Alpha Geek: Video Editing 101

Posted February 11, 2010 By

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class="rb2"></b><b class="rb1"></b></b> </div> </div></div> <h1><a href="lifehacker.com/220595/alpha-geek-video-editing-101">Alpha Geek: Video Editing 101</a></h1> <!-- google_ad_section_start --> <img src="lifehacker.com/assets/resources/2006/12/wmm.jpg" class="postimg center" width="475" height="232" style="display:block;" /><p><i>by Rick Broida</i></p><p><iframe src="digg.com/api/diggthis.php?u=digg.com/gadgets/Alpha_Geek_Video_Editing_101" align="right" frameborder="0" height="82" scrolling="no" width="55"></iframe>'Tis the season for sharing home movies&mdash;but don't try your friends' and relatives' patience waiting for something good to happen in the hours of tape you shot on vacation. you need to learn <a class="autolink" title="Click here to read more posts tagged HOW TO" href="lifehacker.com/tag/how-to/">how to</a> edit your video, to turn boring footage into compelling movies.</p><p>in the old days, editing home movies meant investing in pricey equipment or spending painstaking hours with a pair of VCRs. these days, all you need is a $250 digital camcorder, a relatively powerful PC, and some decent software.</p> <p>Filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh (<i>Erin Brockovich, Ocean's Eleven</i>) have produced big-screen features using little more than a camcorder and a Mac. and let's not forget the overnight fame that YouTube has brought to countless camcorder-wielding nobodies.</p><p>you, too, can be one of those nobodies, or at least someone who can produce a decent wedding video&mdash;but not until you learn to edit.</p><p>Fortunately, film school is not required. you can get started with software you probably already have. Once you learn some basic concepts and get some practice, you'll be cranking out YouTube-ian masterpieces in no time. Here's how.</p><h4>the Equipment</h4><p>in addition to the camcorder itself, you'll need the following: a relatively powerful Windows XP PC (sorry, a Celeron processor won't cut it) or Mac, several dozen gigabytes' worth of hard drive space (each one-hour MiniDV tape will consume 13GB), and the proper interface to connect the camcorder.</p><p>the latter tends to trip people up. Although many camcorders come with a USB interface, few can use that interface to transfer video to your PC. (So why is it even there? to copy those crummy low-megapixel photos, if you bother to take any.)</p><p><img alt="firewire.jpg" src="lifehacker.com/assets/resources/2006/12/firewire.jpg" width="250" height="231" class="postimg left">instead, the majority of camcorders rely on FireWire (the exceptions being a handful of Sony models, which can transfer video across USB if you use Sony's crappy software). Just one problem: not all PCs have FireWire ports (though all Macs do). Fortunately, it's easy and inexpensive to add a FireWire expansion card to a desktop or notebook. Head to the local computer shop for help, or check out Adam's previous feature on <a href="lifehacker.com/software/feature/how-to-install-a-pci-card-135479.php">how to install a PCI card</a>.</p><h4>the Software</h4><p>the final ingredient: video editing software. Mac users can take advantage of the bundled iMovie program, by all accounts a great tool.</p><p>however, for purposes of our discussion, I'm going to focus on Windows Movie Maker 2, a program that comes with Windows XP. It's a surprisingly good video editor, on par with iMovie in terms of simplicity and capability (though lacking in one key area&mdash;read on to find out more).</p><p>you probably already have Movie Maker 2 on your system, as it's built into XP Service Pack 2. Click start &gt; run, type 'moviemk' (without the apostrophes), and hit Enter. if it doesn't run for some reason, you can download it <a href="tinyurl.com/3fpo4">here</a>.</p><h4>getting Started</h4><p>Once you've shot all your tape (and for more tips on doing that well, check out <a href="lifehacker.com/software/digital-video/8-ways-to-shoot-video-like-a-pro-214043.php">8 ways to shoot video like a pro</a>), you're ready to start editing. as you can see, Movie Maker divides its core steps into three sections: Capture Video, Edit Movie, and finish Movie.</p><p><img alt="wmm1.jpg" src="lifehacker.com/assets/resources/2006/12/wmm1.jpg" width="188" height="383" class="postimg left"> That's video editing in a nutshell. you copy video from your camcorder to your PC; assemble and edit it to your liking; then output the finished product for all the world to see.</p><p>the capture part is easy. put your camcorder in playback mode, turn it on, and plug it into your PC's FireWire port. After the PC recognizes it (it may take a minute), click "Capture from video device" in Movie Maker and follow the prompts.</p><p>when you're done, you'll have a batch of video clips (which Movie Maker calls a Collection) represented as thumbnails in the center of the screen.(Note that you can also import video clips, photos, and audio files from your hard drive to mix in with your camcorder video.)</p><p><img alt="wmm2.jpg" src="lifehacker.com/assets/resources/2006/12/wmm2.jpg" width="250" height="76" class="postimg right"> by default, Movie Maker will automatically detect individual scenes and create individual clips from them, but you can also split any scene into two using the preview window on the right. plan on doing a lot of this splitting to extract exactly the snippets you want. It's arguably the most time-consuming part of the video process.</p><p>to get started editing, drag a clip down to the storyboard at the bottom of the screen. Then drag another one to the open square alongside the first one. Presto: You've just assembled two pieces of your movie.</p><p>to add a transition between them, click "View video transitions" under the Edit Movie section, find a transition that looks cool, then drag it down to the small square between your two clips. Click the Play button to see how it looks.</p><p><img alt="wmm3.jpg" src="lifehacker.com/assets/resources/2006/12/wmm3.jpg" width="250" height="189" class="postimg left"> Storyboard mode gives you a great visual overview of your scenes and transitions, but for more precise editing you'll want to work in the Timeline view. Here's where you can trim clips just by mousing over either end and then dragging left or right. you can also see where audio and titles will appear relative to your video.</p><h4>Experiment!</h4><p>Here's where I let go of the bike and let you pedal on your own. the best way to learn Movie Maker&mdash;and, by proxy, video editing&mdash;is by experimenting. the program couldn't be much easier to use, and I daresay even novices should have a grip on the basics after half an hour of tinkering.</p><p>what else can you do with Movie Maker? as I mentioned, it's a surprisingly robust little program. you can choose from a couple dozen cool video effects to apply to your clips; record narration; add titles and credits; and even create an AutoMovie, in which MovieMaker automatically edits your movie and adds a soundtrack.</p><p>now for the bad news: Movie Maker, unlike iMovie, severely limits your output options. you can create a low-resolution video CD (which is good for just about nothing) but not a DVD. you can generate video files in WMV format, but not AVI, MPEG, or DivX. That's okay for YouTube, but not for iPods (which don't support WMV).</p><p>So why bother with Movie Maker? Because it's free, it's easy, and it's an excellent learning tool. plus, you'll be all set when you move up to Windows Vista, as the <a href="microsoft.com/windowsvista/features/forhome/moviemaker.mspx">new version of Movie Maker</a> does let you burn DVDs.</p><p>What's more, after you've mastered Movie Maker, you'll be all set to move up to a commercial video editor like Adobe Premiere Elements 3 or Pinnacle Studio 10. They're fundamentally the same, just with more features and finer controls.</p><p>the key thing to remember about video editing is that it's not as hard as it sounds. 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Alpha Geek: Video Editing 101

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