Update

[lierdumoa]

permetaform came to visit after class last night. Apparently boniblithe finally convinced her that she should have seen all of Firefly -- yesterday. She had only a few hours to spare, but we got in two episodes -- "Jaynestown" and "Ariel." Of course, then came the inevitable, "Why was this show cancelled?!?"

permetaform had the insight that Inara is like Lana Lang if only Lana Lang were done well, instead of being a travesty against nature.

She brought Shawshank Redemption! I ripped it to my computer this morning. Now that all my source is in place, I can defrag.



Today, yhlee made a post detailing her vidding process step-by-step. I figured I'd make a post of my own, in case anyone's curious.

1) I get an idea. This happens multiple ways. Usually I hear a song and try to think of what fandom/character it fits best. Sometimes I'll think of a character and then try to look for a song. Sometimes song and subject pop into my head simultaneously.

2) I come up with a rudimentary outline. Sometimes this is as simple as "start the vid at the beginning of the movie, end it at the end." In a narrative (read: plot driven) vid I'll usually look at all the different sections of the song and decide what event/time period is going to be represented in each. In a non-narrative or mood-driven vid (I've only made, like, one of these), I'll decide what quality/characteristic of a character/relationship/whatever is going to represented in each section of a song. I may or may not write down my outlines depending on how complicated they are. I do hunt down the lyrics online, then make sure the lyrics I got online are correct by listening to the song. Occasionally, I will write in on the lyrics where instrumentals fall and how long the instrumentals are.

3) I get my source onto my computer, either by ripping DVD's or downloading episodes or dragging it off my co-op's server (god bless illegal ethernet databases).

4) I re-watch the source. Sometimes I skip this step. For example, I didn't bother re-watching Firefly for Simon!vid, but just went straight to clipping. Usually if I'm vidding a movie I'll re-watch it because hey -- it's the only time I can watch a movie and claim I'm being productive. I doubt I'll be re-watching all my source for my Seth/Ryan vid (The OC) because I just don't have 20+ hrs to spare.

5) Clipping. Sometimes I skip this step. If I'm vidding a movie, I won't bother doing clipping. Thanks to the beauty that is avisynth, I can just import the whole movie into Premiere and go. Back when I was using Windows Movie Maker I never did any clipping -- I'd just import 20-30 episodes wholesale into the program (which probably explains why it crashed every 3 minutes). If I have over 1 movie's worth of source, I'll do clipping, or what amounts to clipping in avisynth. I'll basically pull my source into VirtualDub sans sound and skim through, picking out scenes that I want.

6) Audio. I used to straight up import it. Now, thanks to avisynth and 24 vs. 23.976 fps I have a few more highly technical steps that I won't bother going into here. If there's something I want to edit out/ edit into my vid audio, I'll do that in this free program I downloaded called Audacity.

7) I'll start vidding. I work very linearly, so I start with the beginning and go section by section until I reach the end. Occasionally I'll sit back after a week of vidding and realize I haven't listened to the last half of the song since I started working. Every time I finish a section, I go back and revise the section just before it -- two steps forward one step back kinda thing, to make sure everything looks consistent. I don't really do a rough cut. I may only have 20 second of a vid done, but those 20 seconds will look pretty much finished in terms of clip choice, timing, effects, etc. I'll periodically export what I have and watch it the whole way through to make sure it flows on a macro level and make notes of things I want to change.

I figure out what my style theme is (i.e. effects I'm using, the kind of cutting I'm using, how I expect the vid to move rhythmically, etc.) during the vid's intro. I then figure out variations on that theme to go with different sections of the song as I get to them, i.e. the choruses will be cut similarly to each other, the verses will be cut similarly to each other, any repeating instrumentals, etc. I'll usually do something unique for the intro, bridge, and finale each, still going along with the style theme I figured out when I started the vid. This is an oversimplification, of course. Not every vid is organized the same way. Generally the more flashy a vid is, the more rigidly structured the style theme is -- that way I can keep flashy effects under control by making them part of a strict pattern. For my vividcon premiere vid to Gia I actually typed up my style scheme in an outline format.

8) Avoidance. This step is repeated multiple times throughout the editing process, and it involves everything from writing "meta" (which is really very lengthy and in depth and somewhat informative complaining of why my vid project is so haaaaard) to downloading vids obsessively off vidding to reading assloads of fic, etc. I know a lot of vidders don't like watching other people's vids while they're working. I think I probably watch other people's vids more when I'm vidding then when I'm not. Then again, when am I ever not? I vid in my head constantly. As far as I can tell, watching other people's vids has never really affected whatever current project I'm working on, though sometimes I get ideas for future projects. I often get songs that are not my vidsong stuck in my head while I'm vidding. I think it's my brain's defense mechanism for when I get too sick of listening to my vidsong. I get a lot of new vid ideas while I'm in avoidance mode.

9) Once my rough draft is finished, I'll round up beta's. I'll try to get two people at minimum -- someone familiar with the source, and someone unfamiliar with it. permetaform usually sees everything I make multiple times since she lives two blocks away. If I'm working with a deadline, my beta's are sometimes whichever vidders happen to be on instant messenger when I finish. After I get initial reactions from beta's, if there was something I was trying to get across and failed, I'll tell my beta's what it was and ask them how they think I could convey that better.

10) I'll revise and export. If I'm still not sure about something, I'll go back to step 8 with rough draft #2.

11) Post processing. I'll make a large, high quality Xvid version. I try to keep my vids under 30 MB. sometimes that's not possible. I'll make a wmv, and may or may not uploade it depending on how satisfied I am with how the wmv looks. I just downloaded a new wmv encoder, so I'll be trying that out when I get around to uploading my vividcon vids. Supposedly it will allow me to encode higher quality audio then I could from just importing my Xvid into Windows Movie Maker and making my wmv that way. Probably the thing I hate most about wmv's is the crappy sounding audio, far more than the mediocre video quality.

12) Screencapping. I always try to write a "making of" post for my vids. I'll screencap my entire editing timeline as well as any new effects I tried out making the vid. The instant I finish all my screencapping I delete my source files, as I'm often working directly with DVD source, and it takes up a ton of harddrive space.

14) I'll write up the making of post wherein I describe my vid's subject, structure, etc. Occasionally I'll link back to my whiny posts from step 8 in my making of post, as they occasionally include in depth looks at problems as well as descriptions of how I solved those problems. I'll also upload whatever screencaps I took and include explanations as to what the screencaps mean.

15) I'll post everything. I will link to my making of post from my vid post, so that anyone who wants to check out my production notes after they see my vid can do so. Then I'll go to my e-mail inbox and click the refresh button obsessively waiting for feedback.

16) Sleep. Sleep like the dead.

Comments

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

I am fascinated by how methodical your process is--did this develop over time or was this pretty much how you started out? I am selfishly curious because I am so disorganized and I do rough cuts and I start cuts over from scratch to restructure and so on, and I am desperately hoping with more practice this will become less hectic.

This is pretty much how I started out, but most vidders I know work more like you. permetaform's process in particular is very similar to yours.

I started out on WMM, which is a linear (read: crappy) editor. It's not really feasable to work non-linearly in that program. I write fic like this. Also, it's the way I conceptualize. I mentioned how my style in the intro helps determine the style in the rest of my vid. The same works on a section by section level. How I start a musical stanza helps me figure out how to vid through that musical stanza. I'm often uncomfortable putting clips down out of order because I want that point of reference to start me off.

I redo stuff from scratch. Only I think it's a little worse for me when I do it because I've already gotten it looking all professional and done by the time I realize I need to re-do crap and I have to start all over again. I've gotten better at getting things looking at least half right by the second try so I don't have to do too much revision.

Some things did develop over time. I didn't used to do as much exporting and looking over of my works in progress. Then gwyn_r pointed out that while two verses of my TF&TF vid looked fine by themselves, one looked too slow in comparison to the other. I realized that the one section at a time thing was making me lose sight of how my vid worked as a whole.


Which a smarter vidder could probably do chronologically, but I'm not smart enough to do that right now.

Hey -- whatever works. I make my vids whichever way is easiest for me.


I am starting to wish I had a Windows machine for Avisynth or wossname. But I love Final Cut. :-) And I really, really appreciate being able to see making-of posts! Microscope into brain!

I like writing making-of posts! Mostly because I like to complain about how omghard vidding is, and this is one way to complain without anyone rolling their eyes at me.

I've worked on FCP. It's slightly more sophisticated than Premiere Pro. I don't know how I'd function without avisynth, though. The problem with learning new software is you forget how to work without it.


I hadn't thought about vidding style being affected by watching others' vids. I just watch the things whenever I feel like it.

:) Me too. I know for some vidders it's not that they're worried about it affecting their style so much as they're worried about other people's vids discouraging them from finishing (i.e. well, my vid's never going to be as good as that). I had a moment like that at the start of my vividcon auction vid, but I think it actually inspired me to work harder rather than discouraged me (or maybe I just couldn't afford to get discouraged because I'd kinda signed my name in blood promising I'd get the vid done).

[linzeestyle.livejournal.com]

This is absolutely fascinating -- I hope you don't mind if I gank the idea and do a similar post.

I was especially interested in the fact that you vid linearly because, to me, that's the hardest thing in the world. When I started out I was on WMM and couldn't vid any other way but linearly (the program didn't and, IIRC, still doesn't allow it) and the most frustrating thing in the world was to have the first image that popped into my head be three minutes into the song, but not be able to lay it down until I got those still-blurry three minutes finished first. The minute I went to Premiere I started laying clips all willy nilly. Then again, I'm an incredibly disorganized personality and you seem to be very much the opposite, at least vid-wise. :)

:saves this post to memories:

Linzee

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think I've found that most of the vidders I've met don't work linearly. The only person I know whose process resembles mine is laurashapiro.

I think I work this way because of fic writing. I would usually have one part I really wanted to write, and I knew if I wrote it first I'd never get the rest written. I trained myself to start at the beginning and end at the end.

It could also be the way I conceptualize vidding. Often, how I lead into a section helps me figure out what I'm doing with that section. If I put a clip down with nothing behind it, it's like I'm working without a point of reference and I'm like -- ::flail!::

[linzeestyle.livejournal.com]

Often, how I lead into a section helps me figure out what I'm doing with that section. If I put a clip down with nothing behind it, it's like I'm working without a point of reference and I'm like -- ::flail!::

I wonder if this isn't a large part of why I get so hung up on the actual *vidding* part of vidding. One of the reasons I started outlining was that I'd get caught on individual images -- whatever popped into my head -- and lose the overall idea in ways that I didn't when I used to use WMM and, thusly, vid linearly.

Of course, when I was using WMM my ideas were "Mulder loves Scully omg!" rather than "the voice in Lex's head that is Lionel slowly compells him to be more like Lionel, even as he becomes bent on destroying him," which could also explain the growing difficulty in getting the ideas across. *g*

I think I work this way because of fic writing. I would usually have one part I really wanted to write, and I knew if I wrote it first I'd never get the rest written. I trained myself to start at the beginning and end at the end.

This makes sense -- though I've never tried writing fic, so admittedly I'd be extremely curious to know if most people start fic from the beginning and work to the end, or if they write in bursts. I tend to look at vidding from collaging POV, and with collaging you just sort of...stick whatever you want in first, and then build until you have a final product.

Linzee

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

I tend to look at vidding from collaging POV, and with collaging you just sort of...stick whatever you want in first, and then build until you have a final product.

That's exactly the feel I got from Porcelain! I remember thinking it was like you created this whole mood/atmosphere and then spent the rest of the song adding more nuances to that atmosphere, until finally at the end of the vid the viewer had the whole picture. My vids are plot driven, usually, so they tend to just go from one event to the next, more like a fic.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

have written fic/tion both linearly and nonlinearly, depending on the story. My sister writes almost entirely nonlinearly; a lot of people also seem to cite the "if I write the fun part first I won't write the rest" for linear. :-)

The funny thing is I think my fic writing has gotten a lot less linear. I write things out of order more and more.



See, my whole rough cut is flailing around. ;-) It's one big flail.

I figure out vids by chopping them up into pieces. I work on one section at a time, and each tiny section starts out as a tiny flail that I then revise and revise and revise. Any editing class will say that your method is better -- that you should do a big rough cut and then refine. Unfortunately my brain just doesn't want to work that way. I have to cut my projects up into manageable pieces and work on each piece individually before I can even attempt to look at my vids as a whole. I think you work in the opposite direction. You start with the big picture and work your way in. I start with the small picture and work my way out. We're probably doing the exact same amount of flailing and revising, only you go "flail, flail, flail, revise, revise, revise" and I go "flail, revise, flail, revise, flail revise."

And of course, everything does get easier with time. I think you have a huge head start on me, as I started out entirely self taught, and I think a lot of my earlier vids are very much hit and miss, but mostly miss.

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

I am pleased to hear that Firefly was acceptable :)

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

She loved it! Of course.

[klia.livejournal.com]

Wow, I can't imagine plonking an entire movie into Premiere as a single source clip! Eeeeee! ::flails::

Also? I'm *amazed* you vid linearly. We had no choice when we used VCRs, and I figured only people who learned to edit that way would ever employ that method. And yet, even 3 or 4 years after switching to computer editing, it's still my preferred method, and I have to smack myself upside the head and remind myself that I don't *have* to do it that way, anymore, if I don't want to.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

Wow, I can't imagine plonking an entire movie into Premiere as a single source clip! Eeeeee! ::flails::

Heh. I hate clipping. With a seething passion. If I can avoid it, I will. I guess I'm doing the same amount of work in the long run, only it doesn't feel like it because I'm doing it as I go along instead of as a separate job.


We had no choice when we used VCRs, and I figured only people who learned to edit that way would ever employ that method. And yet, even 3 or 4 years after switching to computer editing, it's still my preferred method, and I have to smack myself upside the head and remind myself that I don't *have* to do it that way, anymore, if I don't want to.

I worked on Windows Movie Maker (which also demands linear vidding, though it's much more user friendly than the two VCR method I'd imagine) for ten months, making six vids before getting a bootlegged copy of Premiere Pro from permetaform. The linear part of working in it wasn't one of the things I really minded about the program. I was more annoyed with not being able to speed change except by multiples of 2 and not being able to get things as precisely on beat as I liked and having only one track.

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

Heh, we do the actual clip-laying-down-vidding in a pretty much identical way. I ocassionally skip ahead a second or two, because I know what clip I want there and have to figure out the one or two that come before it, but so far I have to work from beginning to end methodically. Well, I have to, because I *want* to. How can I know what I want to use at the end, if I haven't figured out what I need at the beginning, not to mention 1/3 of the way through? Just doesn't compute for me. Vids move linearly when you view them--I think I feel the need to build them linearly because then I know more strongly whether I'm getting down what I need.

I like to export versions at minute marks, or half-minutes if I've zoomed ahead faster than I thought I would. I also export the whole song now, so that I can let the file keep playing through the empty end and work out what comes next. Sometimes I keep them, so that later I can giggle at not-so-great choices.

For what it's worth, I also clip very very methodically. I clip waaaaay more than I could ever use. It may be why I hate it so much. :P Of course, falling in love with the Monitor window has at least freed me up to make bigger clips. I think I almost bruised my forehead with the headslap that followed my figuring out just what the damn thing was there for.

I do like to stick my Avoidance step in early though. It's my second step. And considering I haven't finished a vid without an outside deadline in a, uhm, loooong time, I think it's clear that I think it's a very important step. ;D

And I'm still looking forward to playing with AviSynth. I thought maybe it could pitch in and help me with my Auction vid, but it and Premiere refused to cooperate no matter what settings and directions I came at it from. I have a hunch this was because my source was all Xvid encoded eps. Have to wait for a DVD related project to try again.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

Vids move linearly when you view them--I think I feel the need to build them linearly because then I know more strongly whether I'm getting down what I need.

For me, I usually have the story I'm trying to tell outlined through to the end before I start. Working linearly helps me with the look of the vid more than the subject matter. I vid kind of like I'm doing choreography, so working linearly helps me shape out the next move.


For what it's worth, I also clip very very methodically. I clip waaaaay more than I could ever use.

On average, I clip about a half hour's worth of footage for a vid when I do clipping. So -- 6-10 times what I actually use. About two thirds of my clips are scenes I actually think I'll need, and the rest are just scenes I think are pretty.


And I'm still looking forward to playing with AviSynth. I thought maybe it could pitch in and help me with my Auction vid, but it and Premiere refused to cooperate no matter what settings and directions I came at it from. I have a hunch this was because my source was all Xvid encoded eps. Have to wait for a DVD related project to try again.

You shouldn't have a problem using avisynth with Xvid encoded eps. Show me what your avs script looked like? I might be able to tell you what the problem is.

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

I just let VDub make the simple AVISource script for me. I believe I tried resizing them also, neither made much difference. Didn't need to alter anything else because the footage had already been fiddled with.

It would let me import one file (episode, large piece of episode, didn't seem to matter--I was doing this to try and avoid doing so much clipping) into Premiere, then the rest would import as a black bar with an error message. I've forgotten the exact message now.

I checked and double-checked all of the info about it at absolut3destiny's guide, but I couldn't get it to deal with the files reliably. The one that imported seemed to work fine (any file that I imported first), although sometimes after trying to import additional files that one would switch to the error too. I'm running a dual processor (2.6 Ghz each) machine with 2 GB of RAM, so it shouldn't be a power issue. Haven't tried DVD footage yet though, so my theory could just be wrong. :P

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I'm not sure what advice to give you since I'm not really sure what you're doing. I've never actually tried importing multiple episodes with avisynth. If I'm vidding multiple episodes, I'll clip. Or what amounts to clipping in avisynth. Also, I generally write out my scripts by manually.

This is what one of my avisynth scripts looked like for my auction vid (I ended up making three in all). I'm sorry I couldn't dig up a neater looking script -- this one had about a bajillion deinterlacing filters on it.

b = mpeg2source("C:\NUMB3RS\ep2.d2v",cpu=4)
b = b.Telecide(order=1,guide=1, vthresh=25).Decimate(cycle=5,mode=2)
b00 = b.trim (72185,73397)
c = mpeg2source("C:\NUMB3RS\ep3.d2v",cpu=4)
c = c.Telecide(order=1,guide=1, vthresh=25).Decimate(cycle=5,mode=2)
c00 = c.trim (64179,66401)
d = mpeg2source("C:\NUMB3RS\ep5.d2v",cpu=4)
d = d.Telecide(order=1,guide=1, vthresh=25).Decimate(cycle=5,mode=2)
d00 = d.trim (74373,76268)
e = mpeg2source("C:\NUMB3RS\ep7.d2v",cpu=4)
e = e.Telecide(order=1,guide=1, vthresh=25).Decimate(cycle=5,mode=2)
e00 = e.trim (9383,11009)
e01 = e.trim (74675,77116)
f = mpeg2source("C:\NUMB3RS\ep8.d2v",cpu=4)
f = f.Telecide(order=1,guide=1, vthresh=25).Decimate(cycle=5,mode=2)
f00 = f.trim (2689,4195)
f01 = f.trim (57623,58949)
f02 = f.trim (81166,81347)
g = mpeg2source("C:\NUMB3RS\ep9.d2v",cpu=4)
g = g.Telecide(order=1,guide=1, vthresh=25).Decimate(cycle=5,mode=2)
g00 = g.trim (48899,51006)
j = mpeg2source("C:\NUMB3RS\ep12.d2v",cpu=4)
j = j.Telecide(order=1,guide=1, vthresh=25).Decimate(cycle=5,mode=2)
j00 = j.trim (491,1612)
return b00 + c00 + d00 + e00 + e01 + f00 + f01 + f02 + g00 + j00
AssumeFPS(24)
ConvertToRGB32()
killAudio()

Here I've taken clips from several episodes, all DVD footage. Everywhere that it says trim, there are the beginning and ending frame #'s of a clip. If I were clipping from Xvid avi's there would be no deinterlacing filters on the script because Xvid encodes are generally progressive, so ignore everywhere it says "Telecide(order=1,guide=1, vthresh=25).Decimate(cycle=5,mode=2)." And, of course, everywhere it says mpeg2source it would say AVISource. When I imported this script into Premiere, it basically looked like one long video file of all my clips layed out end to end.

Before that frightens you to death, I'll show you what my Gia vid script looked like:

mpeg2source("C:\GIA\GIA.d2v")
ConvertToRGB32()
AssumeFPS(24)

I didn't do any clipping for that one, since I was only importing the one file.

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

My scripts were basically just the first line of your Gia script, only avi. I tried both manually writing them and letting VDub do them by default.

I'll have to give the trimming and adding together a try. It may be that it just doesn't work with multiple .avs files. If it works with large enough sections added together and enough of them, it would still save me some clipping time. Thanks for the info. :)

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

I think it should work with a few avs files, though you want to keep it under 10, and probably not have more than a half hours worth of footage in any one.

If you're in virtualdubmod, it will actually tell you what frame number you're at on the timeline underneath the viewing window, btw, which makes clipping much easier.

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

Oh, one other question. You said you used three scripts for your auction vid? But didn't import them at the same time? Were the other scripts to make additional alterations to the footage, or did you work on the vid in sections in different files?

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

Basically I did my initial clipping, then realized partway through my vid that I needed to clip more, then realized later on in my vid I needed to clip more *again.*

:P

Instead of trying to stick all my clips in one file, I just made new files. I could technically have added the new clips onto the end of the original file, but it was easier to break them up a bit.

[permetaform]

yo, kept meaning to ask, but while clipping via avisynth, did you ever tag any clips to the end of a script and then just switch the script out from under Premiere? If so, what happens? (I might be making experiments to this effect...)