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A
Beginner's Guide to Digital Video Production
By Steve Saylor
A Beginners
Guide To Digital Video Production" is a 4-hour, 20 minute
presentation available on two VHS tapes. This Windows-based
tutorial features Adobe Premiere software for non-linear editing,
and the Digital Origin Moto-DV editing system which transfers
your digital footage from Mini-DV camcorders to your computer,
and back again.
The
video, comprised of four chapters -- Introduction, Camera,
Computer & Software, and DV Editing -- covers
every step of the journey, from production to final
print, explaining the technical intricacies of this new
format in decidedly non-technical terms.
Part
One
Introduction
1. How
did I Get Here? (4 min.)
A brief
description of how this project began, and continued, and continued.
Why?
Shooting
a movie with no budget means the actors work for free (or a
percentage of any profits). In my case, the actors didn't
have much time. Which meant I had to shoot the entire
movie in a week or two. No crew, no lights. Which
meant... A lot of fixin' in the mixin'.
Secondly,
my limited experience with computers made it slow-goin' at first.
And, dag-nabbit, all these new fangled gizmos ain't always
workin' like they's sposed to, pard! Bugs and Ghosts in
the Machine.
Well, it's
come a long way in just the short time I've been in the game.
Gettin' better all the time. Two years ago, when
transferring footage from DV tape to computer, you might drop
a few frames here and there.
Dropped-frames
are quickly becoming a thing of the past as the equipment becomes
more and more reliable. Get on-deck. It's a good
time to learn the rules and join the roster.
2. How
Does It Work? (5 min.)
An overview
of the technology: Non-Linear Editing and the Digital Format.
Two decades
ago, the word processor transformed the world of the Writer.
No more White-Out. No more cutting and pasting your
pages. You could get everything "just right"
on the computer screen before you printed it. And you
could shuffle those words around, grab a paragraph from down
there, move it up here.
Today, the
Videographer gets the "big break". But instead
of shuffling words, we're juggling video clips. Push everything
in your program down, stick a scene in here, pull everything
back and take out the gap.
Also, when
your footage from the camera is recorded onto the hard drive
in this digital format, the computer can manipulate those images
in a thousand different ways. You've got a first-class,
post-production facility sitting right there on your desktop.
Go nuts.
One more
thing. When you make copies of your work in the digital
language, you don't lose picture-quality like we used to with
"analog". And that's nice.
3. A
Demo (9 min.)
The Whirlwind
Tour: We transfer clips from camera to computer, slice 'em,
dice 'em, add music, then compile everything into our final
edit before moving it back to tape.
Move along
frame by frame, click on the razor tool, make a cut here, maybe
another over there. Oops. Don't wanna cut it there.
No problem. We can undo that. Or undo them
all. Just takes a second.
Cutting
film was never like this. Say bye-bye to the bad-old-days.
4. The
Story (11 min.)
Excerpts
of scenes from the movie illustrate just what this little camera
and computer can accomplish: Professional Editing Capabilities
-- Effects, Graphics, Transitions, Sound.
At the same
time, I sketch in the synopsis. (We'll be using these scenes
for examples, might as well know what's going on)
Also, a
few comments on story, and some technical tidbits.
Part
1
Part
2
Part
3
Part
4
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