Wow! It’s August already. Got a vacation’s worth of video lying around, waiting to be edited into a moving account of your adventures? Here are some tips to help you avoid some common pitfalls and make a quality movie. Although I personally use a Mac and iMovie, these tips apply to any platform and editing application.

One quick note on hardware. Capturing DV video requires a lot of hard drive space. Five minutes of DV footage takes up a gigabyte of space. Although Windows Movie Maker will capture into smaller-sized Windows Media files, it does so by compressing them, removing some quality in the process. If you’re going to be doing a lot of editing, you might consider a second hard drive, either installed in your computer, or attached via FireWire.

Next, have a plan. Pros call it “storyboarding”. Watch the raw footage once all the way through. What story do you want to tell? Who will be your audience? Is there footage in there that doesn’t help tell the story? Make notes as you go along, and your “vision” for the project will be much more complete.

Capturing. If you have the hard drive space, capture it all. If not, capture only the scenes you will use. When capturing, get five seconds on either side of the “meat” of the scene. You will be glad later when creating dramatic fade and dissolve transitions during the editing process.

Do you also have still photos of the vacation? Mixing video and stills can be very dramatic, especially if your editing software has the ability to zoom into and out of stills, like iMovie’s Ken Burns Effect.

Editing. Inevitably, you’re going to come across some hand-held footage that’s jittery enough to make even the most seasoned lobster boat captain seasick. Try cutting out the jittery parts, then weaving the more stable footage together with some fade or dissolve transitions. Since most jittery footage comes from the videographer moving the camera trying to follow something, replacing the jittery camera movements with transitions works well.

Speaking of transitions, remember that variety is the spice of editing. Take some cues from theatrical movies you’ve seen. Fast-paced action scenes usually consist of quick cuts, while fade or dissolve transitions are generally reserved for more “emotional” scenes. Vary the type and duration of the different transitions you use, but remember you’re telling a story, not demonstrating all the transitions your editing software can accomplish.

Same goes for special effects. There’s an old adage - “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. When applying transitions or special effects, ask yourself: Is this contributing to the story I’m trying to tell, or is it eye candy that is detracting and distracting? Sometimes, less is more.

Titles. You really have three options here - placing them over a “blank” screen (color of your choice), a still photo, or a motion video clip. Be careful. If you place moving, spinning, or zooming titles over a frenetic clip of video, your audience may become dizzy and nauseous, as well as miss your directorial debut credit.

Music. Keep your audience in mind when selecting the soundtrack for your movie. Pick music that fits your story, and can be tolerated and enjoyed by your audience. You may not want loud hip-hop playing behind a scene with quiet dialogue, and regardless of how beautiful the music is, the sound of the waves crashing on the beach may be much more compelling.

Finally, sound. One clip can be much louder than the next. Use your software’s audio controls to avoid distracting sound “spikes”. As they say at the movies “the audience is listening”.

© 2003 Peter F. Zimowski