music video - need editing tips

[Andre Andreev]

Hi all!
I hope you had a great time over the holidays and are already delivering on your New Year Resolutions!

Here's my question, or rather questions:

I am editing a music video and am having a hard time with keeping all video tracks and fragments sync'ed to the one audio track.

I have the music (from the band's CD) in one track and 6-7 tracks containing the different takes I want to combine into the final video by moving bits and pieces to a video track on top - I call this one "final video track."

All takes are aligned with the music (an alignment which was a pain in itself - any ideas on how to easily do this... or how to shoot for this?).

I find it very difficult to take a fragment from a "take" video track and move it to the "final editing track" without having it move left/right and thus lose the sync with the video. Is there a "vertical movement lock" key or a similar feature? Right now I am putting the cursor at the left end of the snippet and take advantage of the "snap to" function when I drop it in its place. It's not reliable enough though and I am paranoid of getting out of sync (which would cost me - there will be more than 100-150 cuts in the video).

Also, how do I select and copy a segment from a timeline (like done in the trimmer)? Right now if I click on a timeline and drag my mouse, this moves the timeline. Is there a way to get the "trimmer" behavior? Again, I can't use the trimmer because I need the perfect sync I have achieved by positioning the takes on separate timelines.

Another thing - is it possible to lock the timelines? Again, even the smallest mistake will cause me a lot of pain.

And lastly - how would you approach such a project? What has your experience with editing music videos in vegas taught you?

I thought of using the multicam wizard, but I have a million markers on the timeline already (for accents in the songs) - this would create a lot of confusion.

Thank you in advance!

-- Andre

[Edward Troxel]

Use the numpad keys. Select a small section and 8 on the number pad will move it up a track. Likewise, 2 will move it down. Then you don't have to worry about it moving left or right.

[Andre Andreev]

excuse the retarded question:

how do I quickly select a small part on the timeline with moving the timeline?

clicking and dragging on the timeline moves it, with both selection tools.

thanks.

-- Andre

[Bob Costa]

For creative ideas, I am now reading a book called "Transitions" which is editing philosophy from about a dozen famous editors. Lots of good stuff in there, including ideas about workflow, on beat/off beat, etc. I found mine for about $4 used on Amazon.

[Edward Troxel]

<<<-- Originally posted by Andre Andreev : how do I quickly select a small part on the timeline with moving the timeline?

clicking and dragging on the timeline moves it, with both selection tools. -->>>

Not sure I'm fully following this. I'm assuming you want to take a specific clip and move it to a master track. Simply click on that clip and press the 8 key to move it up. DO NOT click and drag (which would MOVE the clip)

Now, if you're talking about create a selection area, yes, click and drag above the timeline. Then you can adjust the in/out points as needed.

So, I'm not exactly following the question here.

[Brian Mitchell Warshawsky]

Andre,

Is your track from the CD in 44.1 or 48K? If you captured directly from a standard CD, you may need to convert the music track for a true sync.

Fortunately, Vegas makes this simple.

Are you going to post the final result?

Brian

[Andre Andreev]

Edward, here's what I am trying to do

I have: 5 (sync-ed with the music) events containing one long take each on 5 separate tracks.
I want to: take small sections from each of the events and move them to a 6th, "final edit" track, while preserving the sync with the music.

Challenges:

1. moving a small section of a "work track" event to the 6th track without losing sync - RESOLVED by your suggestion to use the 8 keypad key.

2. quickly selecting a small section of a "work track" to be moved in such a fashion - still an issue as for each cut I need to do a selection with the marker bar, then select the desired "edit track", split, move the fragment to the "final edit track" with the "8" key - these are too many steps when I consider 100+edits.

In the Trimmer window it is possible to select a region and drag this selection to the timeline, without the need for "splitting". Is it possible to duplicate this behavior when copying from a track?

Or, is there another way YOU would approach such a situation?

John, when the clip is done, I will post a link for a limited time (while bandwith lasts :)

Brian, yes, I got it from a CD. Should I convert to 48k ? (video is from DVX100A - 24 progressive)

Thank you all!

[Edward Troxel]

Sounds like you really need to use the Multi-Cam tools in Excalibur. It will simplify picking sections from each track to be placed on a "Master" track. You simply place markers on the timeline indicating which track should be selected at any point in time and, when done, run Multi-Cam to create the Master Track using those edit decisions.

[Scott Brickert]

Andre,
I've experienced alot of headaches with syncing as well.

To prevent tracks slipping out of sync create a group by selecting the audio clip followed by Ctrl+L click on all the video tracks. Now that they are all highlighted, R click on any of those clips, go to Group>Create New. Now where one goes all go.

One somewhat cumbersome way to get the job done: mute all video tracks except the one you want to copy from, select the clip you want to extract by L clicking on it, highlight the area you want to move up by L clicking and dragging on the area above the timeline, then, hover the mouse pointer over both the Final Video Track and the left boundary line of the highlighted region until it changes to a <-> arrow, now click on it. Finally, R click and select Paste to place the copied selection onto the Final Video Track in the selected location.

Or, and perhaps much easier, you could still use all your markers with Excalibur. Renaming the tracks and markers to comform to what the Multicam Wizard expects will create the new final track up top at the click of a button. I’ve been using Excalibur a lot lately, and wouldn’t trade the power of the Sync and Multicam Wizards for a new SATA hard drive….

I assume by placing your markers you’ve already done the hard work of deciding where you want to switch from one view to another. If not, I’d recommend you save a copy of your current file, then run the Sync Wizard on your five video and one audio tracks, being sure to follow the appropriate track and marker naming protocol. This will result in a matrix showing all five of your tracks in the preview window, allowing simultaneous viewing, which speeds up choosing the cut points. You can even have buttons installed on the Vegas toolbar to make placing the markers with appropriate cut or other transition a simply L click of the mouse.

Hope this isn’t overly long or involved, but I’ve lost a few hairs working with syncing and multi-tracks. Maybe you can keep yours.

best ,
Scott

[Andre Andreev]

Scott, I, too, hope (and pray) for the preservation of my hair! Looking at my dad I should have approx 10 more years before the inevitable starts happening...

The song I am working on has very high tempo (192+bpm?) with non-distinctive drums and I can not possibly make markers for the gazillion cuts I ... well, already made.

What I did was listen/watch to short fragments, each time isolating a track I felt could be used. Then I would select a slice (marker above timeline), S(lice) it, use the 8 on (numLock=on) keypad to move it up and use 7+arrow+enter or 9+arrows+enter to adjust edges.

I wish I had known about grouping earlier - would have saved me some Undoing and hyperventilation at 2AM.

The video is coming along - it's a lot of work but has the built in satisfaction of putting together a giant puzzle.

I thank God for choosing to do this the Right(TM) way from the very beginning - starting with a storyboard of the "story" and a list of required shots for the band. This way the "storyline" is extremely easy to put together.

I will post a link when I feel I am close to done.

Regards,
-- Andre

[Scott Brickert]

Hah, yeah, hyperventilation, or heart stoppage, that's it.

Not to be too picky but our baldness genes derives from our mothers. So check out your uncles on her side to see your future hairscape...

Your method might even be akin to how the MultiCam wizard works. When you say 'isolate a track', you mean you select it, so that's the one showing up in the Preview window?

Glad you like puzzles cuz it sure is alot of work.

I can't recommend Excalibur too highly for multi-track syncing work. Instead of isolating one track you can view all of 'em simultaneously while the audio is playing.

Hope you can post a clip sometime.

Scott