Tutorial: Editing a Music Video

[ruanlotter]

Heya Everybody,

I have a brand new tutorial online - this time covering the topic of Music Video Editing and basic workflow processes like converting footage from a Canon 5D.

Anyways - have a look and let me know what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyn7FYUONgY

Don't forget to subscribe if you like my vids and you can also follow me on Twitter: @ruanlotter

Cheerz,
Ruan
www.youtube.com/tunnelviziontv

[Axel]

¡Hola Ruan! Very interesting tutorial. Let me add some additional or alternative things.

1. With FCP 7, I use Log & Transfer (cmd shift 8) to ingest the footage in ProRes. I have the [url=http://usa.canon.com/cusa/professional/products/professional_cameras/digital_slr_cameras/eos_5d_mark_ii#DriversAndSoftware][u]FinalCut EOS transfer plugin[/u][/url]. The main difference to the normal transfer is the timecode. Every mov in your EOS_DIGITAL would start with 00:00:00:00. With the plugin, the time stamp that your camera runs with is copied to the clips timecode.
If your camera is not the 5D or the 7D, but the 550D (T2i) or so, you have to manually "hack" the plugin. Watch [url=http://thebuibrothers.com/blog/2010/03/how-to-canon-t2i-with-eos-movie-plugin-e1-final-cut-pro/][u]this[/u][/url].

Why not Mpeg Streamclip, since it is way faster? Well, you [i]can[/i] do so, especially if you shot the 6 perspectives Ruan recommended, from beginning to end. If you edit a music video in the same fashion a live concert is edited. But music videos sometimes have a plot, a little story, that only alternates with the singer in synch. So you won't shoot every action with the whole song recorded. And if the band moves from the studio to the station to the backyard and you know in advance you will only need this and that part at a given time in the song - you do better by sorting and renaming all tiny clips as you'd do with any other three to four minute short - you [u]log[/u] and transfer.

EDIT: Andrew recommends "5D2RGB" (as transcoding tool). I don't know it. Read about it.

2. Synching hundreds of tiny clips (only those that need to be rythm- or lip-synched) to your reference-CD-sound: Don't look for the same start. Look for a "t" in the vocal. Set a marker named "... you [b]t[/b]ease me, third stanza". Make the in-point this t and let the clips snap. Additional: If you press cmd + alt + i, you dont have to delete the audio afterwards in the timeline (like dragging the frame-icon in Premiere). Once the clip is synched, you can grip the border and change i+o in both directions. Works also with a short "s" or a clear "d".

3. If you don't have so prominent audio events in your song, you can use the waveform in the timeline to help you synch. Sometimes the camera-recorded music is too thin a line to find the peaks. Turn it up!

EDIT 2: You may have heard of "plural eyes". I never tried it. Sounds great, if you have to synch hundreds of tiny clips. But then you would get hundreds of tracks, and I never have more than 6 video tracks. Also, to synch a clip with he method Ruan and I described is a matter of seconds. However, there are many workflows, and my best friend is very happy with plural eyes.

4. If you have full-length-clips with the talent's playback synched in FCP, you better use multicam for editing. It's very easy. You could nest these "on" - shots, pre-edited, by dragging the sequence into an new sequence, and flesh out the thing with some non-synch story parts as inserts in the tracks above.

5. The widescreen-filter costs realtime. though it actually looks quite simple. Not so, if you edit a sequence-preset to 1920 x 803 pixels, in which you copy the whole HD-sequence. If you made the canvas-view "image and wireframe", you can frame properly by taking the image with the mouse and drag. Export with the sequence-settings. Pro: You have a smaller file size and your clip uploads to vimeo without black bars.

EDIT 3: Of course, you can't individually move the nested sequences clips. So either you have a cinemascope sequence from the start or you "select all" and copy the clips into he new timeline.

[Axel]

Right now I started learning FCP X (after the first trial was a torture to me, not an iMovie fan) with the help of online-tutorials (some very good, i.e. by Larry Jordan). It seems that with the multicam-abilities the newest version has, the auto-synchronization (like built-in plural eyes, although Jordan finds anything else but a clapper board ridiculous) and the new timeline properties (which admittedly I have not yet fully comprehended), this software seems to be best equipped. Also the stability seems to be improved. Turn off automatic analyzing video (as Jordan recommends), and everything's fine (so far).