Jump to content
Existing user? Sign In

Sign In



Sign Up

Video editing


Recommended Posts

It has been a while since I edited any video, but I never did anything professionally.  I started off doing some basic edits in and old version of Premiere Pro, but rather than upgrading to a newer version, I learned to use Resolve, which I know far better now than I ever knew Premiere Pro, especially since I never learned things like After Effects or much beyond basic editing.  I have since learned all sorts of cool stuff using Resolve including using Fusion (post production effects like After Effects).

That said, I do enjoy the content on HDWetting and it's pretty cool to peak behind the curtain.  Thanks for sharing.

Link to comment
11 hours ago, ilikeadultvids said:

It has been a while since I edited any video, but I never did anything professionally.  I started off doing some basic edits in and old version of Premiere Pro, but rather than upgrading to a newer version, I learned to use Resolve, which I know far better now than I ever knew Premiere Pro, especially since I never learned things like After Effects or much beyond basic editing.  I have since learned all sorts of cool stuff using Resolve including using Fusion (post production effects like After Effects).

That said, I do enjoy the content on HDWetting and it's pretty cool to peak behind the curtain.  Thanks for sharing.

I use both Premiere and Resolve, depending on the project.  For fast turn around  and short videos I tend to use Premiere more, especially for things that require lots of motion graphics, I will use Premiere/After Effects.

I use resolve more for long-form and ultra-high end projects, like some of the more high-end corporate and broadcast stuff I do.  I end up using After Effects more for motion graphics, like the animated lower thirds in the Public Wetting Challenge, while with Fusion I tend to do more effects and compositing type work, like removing all the traffic from a busy highway.

Link to comment

This is cool. I've always enjoyed editing videos. Thought that might have been what I'd end up doing with my life.
I've always just used Premiere but I've heard good things about Resolve. And I like that it's free. I thought about trying it but I like how easy it is to bring an After Effects comp into Premiere. I think if I had more stuff to edit I'd maybe try it out but I only really do personal projects, music videos and stuff and not that often.

Do you make the virtual studio sets behind the presenter as well?

Link to comment
On 1/13/2021 at 5:20 PM, no name plz said:

I did appreciate this! I'm actually studying film at university. Do you ever have issues keying out the green screen with your blue hair? 

Also you must have a wide screen monitor, that's cool. 

They key around Olivia's hair isn't the best, and definitely wouldn't pass if it were being done as an effects composite for a dramatic film or something like that.  I had to use a fairly steep falloff slope on the color selctor, and that results in a lot of "chatter" around her hair.  Luckily, the blue's in the virtual set blend nicely with her hair color, which does a pretty good job hiding the edge chatter around her hair most of the time.

 

On 1/14/2021 at 8:31 PM, [X] Doubt said:

Hey, if you need help, I can take some of the load off of your back. I’m going into film school rn for editing and writing, and I have a bunch of hours into premier. You have great content and I’d love to contribute in anyway I can. 

Thanks! I'm doing alright with my editing workload right now, though.  However, once we start to move past this pandemic and I can ramp up production again I might take you up on it.  When we are in the full swing of things production wise it would even be helpful to just have someone separate the scenes into different bins, sync up the audio, and normalize the audio levels.

 

On 1/15/2021 at 5:12 AM, dwp said:

I'm not sure how you can keep focused on your work editing those videos. 😉

Editing is a tedious process, but it can be a lot more enjoyable when one is interested in the content.

 

1 hour ago, Tall Cake said:

Do you make the virtual studio sets behind the presenter as well?

No... I subscribe to a few different stock footage/graphics/music libraries.  That way I don't have to create every single graphic from scratch for every little project.  The virtual set used in these videos is one I pulled from one of these libraries.  I did tweak the colors slightly to more closely match the already established color scheme of the graphics, but that is it.

Link to comment
On 1/16/2021 at 3:21 PM, Tall Cake said:

This is cool. I've always enjoyed editing videos. Thought that might have been what I'd end up doing with my life.
I've always just used Premiere but I've heard good things about Resolve. And I like that it's free. I thought about trying it but I like how easy it is to bring an After Effects comp into Premiere. I think if I had more stuff to edit I'd maybe try it out but I only really do personal projects, music videos and stuff and not that often.

Do you make the virtual studio sets behind the presenter as well?

I enjoy editing to some degree as well.  Resolve is pretty cool in that in addition to it being free (there's a paid version that has some nice features that I have considered getting and it's only $300 with free upgrades), it has some of the Creative Suite things integrated into one application, so you don't have to import a Fusion (Resolve's version of After Effects) composition since it's integrated directly into the application itself.  There is a stand-alone version of Fusion as well, but you can do most of that stuff in the Fusion section of Resolve.

On 1/16/2021 at 4:59 PM, TVGuy said:

They key around Olivia's hair isn't the best, and definitely wouldn't pass if it were being done as an effects composite for a dramatic film or something like that.  I had to use a fairly steep falloff slope on the color selctor, and that results in a lot of "chatter" around her hair.

Yeah, I tried my hand at green screening, but it didn't really work.  I tried to put together my own green screen on the cheap and the room had natural lighting as well.  The green was too dark and ate into my subject's hair and head a LOT when trying to key it out.  In addition, the natural lighting triggered some weirdness with white balance which made it so that the color of the green screen varied from like a pine green to a pea green.  I'm sure there's a way to compensate using the software, but I think the generally preferred way would be to actually go out and buy lighting and an actual green screen to get a more consistent and workable effect.

Let this be a lesson to anyone looking to get into filming.  You might want to do your research FIRST and then try to do it right.

Link to comment
8 hours ago, ilikeadultvids said:

Yeah, I tried my hand at green screening, but it didn't really work.  I tried to put together my own green screen on the cheap and the room had natural lighting as well.  The green was too dark and ate into my subject's hair and head a LOT when trying to key it out.  In addition, the natural lighting triggered some weirdness with white balance which made it so that the color of the green screen varied from like a pine green to a pea green.  I'm sure there's a way to compensate using the software, but I think the generally preferred way would be to actually go out and buy lighting and an actual green screen to get a more consistent and workable effect.

Yeah... People tend to think chromakeying just works like magic, you click something and you end up with a perfect key.  It is possible to get close to something like that, but it involves a perfectly configured green screen setup, with perfect green screen lighting, and a camera that is optimally configured for doing a chroma key. Any little thing that isn't perfect in that setup results in a whole lot of work in post.

You don't just apply a green screen effect and get good results.  It can involve having to pre-color grade the footage, selective and animated masking, then your key filter, but then also all manner of tools to clean up and refine the resulting matte edges to get something that is even somewhat acceptable.

Link to comment
13 minutes ago, ilikeadultvids said:

I enjoy editing to some degree as well.  Resolve is pretty cool in that in addition to it being free (there's a paid version that has some nice features that I have considered getting and it's only $300 with free upgrades), it has some of the Creative Suite things integrated into one application, so you don't have to import a Fusion (Resolve's version of After Effects) composition since it's integrated directly into the application itself.  There is a stand-alone version of Fusion as well, but you can do most of that stuff in the Fusion section of Resolve.

Yeah, I tried my hand at green screening, but it didn't really work.  I tried to put together my own green screen on the cheap and the room had natural lighting as well.  The green was too dark and ate into my subject's hair and head a LOT when trying to key it out.  In addition, the natural lighting triggered some weirdness with white balance which made it so that the color of the green screen varied from like a pine green to a pea green.  I'm sure there's a way to compensate using the software, but I think the generally preferred way would be to actually go out and buy lighting and an actual green screen to get a more consistent and workable effect.

Interesting. How does Fusion compare to After Effects? Would it be fairly easy to move over to or is it like starting completely from scratch? It does sound handy it being integrated in Resolve though.

Yeah green screens aren't as easy as you'd think. It has to be the right green as well. Like, just 100% green, no hint of red or blue or anything (I think). I bought a fairly cheap green screen off eBay years ago. I only used it once I think but it worked well enough for what I needed it for. It was just a shabby looking music video though so it didn't matter if it was messy.
I've heard VFX artists say that even if it's shot on green screen you could well end up having to rotoscope it anyway... which instantly puts me off whenever I start thinking I could maybe give VFX a proper try. Rotoscoping is grim.

Link to comment
1 minute ago, Tall Cake said:

Interesting. How does Fusion compare to After Effects? Would it be fairly easy to move over to or is it like starting completely from scratch? It does sound handy it being integrated in Resolve though.

Yeah green screens aren't as easy as you'd think. It has to be the right green as well. Like, just 100% green, no hint of red or blue or anything (I think). I bought a fairly cheap green screen off eBay years ago. I only used it once I think but it worked well enough for what I needed it for. It was just a shabby looking music video though so it didn't matter if it was messy.
I've heard VFX artists say that even if it's shot on green screen you could well end up having to rotoscope it anyway... which instantly puts me off whenever I start thinking I could maybe give VFX a proper try. Rotoscoping is grim.

I only ever did basic editing in Premiere Pro back in the day and never got involved with using After Effects, so I couldn't tell you much for sure, but from what I understand, it is a pretty different animal.  Resolve uses a system of nodes for any effects, which takes a little bit to wrap your head around.  I'm familiar enough with a few Adobe products to know how their system of layers works for effects and it's a bit different from that.  Thankfully, there are lots of little tutorials how to do random stuff in Resolve on YouTube and a bunch of built in templates that you can kinda look through and see how an effect was put together to try to figure it out a bit more to get it to do what you want.

Yeah, I literally went to the hardware store and bought some piping for a "green screen" frame, but it was quite flimsy and didn't work well.  And I went to a craft store to buy some fabric, which was a kind of deep green which I think was the wrong color, but in addition, probably would want to use better lighting as well.  Also, gotta have the subject stand farther away from the green screen to minimize shadows which would mess with your key.  Ultimately, it seems like it is just about like most things in multimedia, yeah, it may be workable to some degree using post production techniques, but if you record it right initially, it makes your job just that much easier in post.

For example, there was a video I watched touting on of the features of the paid "Studio" version of Resolve and that is tracking and removal of objects.  It could be used to track the Starbucks cup that was in that one scene of Game of Thrones, rather than having to wrestle with an effect that may or may not work in post production, if you just removed the cup from the scene before shooting it, that solves that problem nicely... or, you could, you know, just leave it in and hope no one notices.  No one noticed, right?

Link to comment
8 hours ago, Tall Cake said:

Interesting. How does Fusion compare to After Effects? Would it be fairly easy to move over to or is it like starting completely from scratch? It does sound handy it being integrated in Resolve though.

Fusion is quite a bit different than After Effects.  While AE is layer and timeline based, Fusion is node based.  It is an entirely different way of working, and thinking about projects.

Fusion, however, is a lot faster than AE if you have the hardware to support it- It really needs a lot of GPU power with a heavy amount of VRAM.  This speed makes it a lot easier to just mess around with it and see how things work immediately, which helps speed up learning. 

I was well versed in AE before I ever touched Fusion, and at first I was completely put off by it.  Everything just seemed so different.  Even just the basic workflow as far as how you accomplish things was so different that I couldn't even ask questions that really made sense in terms of how Fusion operates.  However, now that I have spent more time with it, Fusion is my number one choice when building up an effects shot.  The node based system really lets you do complex effects way more quickly, and change things around with much greater ease.  AE is still my favorite for motion graphics type work- The layer based workflow makes sense for doing graphics as it is so similar to how Photoshop works.  But, for effects and composite shots, Fusion seem to be much more suitable.

 

Link to comment
1 hour ago, ilikeadultvids said:

I only ever did basic editing in Premiere Pro back in the day and never got involved with using After Effects, so I couldn't tell you much for sure, but from what I understand, it is a pretty different animal.  Resolve uses a system of nodes for any effects, which takes a little bit to wrap your head around.  I'm familiar enough with a few Adobe products to know how their system of layers works for effects and it's a bit different from that.  Thankfully, there are lots of little tutorials how to do random stuff in Resolve on YouTube and a bunch of built in templates that you can kinda look through and see how an effect was put together to try to figure it out a bit more to get it to do what you want.

Yeah, I literally went to the hardware store and bought some piping for a "green screen" frame, but it was quite flimsy and didn't work well.  And I went to a craft store to buy some fabric, which was a kind of deep green which I think was the wrong color, but in addition, probably would want to use better lighting as well.  Also, gotta have the subject stand farther away from the green screen to minimize shadows which would mess with your key.  Ultimately, it seems like it is just about like most things in multimedia, yeah, it may be workable to some degree using post production techniques, but if you record it right initially, it makes your job just that much easier in post.

For example, there was a video I watched touting on of the features of the paid "Studio" version of Resolve and that is tracking and removal of objects.  It could be used to track the Starbucks cup that was in that one scene of Game of Thrones, rather than having to wrestle with an effect that may or may not work in post production, if you just removed the cup from the scene before shooting it, that solves that problem nicely... or, you could, you know, just leave it in and hope no one notices.  No one noticed, right?

I might look into it the next time I get a new computer. As it is I don't think I use it enough to bother with the hassle of installing new stuff. I tend to just stick with what I've got until the system's old, then see what's new.

Haha I love DIY pipe builds. I've got a camera stabilising cage thing I made out of pipes years ago and I still use. It can work really well. Yeah, like you say, you can't just fix everything in post. You really need to know exactly what it is you want to do with it in post and film it with that in mind.
To be fair, that coffee cup wasn't massively obvious haha I think just one person pointed it out on the internet and everyone jumped on it. And I bet if that last season wasn't so terrible no one would have even cared.

 

1 hour ago, TVGuy said:

Fusion is quite a bit different than After Effects.  While AE is layer and timeline based, Fusion is node based.  It is an entirely different way of working, and thinking about projects.

Fusion, however, is a lot faster than AE if you have the hardware to support it- It really needs a lot of GPU power with a heavy amount of VRAM.  This speed makes it a lot easier to just mess around with it and see how things work immediately, which helps speed up learning. 

I was well versed in AE before I ever touched Fusion, and at first I was completely put off by it.  Everything just seemed so different.  Even just the basic workflow as far as how you accomplish things was so different that I couldn't even ask questions that really made sense in terms of how Fusion operates.  However, now that I have spent more time with it, Fusion is my number one choice when building up an effects shot.  The node based system really lets you do complex effects way more quickly, and change things around with much greater ease.  AE is still my favorite for motion graphics type work- The layer based workflow makes sense for doing graphics as it is so similar to how Photoshop works.  But, for effects and composite shots, Fusion seem to be much more suitable.

 

Ah right. I haven't used nodes much, just one little thing I think when I was trying to learn Blender. I think I could get behind it, I like how it's laid out like you can just see exactly how it all flows together (if that makes sense). Like you say with the need for GPU power, I remember when I switched to GPU for the first thing I did in Blender, just a single still frame, the fans on my laptop went into overdrive instantly. I imagine you need a proper purpose built desktop to really make proper use of it.

Link to comment

Also, word of warning, to take full advantage of the performance of the GPU, you will need the Resolve Studio version, which is $300 with unlimited upgrades.  If you bought any version, I believe since version 15 and it's now on 17, you are good with your license.  It doesn't expire.  From the people I have seen that talk about Resolve a lot, this is one of the really big advantages is the performance increase for the Studio version.  To be fair, I do not have a super awesome rig to test it out on and on top of that, I don't have $300 laying around to buy a license for it, though it is on my radar for purchases sometime in the future.

If you want to get your feet wet with it to kind of learn how it works, you can download the free version and do a LOT of really cool stuff with it.  This should help you to get an idea of how to use it and what the workflow is with it and how to use it for most things.

Link to comment
10 hours ago, ilikeadultvids said:

Also, word of warning, to take full advantage of the performance of the GPU, you will need the Resolve Studio version, which is $300 with unlimited upgrades.  If you bought any version, I believe since version 15 and it's now on 17, you are good with your license.  It doesn't expire.  From the people I have seen that talk about Resolve a lot, this is one of the really big advantages is the performance increase for the Studio version.  To be fair, I do not have a super awesome rig to test it out on and on top of that, I don't have $300 laying around to buy a license for it, though it is on my radar for purchases sometime in the future.

If you want to get your feet wet with it to kind of learn how it works, you can download the free version and do a LOT of really cool stuff with it.  This should help you to get an idea of how to use it and what the workflow is with it and how to use it for most things.

I'd like to elaborate more here-

It isn't as if the free version of Resolve can't utilize all of your GPU.  It can, as long as you only have a single GPU.  The Studio version allows you to use multiple GPUs together, and has additional AI based effects that are GPU heavy.

Link to comment

Thank you for clarifying.  Since I have only ever used the free version, so I don't know all the details about the this.  Actually, my laptop technically has 2 GPUs which it will toggle between the Intel one and the NVidia one depending on the application.  I don't know if Resolve is using my NVidia card, which ideally would be preferred for this.  Also, from what I understand, there are differences in the codecs that are used in that the free version uses whatever you have installed on your system while the Studio version has a more optimized codec which increases performance as well.  Again, this is going by what I heard, unless I'm mistaken.

There are also some additional features which are pretty neat like facial tracking and sort of virtual makeup where you can adjust the colors and features of the face where you can reduce blemishes, improve color in cheeks and lips.  You can actually try this out in the free version, but it does display a warning and then will apply a watermark to the video.  I believe that there is also tracking of other parts of the body as well.  You can do these in the free version, but it takes a little more work to do it.  The Studio version does make things easier with tools like these.

Link to comment

For someone with no experience in video editing this looks very overwhelming and bit like magic 😅.

But I would assume it got a lot better since the beginning of the filming industry. I mean, think about the old film rolls.

 

Now, I have a small question for the experts here. I think it is a bit related to video editing. So maybe you can give me some tips.

I just want to convert some video files with a high resolution like 4k to something more moderate like 1080. What would be the best (in the sense of user friendliness) way to do that?

Link to comment

In all honesty, Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve are pretty feature packed I think they kind of use certain ideas that are throwbacks to pre-digital editing and can seem pretty alien.  For anyone who hasn't gotten their pants wet down to their feet with this kind of software, it can be very daunting and you may want to use another application that may be a little easier to follow.

The second option is if you know someone who knows their way around either of these that can work with you in person to show you the ropes, that can help.  This option is nice, especially because they may notice something that might help you make things look even better.

The last option is to look up videos on YouTube.  This will probably be the slowest of all of the processes and will require quite a bit of patience, but in the end, if you are planning on doing more, you may want to do this.

Please note that I believe that one of the limitations of the free version of Resolve is that it can only handle 4k clips at, I want to say, 120fps.  If you are dealing with even larger content, your options may be limited.  Good luck.

Link to comment
21 hours ago, ilikeadultvids said:

Thank you for clarifying.  Since I have only ever used the free version, so I don't know all the details about the this.  Actually, my laptop technically has 2 GPUs which it will toggle between the Intel one and the NVidia one depending on the application.  I don't know if Resolve is using my NVidia card, which ideally would be preferred for this.  Also, from what I understand, there are differences in the codecs that are used in that the free version uses whatever you have installed on your system while the Studio version has a more optimized codec which increases performance as well.  Again, this is going by what I heard, unless I'm mistaken.

There are also some additional features which are pretty neat like facial tracking and sort of virtual makeup where you can adjust the colors and features of the face where you can reduce blemishes, improve color in cheeks and lips.  You can actually try this out in the free version, but it does display a warning and then will apply a watermark to the video.  I believe that there is also tracking of other parts of the body as well.  You can do these in the free version, but it takes a little more work to do it.  The Studio version does make things easier with tools like these.

I believe in the free version you can select what GPU that you would like to use if your system has more than one.  The limitation is just that you can only use one of them.  On the top menu, if you click on DaVinci Resolve > Preferences there is an option for GPU and memory settings.  Here there should be a list of the available GPUs on your system and you can select which one you would like Resolve to use.  Or, if you are using the paid studio version, you can select multiple GPUs.

The codec differences have to deal with the export codecs and options.  The internal codec used by both the free and paid versions are the same and utilize the same 32bit float color space.  However, when it comes to exporting to something like h.264, you are limited to the encoder that is built into your GPU and have very few options.

 

20 hours ago, FluffySeal said:

Now, I have a small question for the experts here. I think it is a bit related to video editing. So maybe you can give me some tips.

I just want to convert some video files with a high resolution like 4k to something more moderate like 1080. What would be the best (in the sense of user friendliness) way to do that?

I would suggest using Handbrake.  It is fast, offers decent quality, is free, and is somewhat user friendly, at least compared to many other options.

 

8 hours ago, ilikeadultvids said:

In all honesty, Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve are pretty feature packed I think they kind of use certain ideas that are throwbacks to pre-digital editing and can seem pretty alien.  For anyone who hasn't gotten their pants wet down to their feet with this kind of software, it can be very daunting and you may want to use another application that may be a little easier to follow.

The second option is if you know someone who knows their way around either of these that can work with you in person to show you the ropes, that can help.  This option is nice, especially because they may notice something that might help you make things look even better.

The last option is to look up videos on YouTube.  This will probably be the slowest of all of the processes and will require quite a bit of patience, but in the end, if you are planning on doing more, you may want to do this.

Please note that I believe that one of the limitations of the free version of Resolve is that it can only handle 4k clips at, I want to say, 120fps.  If you are dealing with even larger content, your options may be limited.  Good luck.

In the end, editing isn't about the fancy effects, transitions, or any of that.  It is just about how you put shots together, the audio you choose to use, and how it all flows into a cohesive single work.  For a long time editing was limited to only basic cuts, and that was enough.  Even today, go watch just about any movie, and almost all the edits are simple cuts.  It is the story you are telling that matters, Premiere, Resolves, Fusion, After Effects, they are all just tools.

Link to comment

Very true about the fancy effects and transitions.  There are some other things that would be handy as well, depending on what is needed.  For example, it may not be a bad idea to learn how to do some additional basics like adding background music and b-roll.  With the background music, also learning some of the basics of audio ducking (where the music gets quieter when someone is talking or doing something in the main footage) could come in handy.

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...