The Making of a Music Video:
How Can You Think of Me? Version 2: At the Creek
By Gerard C. Faucheux, Sr.
February 6, 2008
Step 1. Start with a GREAT song…HA!
I have wanted to try making a music video for a LONG time and have finally been able to pull together all of the pieces to make it happen. One of the last remaining pieces, oddly enough, was this piece that is used to mount my camcorder to a tripod. Since I was unable to find that missing piece, I made one out of a piece of wood. Here's everything else that was used in the filming of my videos.
Gear used:
JVC Everio Hard Disk Camcorder
Dell XPS 410 PC
Motorola Q phone
tripod
guitar
djembe
shakers
great looking guy
wonderful, caring, and supportive wife to spend a Saturday afternoon, walking around a creek videotaping and taking photos…
oh, yeah, a creek….
Software: ULead VideoStudio 11 http://www.ulead.com/vs/ I downloaded a 30-day trial version, but the Plus version runs $99 and the basic version is $69.
Step 1: Record the video
The fun begins… This software allows you to overlay tracks in a manner similar to audio multitracking, so I started by recording a base track of me singing the song. Well, lip-syncing the song. Hmm.. in a creek, no electricity… I ended up using my Motorola Q phone which has speakers that were loud enough for Kathy to hold, while videotaping, so that I could walk and sing. A battery powered CD player would have worked, but there wasn't one handy. We recorded a few versions of me singing, all the way through, but I think we ended up using most of the first as the entire base track.
Next, we pick-synced in a few spots, playing through the entire song. I found that it was helpful to have a full track including audio, when attempting to sync multiple tracks during the edit. Kathy adjusted the zoom during the recording, to vary the look. Another track was recorded of me shake-syncing, again, starting from the beginning.
Other random tracks were recorded as I walked along the creek, walked up the log, did that little jump/twirl thing around the neat tree, and oh, how about that rock skim!
I kept the djembe-sync track that I filmed inside for version 1 of my video. I liked the color tone in that video: the red shirt, the reddish wood of the djembe, the dark blue of the couch in the background.
Step 2: Edit the video
My camcorder makes it super easy to get started with the edit process, since the files can be just copied over a USB connection. Simply plug it in, copy and paste. I watched each clip and made notes about what was in each. Here's a screenshot from Ulead:
So, MOV004.MOD is my main track. Track 1 is empty. That was actually my working track, as I discovered (this may not be the only way, but it worked for me), that in order to sync the tracks, I would need to visually align the tracks while in the Audio view, which, as far as I could tell, only showed the main track and Overlay 1, as well as the music track. The bottom track is where my studio recorded song was placed (this was a WMA file, but MP3 are supported).
So, after dropping a video track that needed to be synced, I would go to the audio view and slide the video track over until they lined up. After getting it synced, I split the audio from the video track and deleted the audio, since the Music track would be the only track that I would want to hear in the final video. Then, using the chapter points to basically mark the beginning of a clip, I moved the video down to one of the other video tracks and brought in another track. This was repeated for the pick-syncing, djembe-syncing, and shaker-syncing tracks.
For the cuts between clips, the software works by displaying the highest numbered overlay that has video present. There are many options for fades, but I kept basic cuts. To keep the tracks in sync, I split the video between parts that I wanted to include and then adjusted the start and end points of the clips. Look again at the first screenshot. I used the Chapter End Points to assist in lining up the end point of one track with the start point of another.
For the non-synced tracks, I referred to my notes of all of my clips and selected parts that I wanted to include and just put them in different places in one of the tracks, adjusting the length to just the part I wanted to see and then sliding it around until it appeared where I wanted. Much easier than having to worry about syncing with audio.
Step 3: Create Titles
Just like other things, Titles have their own track. Double-clicking in the Title track starts a dialog that gives many more options. I like that the software lets you use all of your Windows fonts and that you can adjust the fonts within the title. For this version, I kept it simple. Watch version 1 and you'll see a different title effect.
Step 4: Produce Video
Through the Share menu, there are many options for creating a video file for sharing. So far, I have only used two. Create Video File was used to create the WMV file and Create Disc was used to create a DVD, complete with a starting Menu that plays up to 30 seconds of the song and some clips from the video. The resulting WMV file was 51MB, well under the limit for MySpace, YouTube, and GodTube.
Well, watch my video while looking at the screenshot of the video clips and you should be able to anticipate the changes.
Homemade Music Video 2: How Can You Think of Me? revised!
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See, nothing to it!
God bless!
Gerard
Gerard C. Faucheux, Sr. (yes, Senior – my son is in his first year of college)