Tech Questions

[lola]

 Hi all! It's time to talk about technology! Let's crowdsource our knowledge and use this as a place we can connect to each other to figure things out.

For those of you have already decided on your editing software, what are you planning to use?

And for those of you just starting out,  For those of you just starting out, what hardware (Mac, PC, chromebook, ipad?) are you planning on using? Have you tried any editing software before? 

Here are some resources we shared last year.... let's update this list as we go! (We've also added a few specific tutorials for some of the vexercises...)

Here are a couple of lists of software options: 
Free
Full list with prices listed

FWIW, last year for the vexercises I (Lola) used Davinci Resolve and actually really loved it. It's free, and just as powerful as Premiere, but felt more intuitive to me. 

I've also heard good things about Wondershare Filmora as a somewhat affordable and intuitive first step video editing software. 

A few decent tutorials on YouTube: 
Excellent Davinci Resolve Tutorial
Another Davinci Resolve Tutorial
A whole tutorial playlist on Filmora 
LumaFusion Tutorial for Beginners

Also, there are some great affordable tools for screengrabbing and downloading (like, from YouTube).

4K downloader is stellar for getting HQ files from YouTube, though I'd recommending getting premium to get the 1080p HD files...
and Movavi is great for screencapturing things, well, playing on your screen

We can add to this list as we find more and get a sense of what software folks are using!

Comments

[extrapenguin]

I am living the Linux life, and I used kdenlive to do the vexercises last year! It is reasonably intuitive, though the clipping/selecting from larger sources is a touch tedious. My personal challenge this year is to use the more "advanced" features, like the frame-in-frame/cropping stuff, in at least the "basic" vexercises.

[alexseanchai]

…I cannot remember why I uninstalled Resolve, except that it was well before I got this laptop. Which is better specs than its predecessors.

Let's see if I do better with Resolve.

[hardboiledbaby]

I made one vid years ago, with Shotcut. I now have Vegas Pro 14. Alas, most of what I learned before has faded away and now I'm trying not to be intimidated by what feels like a pretty steep learning curve. It's probably too much program for a noob like me, but I shall give it a go :)

[seekingferret]

Lately I've been mixing and matching between Kdenlive and Resolve, depending on a few factors of the project.

[allheadybooks]

I’m using Premiere Pro (wife is a graphic designer & has the whole Adobe suite)! It is extra complicated and it took me a while to get a good workflow going—Lim’s tutorial videos were really useful for that, just watching her flip between windows and interact with timelines helped demystify it a bit.

[nu_breed]

Lim's tutorials are wonderful. I relied heavily on the keyboard shortcuts one when I started using Premiere but honestly the Pancake Timeline tutorial was even more invaluable - I never vid without using one now.

[naye]

I'm using Adobe Premiere - I've been using Photoshop and Lightroom both for fandom/hobby stuff, so I found Premiere really intuitive. Since the last round of Vexercises I've figured out a few more techniques, but the nice thing with Premiere is that there's usually a tutorial around for exactly the thing I want to do. I still haven't done anything with masks - I feel like that's a next level skill, even if I'm decent at them in Photoshop at this point.

[nu_breed]

I started vidding last July on iMovie (hooboy I could never now, eeeesh), moved to FCPX and then Premiere in December last year which I really credit with pushing my vidding up a notch, I love it.

Because I'm exclusively vidding in CQL right now I have a master project set up with my WIPs and all the source which is partially fully clipped (I'm getting there - about halfway now). It means I can work on multiple timelines at a time and just flick between them.

I feel like I need to start pushing myself into learning some more challenging effects (like Naye above I really do want to get a handle on masks and blending but I'm also writing a thesis this year so time is a factor!)

Also, wow, why have I not been using 4K downloader? It's amazing, Lola, thank you!

[avawatson]

Thanks for this post! I'd seen 4kdownloader around before, but I got it on your recommendation finally. Does the free version not let you download 1080p though? I feel like it's been letting me download 1080p on the free version.

I'm using Adobe Premiere Pro, since I already have the creative suite for work. I found Adobe Premiere Rush software to be a lighter weight and more intuitive interface (I only taught myself how to vid over New Year's and I've only done like...three videos or so, including two edits that I only did in the last couple days) but it's definitely less powerful, as to be expected. It's all part of the same subscription suite though so...same level of annoying to obtain tbh. I don't have any other video editing experience really.

[lola]

oh um, i'm not sure? If you're able to download 1080p with the free version, all the better!

I thought Adobe Rush was free? Is it not? Whoops!

[avawatson]

Ah, I didn't know there was any free version of Premiere Rush, but I just looked it up and it looks like there's a "starter" version that's limited to three exports. (I just had it as part of the Creative Cloud suite, along with the Pro version; if it's not part of the suite, access to one app is $10/month)

[nu_breed]

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good app/website for ripping from You Tube to mp3? I tend to use dodgy sites and it would be great to have a more reliable means of ripping.

[bonibaru]

I have used Movavi for this, it's probably going the long way round though, but I have the program already and it works lol

[nu_breed]

I’m good with that - thanks!

[lola]

I think 4k video downloader actually lets you do this?

[lola]

especially the priciest version you can get HQ sound I believe but I haven't tried myself...

[nu_breed]

Oh wonderful - I do have the paid one now so I’ll check it out. Thanks :)

[seekingferret]

4k downloader can rip to mp3, too. Alternatively grab the highest quality video file and then locally convert the audio to wav or mp3 using Audacity.

[nu_breed]

Thanks!

[extrapenguin]

https://ytmp3.cc/youtube-to-mp3/

[shopfront]

Another one dropping thanks for the recommendations! It's been so long since I vidded and I wasn't sure quite where to start for software. I used to use iMovie ages ago, back before they stripped out the useful features to make it more friendly to first time users.

I remember I also used to rip DVDs and clip my source with separate pieces of software (although I never really figured out a good system for doing.) Do people still pre-clip as a general rule instead of importing the whole source? I'd welcome any software recs or tips for what works for other people if anyone has any to share. I'm currently trying out Davinci Resolve and I'm on Mac.

[amedia]

In case anyone else is in the same boat I am, I thought I'd share my journey through panic to joy!

Aaronantium did a mini-seminar on vid-making a while ago at a DC Slash house party (they're online, LMK if you want deets) (that's "DC" as in the city, not restricted to that universe), and recommended both Filmora and Resolve, with a slightly higher rec for Resolve, so I downloaded it, and when I decided to do the Vexercises, I unpacked it and installed it.

Well, it SAID it installed. But it wouldn't run, and gave me a lot of really weird error messages, until finally I figured out that it doesn't run on Windows 7.

Yes, I still have Windows 7. Look, I'm a medievalist by training. Also I'm saving up for a gaming computer.

I was panicking so hard that I forgot about Filmora. Then I remembered it, downloaded it and installed it and it opened right up quite happily! Yay!

TL;DR - if you're still running Windows 7, Filmora still works.

[nu_breed]

This isn't so much a tech question, more a process question (though I imagine it counts) but where do people get their music ideas from? I mostly have been using a combo of Spotify suggestions (Discover Weekly/Release Radar etc.) and Bandcamp but am wondering if there are other places I could be perusing.

[lola]

I totally use spotify endlessly. I also look for playlists people have made for my source! I've found so much amazing music that way. I also use Youtube, especially for remixes and covers. (And then there's just the constant stream of kpop that is my life :D)

[nu_breed]

Oh the playlist thing is a great idea! (I really should listen to more K Pop - I recently fell hard for Exo!)

[snycock]

I am using Davinci Resolve 17, but I'm really struggling to figure out how to make clips from the episode I am using. Most of the tutorial videos I have watched skip over the cut tab and go right to editing with the clips they already have. Does anyone have a link for a good tutorial on cutting clips out of a larger source?

[lola]

Ah yes, here is a tutorial! (I think this is what you want?) I have to say I find this guys overall sound really obnoxious, but it does explain it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiN9zkpyfjM&ab_channel=JasonYadlovski

[snycock]

Yes! That was exactly what I needed to see! Thank you!

[trickytricky]

I do vidding on my Mac and use Final Cut Pro X. I tried out Premiere Pro waaaay back when (back in the days when you could actually...buy it, not just borrow it on an expensive monthly subscription basis...), and the learning curve on the rendering/technical side was just too steep for me to have fun with it. FCPX I've found to be way more user-friendly and intuitive and the built-in effects/features are pretty awesome with it.

(Happy to chat more about it as an option if anyone is shopping around/curious for more details.)

[salamandras]

I'm not sure where to ask this, it's more of a organization or process question.

How do people organize clips, or do people organize clips before beginning a project? I just started, and my first inclination was to make a clip library of similar things before I started putting things on the timeline, which was frankly overwhelming, but I imagine building a library of well labeled clips would be so useful.

[allheadybooks]

Oof, clipping really takes forever. I think the process depends somewhat on what software you’re using. I’m working in Premiere, which makes it pretty easy to flip back and forth between clipping and placing vids on a timeline, since you can clip within the program (by marking beginning and end points in the source video and labeling your clip with some keywords).

So I tend to spend a few hours scrubbing through the source video and pulling enough clips to give me a broad idea of what kinds of visual trends and patterns I have to work with. Then I place some of those on the timeline, ideally creating some anchor points that I’m sure about, and filling in between them with maybes or randomly chosen clips just to play around. (I divide these between two video tracks in Premiere: V1 for clips I’m sure about and V2 for possibilities I’m playing around with, dragging them down to V1 once I’m sure they’ll work.) When I run out of stuff to place or realize I need some wide establishing shots or a closeup of an eye or something specific like that, I go back to clipping! They’re pretty mutually inspiring processes—I don’t know what to clip unless I have a sense of the arc of the vid, and I can’t imagine an arc for the vid unless I know what shots I have to choose from—so alternating between them works best for me.

[allheadybooks]

And re: organization, I just label each clip with a string of keywords usually including the following things:

Character
What the character is doing (actions, gestures, poses)
Directionality (up, down, left to right, towards/away from camera)
Shot type (closeup, wide shot)
Shot angle
Setting (if visible)
Day vs. night
Interior vs. exterior
Light coloration (for very stylized sources)
Any geometric shapes, objects, etc. that stick out in the shot

And then I can search for those keywords later to find a particular shot or type of shot.

[salamandras]

This is so very helpful! Thank you so much for sharing your process. If I think of it as a task unto itself as you describe it, I can see going through my source video being a fun project. The whole idea of a structured creative visual process is so new to me.

I really appreciate you sharing your keywords, too! My brain wants to be super organized and then struggles coming up with organizational structures, so I will definitely start with yours.

[allheadybooks]

No problem! Yeah, this hobby is a much more structured kind of creativity than I’m used to, with so much technical/process mastery to do before you get to the fun stuff. But once I got a flow worked out for clipping, I do find it fun because describing the clips through keywords sparks ideas for me and helps me see parallels and trends across shots. Last year’s vexercises gave me a good kick in the ass to get a system worked out, in that the quick deadlines meant I had to just try stuff and practice without being too much of a perfectionist!

[salamandras]

I hope you don't mind me asking a follow up question - Do you find it useful to be super specific and give a ton (maybe even an excess) of keywords? Or does that bog the process down?

I figure it would be better to be more specific for later, when I use the search feature, but I know from past experience I tend to get too ambitious and then give up when I over-complicate things.

[allheadybooks]

Hm, I think this is one of those things that you figure out as you go. So for Atomic Blonde, that movie is huge on stylistic colored lighting, and the protagonist wears a bunch of different wigs throughout the movie, so I always note that, but I wouldn’t necessarily for another source. I also love to emphasize movement and make dance-like vids so I always record direction of movement, where another vidder might not. A typical keyword string (which I just punch in as the name of the clip, although I know some people use the metadata fields in Premiere) might look like:

Lorraine walks toward camera sunglasses blonde in hallway with strip lights green

Percival punches cop left to right then flips him in front of car headlights fight alley night wide shot

Pan across city skyline superspeed exterior night

So I don’t hit every one of those categories for every shot, just the relevant ones, and I by no means try to be comprehensive! It’s more like, what am I noticing most about this shot, and I jot those things down because later on I might need to find more night shots, or close-ups, or fight scenes. And you’ll figure out as you go what aspects of the source are interesting to you, and tag those more thoroughly (Hannibal has a bunch of disturbing nature images so I always tagged those with ‘nature’ and the murder art pieces with ‘murder’). Make sense?

[salamandras]

Oh, yes, this is incredibly helpful, thank you!