Tips for Shooting the Scenes:1. Shoot from a stable surface (i.e. a tripod, a table)
2. Use good light
- shoot outside in early am. or late evening
- shoot inside near a window
- use incandescent lighting (not fluorescent)
- light from behind the camera or from the side
3. Shoot in a quiet place (or as quiet as you can make it)
4. Frame Awareness
5. Mix up the angles (wide, medium, closeups)
6. Use 30 minutes tapes (sifting through 60 or 90 minute tape is tedious)
7. Don't record over your old footage
- avoid reviewing video as you go (too easy to accidentally overwrite your video on the DV tape)
- after shooting a tape, slide the lock tab to avoid accidental erasure
8. Shoot economically
- stop the camera between takes
- avoid shooting continuously
- the first stage in the editing process is to shoot the correct material
- edit while you shoot
- shoot each scene at least twice
9. Have your lines memorized ahead of time (reading off cue cards makes for bad dialogue)
Video Editing Tips: - allow plenty of time for editing the video (slow, painstaking work)
- backup your work every half an hour (have 2 copies)
- make new copies as you go along (copies with new names)
- save to an external hard drive
- allocate 90 minutes of editing time for every minute of video
- buy 5 blank DVDs for this project (there might be errors)
Importing the Video - iMovie 6 is recommended
download here (most people don't like the latest version in iLife '08)
- Final Cut Pro is available in the Cloisters if you use that
- connect the camera you shoot with to the computer you edit with to import the footage
- keep your camera plugged in
Stacey's iMovie Importing Tutorial Troubleshooting importing footage: - Make sure the camera is connected (firewire is better than usb)
- Make sure the camera is on
- Toggle iMovie from edit mode (scissors icon) to import mode (camera icon)
- Make sure the camera is in "Play" mode (can you see your movie in your camera's LCD screen)
- if iMovie doesn't detect the camera automatically, try quitting iMovie and restarting iMovie
- if iMovie still can't detect the camera, leave the camera on, and restart the computer, and try again
Apple's iMovie Editing Guide Editing:- click on the "clips" tab in imovie
- drag your footage on to the desktop
- from the desktop, drag your footage in to one of the little boxes in the "clips" viewer
- once your footage has been imported in to the "clips" viewer, drag the clip down in to the timeline
- if the clips are not staying in the timeline, try switching from the timeline setting to the clip viewer setting located on the left hand side underneath the video viewer (buttons will be a strip of film or a clock- try switching between these to choose your preferred setting)
- before you start cutting out sections of your footage that you do not want, arrange the clips in the right order.
- To edit portions out, drag the playhead to the section where you want to begin editing.
-At this point, there are two options: go to EDIT and select split video at playhead or simply press apple, T. The second option is much easier.
-Highlight the portion you want to edit out by clicking on it and then press delete.
-to undo the last thing that you did, simply press apple z
- If you need to edit out a portion in the middle of a clip, just press apple T at the two points you would like to edit and then highlight and delete.
- After you have edited, you may want to add a title to your project.
- Click the TITLES tab, which is next to the viewer.
- Pick the title you would like by clicking on it.
- Type in the words needed for your title in the space provided, under the title options
- you can choose the direction, color and size of the font, and the speed of the title.
- To apply this to your project, press add.
- If you want to have transitions in between your clips, click the TRANSITIONS tab.
- To apply a transition to your movie, click on the transition you would like and drag it to the portion of your movie you would like the transition to your clips.
- To add video effects to your movie, click the VIDEO FX tab.
- Click on the video FX you would like and press apply.
- Make sure the portion of your movie where you would like the effect to be is highlighted.
- if you want to add music, go to the media tab, click on itunes and scroll through your library.
- move the playhead to where you want the music to start and then press "place at playhead"
- in order to adjust volume go to the view menu and click "show clip volume levels"
- a purple line will show up that you can move up and down depending on how loud or quiet you want the volume of either the music or the audio in the clips
- if you want to add a sound effect click on the media tab and choose the "ilife sound effects" option
- click on the sound you want, drag your playhead to where you want the sound to be and press "place at playhead"
Exporting Tips:
- to make a super fast DVD, from iMovie, go to the Share menu and select iDVD.
- Wait for iDVD to load.
- Preview the movie by pressing the play button (big arrow)
- if the preview works, burn the DVD (looks like an camera iris)