit to or around the beat without having to constantly keep listening and re-listening to the music.
They have added a bunch more preset titles templates to work with, all of which can be further adjusted to how you like them as well as a bucketload of new transitions.
Filmora9 has been able to handle LUTs for a while now through the color correction module but in this new version you can actually add a LUT as an “effect” on the timeline
Once you have it there you can stretch it out over multiple clips and adjust it as an effect.
Speaking of multiple clips they have added the ability to “group” clips and assets together on the timeline so you can apply effects to that grouping or move that group as if they were one asset.
Effects attributes that have been added to one clip can now be copied and pasted to another clip on the timeline and you can also split everything on the timeline together in one action.
It is still my favorite simple editor on the market and you can check out the new stuff in the video below.
FilmoraPro 1.6 Update – Stabilization, Screen Recording, New Effects & More
Wondershare have just released a new version of their semi-pro video editing software, Filmora Pro.
In case you are unfamiliar with it, Filmora Pro was released a year or so ago by Wondershare in answer to a problem they were having at the time.
Long time users of their basic offering Filmora9 were requesting more and more advanced features as they became more knowledgeable about both the software and editing techniques in general.
This was a problem because if the code monkeys at Wondershare kept adding more and more features to Filmora9 eventually it would lose its positioning as an easy to learn and easy to use editing program.
You cannot just keep adding features and still have the software remain simple.
So to deal with this they released a far more advanced video editing program that they named Filmora Pro which I thought was a pretty smart move. So to the update!
The new version has a bunch of features and changes, including Animation Behaviors, Stabilization, Screen Recording, Performance Improvements and more.
Watch the video below for a complete run through of the new stuff and you can check out both Filmora9 and Filmora Pro here.
“Bombshell” Director Jay Roach Breaks Down the Elevator Scene
I generally don’t add a lot of videos like the one below because most professional movie directors are not necessarily good at explaining what they are doing.
Just because someone is good at something doesn’t necessarily mean they are good at teaching that thing or at least talking about that thing in an interesting or informative way.
I think this one is different and well worth watching as Jay Roach lays out in a very watchable way exactly how he has constructed a scene and the thought process that went into doing it the way he did.
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