ComboVid.com

Was wondering if anyone did any video stuff outside of Fighting/video Games.

So, I was on a little vacation recently and I took some videos and photos during the trip with my digicam. Because I had a good time, and we had some people asking how everything went, I naturally decided to do a little diddy junks video and throw it on a dummy account on youtube.

Previously, fighting game combo/exhibition video experience helped familiarize me with video editing and stuff, so I felt comfortable doing the videos. But IMO it turned out really ghetto anyway (since that was the plan), because I didn't spend much time on it since I thought it didn't really matter. Plus, the targeted audience are people that know me personally, so naturally I assumed they'd exaggerate whatever response they'd give.

But I wasn't really expecting the responses I got. I also wasn't expecting me to enjoy the videos so much. Now I want to do even more IRL videos and actually give the same amount of TLC to them as I would a combo video. But, I don't really know what direction to take it, or if I'm just being enthusiastic because I was there and did the video, while in actuality the footage isn't really anything remotely special nor the style/flow.

So, has anyone worked on some IRL videos?

PS. I think not posting a link in OP illustrates that I'm self conscious about it and therefor insecure and bias.... I'll show you mine if you show me yours! (heh)

yes, my brother and i did a video presentation for my father's 60s birthday. it showed his whole life at hand of photos and animations i had done in after effects. it was a huge success. very happy moment.

I've done two wedding slideshows... photos of the bride and groom before they were married and stuff. Of course, unlike most wedding slideshows, which are just slideshows with background music at random, I had the couple choose their songs for me and then I synced everything to the music. Hahaha.

I also did a special birthday slideshow for a friend of a friend. Actually got paid for that one, too. Heh.

- James

That's interesting.

Sounds kind of daunting to do such big events like that. So far, all I've done is record videos and take pictures on vacations with friends.

What I did was just video/photo while there, then place the video in chronological order with the original audio in tact when there was music playing, then dubbed the spots where there wasn't. Then after the video, did a chronological slideshow with dubbed music that was somehow associated.

But I dunno. I naturally became interested in viewing movies and music videos after this stuff -- and I've been wondering if my video game experiences are really transferring or not, and what areas I should look in to.

I'm wondering things like; should i dub everything or retain some bits, should I mix video and slideshow or keep the separate, should I add subtitles/notations, what kind of transitions to use, should I zoom, etc.

That's cool that you watch more music videos and such now. That totally started happening to me as well. I started watching things differently, like movie title sequences and commercials and such. I mean, me and Magnetro have talked about this before a tad bit, particularly because we've noticed just how often Trapcode Shine is abused in commercials. Also, I watch sporting events on TV very differently. I tend to notice transitions between replays and live footage, between showing stats and live footage, etc. and see what kind of things they do for backgrounds and such.

But yeah, stuff you've been doing for Combo Videos definitely transfers over to stuff for IRL videos. Really, it feels like the best thing about working on Combo Videos is that you start: A) Learning what really works and what looks bad. B) Figuring out your own style. So there really isn't a right or wrong answer for how you edit that video, IMHO. But definitely take the things you've learned from Combo Videos and apply them. What works for one medium usually means it still works pretty well for other mediums. I mean, for the Wedding Slideshows I did, I seriously made them like I made Combo Videos (the main thing I learned from making Combo Videos was how to make things "fit" with the music and seem natural with the music).

- James

Well, I've studied that sort of thing before, but mostly taking notes of trends more than actually analyzing the "professional" look. Like in the past I'd take note of trends such as MTV using a lot of saturated pastels and psychedelic/retro cartoon imagery that you might produce in Flash, kind of like a cross between tattoo art of the 90's and wallpaper art of the 70's and shit. And yeah, trapcode shine is everywhere (and photoshop lens-flare is like every newbies first button). OTL

I think the u2be bug has infected my editing. Because of annotations, descriptions, titles, tags and whatnot gadgetry available on youtube I don't feel the need to add a title, notes, dates, or anything into the video itself since I know "I'm just putting it on youtube". It keeps the video clean and uncluttered with details outside of the core content, but then I realized when viewed off youtube it's kind of empty.

What I'd really like to try is mixing video and pictures somehow. I want to try some slowdown and zoom and freeze frame to kind of emphasize a moment or something, and maybe use a picture as a transition between two video clips. But I always feel like less is more, you know, and faster is better than slower. I think it would help to get feedback from people that weren't there, so that they can ask questions about what's going on in the video, and I can modify the videos to reflect the Q&A somehow.

Strangely, I'm thinking of doing something very similar... a video + pictures combination thing for my bro's post-wedding video that he wants me to edit for him. So, in fact, if you want to post up your video here for opinions, please do! Then I can steal your ideas, too!! Bwahahahahaha!!!

- James

Funny, I was going to ask if we should exchange video links, but I hesitated because the ones mentioned so far sound really personal by comparison to mine.

There isn't any cool ideas in the ones I've made so far, so I had better get crackin on another video.

Another thing I thought of was BGM transitions. I'd like to do what DJ's do when they cut and spin vinyl on turntables. Maybe not so advanced, but something basic like syncing the beat between tracks then crossfading it with some overlap so the transition is smooth. From there, I don't know, I guess I'll have to talk with a DJ to snipe ideas/concepts.

With video, I still think I would focus on the less-is-more, but yeah I'm going to try mixing video and stillframe in some different ways. I was thinking, since virtual dub is able to view a video frame by frame with like left/right and pgup/dwn I can review a segment of a video on a frame-level and see if there's any "special moment" or really cool part to the video, then play the video at normal speed and freezeframe that frame with some sort of like flash/photo-flash effect to make it look like taking a picture on that moment, then zoom a bit to the interesting bits.

Yeah umm, I might request to Maj for this thread to be relocated before I post a link though, but I'll PM you what I got so far. Just know that I'm going to be working on 1 or 2 more and I dunno how long it will take to get those done (but hopefully soon).