Good going, to the #1 from the #2! HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT

Hello Pax,

First of all, I am so glad to hear all of your compliments! I am truly honored!
Of course I would like to share my thoughts and ideas on how to make such a movie. That's what this forum is for, isn't it

I filmed all of this in 2008, and I promised my friends to make this into a nice movie. Untill then, I never touched any program to edit video. There was a demo delivered with the camera (a JVC Everio) and it was of Cyberlink, I think it was version 6.0. So I started editing as a newbie and as I was editing, I learned myself some new things and techniques. After a year or so, the movie was about 50 minutes long and ready. But I made also a ‘summary’ of approx. 5min. Just for Youtube and for my friends to watch whenever they wanted.

So when I saw this contest, I thought: let’s edit this movie again. In the last years I’ve edited some more, so I became better than when I first edited this video. I deleted some parts and added some, and the most important: I added the intro especially for this contest. Just because it was an international contest and not everybody knows what this Orange Campsite is all about. That is also why I added little parts of text when a important activity in the movie started, like “putting up the tent” etc. For ME it is clear what is going to happen, but is it for the viewer too? That’s what I tought from beginning to end, and I think it’s important that you always think from the perspective of the viewer.

Then about the techniques: personally I like to use as simple as possible effects and transitions. Most of the time, I use fade or blur. That’s what I see the most on tv too. And often at the TV they don’t use a transition at all! Try to watch some documentaries and movies and look at the transitions to learn from it!

I also know that when a shot is too long, the attention of the viewer flows away. Especially when you use uptempo music. Try to go with the flow of your music and use snippets of a few seconds max (4-8 sec). The music I chose was used by our national TV station during that European Championship in 2008. So it was all about memories for me and my friends that I chose this video. Look at this for example, this is what I mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To-8fROINkQ

What is important too for me, is that the music fits perfectly with the video. So most of the time I firstly choose the music, and then build the video around this. When you look at my movie, you will see this for example at 3:30 in my video when all of the guys move togheter exactly at the tempo of the music. And you see it again 3:55 when the cup moves in harmony with the music.

The last important thing I used, and what makes it look more professional, was the stabilizer of PD9. Look at the shot in the underground station at 3:40, which I shot completely out of my hand. It was very, very shakey. But with the stabilizer you don’t see that and it looks directly more professional.

If you have any more questions, please ask. This movie is definitely a mix of practice, practice, practice, a little bit of feeling and a little bit of info for everybody who wasn’t there, but wants to understand what is happening.

I hope I gave you some information that you can use. As long as you don’t win the next contest, hehe!

Greetings and a lot of thanks for your compliments, again.
Henrik
Massive.

Thanks for your very informative reply, Henrik. I was especially struck by your idea of building the entire video production around the music you use. I understand Barry is big on music too. That speaks volumes to me.

I am totally inexperienced at making productions such as yours, so I will certainly take your advice to heart.

For some reason, I have not received any Forum posting notices for the last three days. This makes communicating on the Forum quite difficult. For instance, I just found your reply to my post by searching for it this evening and I will not be notified if you reply to me. Therefore, allow me to say, congratulations again! And thanks for the excellent advice.

Pax Laptop PC, ASUS
Core i7 Q 720
Win 7, 64-bit
RAM 8GB DDR2
Graphics, NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M 1GB DDR5

Hi Pax,

In this case I build the video around the music. But sometimes this insn't the best way, it depends on the kind of movie and what you want. Try to figure it out by yourself.

About the postings at this forum. I think your settings are not right. I get always an email if anyone posted in a topic in which I posted too. So you always know if there is a reply.

You can find it by going to "my profile" and setting "Send e-mail notification when posts get answered" to YES.
Good luck! Massive.