Spinfield: Web marketing trends today, tomorrow, and beyond…

Anyone with a camera and a computer with editing software can make a video or music composition. Most Macs come with iMovie or GarageBand which makes editing easy.

Many factors separate the good from the bad, but one of the most overlooked is the editing process. To get familiar with the editing process, one has to understand the tools available and the techniques used to create an engaging video.

You can do many exercises to familiarize yourself with editing and the impact it can have on your project. For instance, find an audio recording of someone making a speech. Import the file into your editing program and put it on the timeline. Listen to the speech and try to find its core issue.

Next, experiment with the time of the speech. Let’s say its three minutes; cut that time in half. Edit it down to about 90 seconds while still trying to keep the message of the speech clear. Listen to the speaker’s voice and inflection, and take this into consideration when you pace the speech to sound like it was not edited.

To go a little further, you can have some fun. Take what the speaker is saying and edit it so the speaker sounds like they are talking about something different, or is saying the opposite of what was originally meant.

Another fun thing you can try with sound and video editing is take a video clip of a conversation between two or more people, delete the sound file and try to recreate the conversation - or just have fun and re-dub the clip to something completely different.

Usually you can put the whole clip on to the timeline and then lock the video track. Depending on what kind of editing software you are using, this is usually indicated by a lock icon located to the left of the track. Once the video track is locked you can select the audio track (or tracks if it’s stereo) and delete it.

Now place your cursor at the beginning of the clip and then hit record. In programs like FinalCut Pro you can go to Tools/Voice Over and change the microphone volume. It’s best to select individuals while adjusting the volume. This allows the volume levels to even out in the final mix.

Exercises like these will familiarize you with how your software works and how you can approach creating or recreating a story. Filters can be interesting. If you are familiar with programs such as Photoshop you can get an idea how some of the video filters work. The big difference is you can set the level of how much the filter will affect a particular clip. You can also use envelopes to change the level of impact a filter can have on the timeline.

Much like a fade-in or a fade-out, filters can work the same way. Most of the time you want to use filters to correct something in the footage. Perhaps the video is not bright enough or the sound is too muddy. People who go filter-crazy tend to produce videos that do not emphasize the message and distract the viewer.

Video and sound editing can be a lot of fun. The more you experiment, the more ideas you will get. Next time you watch a movie, a commercial, or a YouTube video, pay attention to the pace of the video and how well the information is portrayed. The more you become aware of how things are edited, the more you can point out mistakes or come up with better ideas.

It’s entertaining to see a commercial on TV and recognize a cheesy effect. Car dealership commercials are sometimes guilty of using generic affects like flaming text or big boomy voice filters that make the announcer sound like they are standing in a large steel can.

Remember sometimes less is more. Experimentation is key to learning your options.

Just remember to have fun while you’re doing it.

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