Editing this Pink Panther sax music video in Vegas

ken c wrote on 7/6/2015, 9:07 AM

hi... any tips on how to do smoother jump-cuts in this Pink Panthr video of me playing tenor sax?

when I shoot original footage, I do several 'takes' in a home greenscreen studio

then I stitch together the best clips as best I can in Vegas...

it still looks amatuerish and choppy.... after 1000s of hours using Vegas (from V3) you'd think I could edit better.

any ideas on how to more seamlessly, professionally edit together a mishmash of various video takes, so it looks better? I try to do both jump-cuts and 2-second pushes/zooms...still looks pretty rough though.

thanks for any ideas!

Comments

dxdy wrote on 7/6/2015, 9:58 AM

You are trying to do a lot in a little time.

I was distracted by the vehicles stopping in the Paris time lapse.

You might try some kind of a transition, swoop in from the right, or somesuch, on the backgrounds.

ken c wrote on 7/6/2015, 10:30 AM

thanks, good points, the bg footage is too busy, esp. for a cool jazz tune like this...I'll try and get better clips.

also a big thx to John for the pm tips, it really helps.

Paul Fierlinger wrote on 7/6/2015, 10:41 AM

It's not just what's happening behind you but your continuous presence on screen is the biggest problem.

OldSmoke wrote on 7/6/2015, 10:50 AM

Maybe a B&W background and make it maybe a bit coarse (film grain) too?

MikeyDH wrote on 7/6/2015, 11:41 AM

Some scenes are much too fast for the tempo of the music

Tim Stannard wrote on 7/6/2015, 2:29 PM

Disagree that the backgrounds are too busy (although some are). I think those with the blurred headlights (eg around 50s) contrast very nicely with the music and the playing, but that's more a taste thing.
Lose shots where there are other humans in close up. The later ones where we travel in the direction of the movement don't work at all though.
The point about continued presence is apt.
Make your cuts coincide with cuts in the background. This looks much more like a cut to a different camera.
Always try to cut between different angles and focal lengths (see previous statement re a)

VidMus wrote on 7/6/2015, 3:56 PM

Do a continuous take on you. Redo the background to follow the music.

So you are constant but re-sized and re-located in the frame.

This way, there are no jumps on you in each scene but there are natural (Musical) jumps in the background.

ken c wrote on 7/6/2015, 9:15 PM

thanks all, some good tips.... much appreciated ... doing good editing / filmmaking takes a lot of skill, I'm still working to improve..

i like storytelling, like in the beginning 3 clips, long shot Eiffel tower = establishing shot, then successive clips til right under Eiffel tower... then when music pace picked up I switched bgrd to faster one...but after that it loses focus, w/bg clips, I'll work on different ones to match...thanks

Byron K wrote on 7/7/2015, 5:05 AM

Nice playing, I like that tune!
You can use fast and slow cross fades between cuts. This will make the transitions between the cuts smoother. Also, Imho, you don't need to have a cut every 3-5 seconds for this tune, being that's it's a mellow song.

I stopped doing the cut every 3-5 seconds because friends actually wanted to see the musicians play and the quick cuts distracted them from the music and performance.

Also, I noticed that your pans (zooms) come to an abrupt stop at the end of the key frames. If you want the pans to be come to a more gradual stop, set the first keyframe to Fast, Smooth or Sharp and the end keyframe to Slow.

ken c wrote on 7/7/2015, 10:21 AM

thanks, good tip about keyframing, will do...

VideoFreq wrote on 7/10/2015, 4:28 PM

There are so many ways to do this. I would blur the background in and out a bit and use zoom transitions in between clips of you transitioning to a larger you and zoom out when transitioning to a smaller you.
There are some great shots like when the bus looks like it will hit you. I would start with it blurred then let it come into focus when it almost runs you over. So many ways.
Keep a continuous theme no matter what and use a "movie look" to change the obvious video look. Change yourself from the green screen guy to a mysterious figure. Put a glow on you or something to remove the hard edges to better match the lighting behind you. PS - you look like a slender PSY.