Making Movies

[dentyr]

Making Movies
How to make Home Movies.
DON’T.

Making home movies is generally a disaster for everyone except yourself.

Making Interesting Movies.

To make an interesting movie first of all, sit down in front of your TV with a pad and pen and watch for an hour any commercial film. Count the number of times that they zoom in or zoom out. Then check how often they pan the camera. The camera stays STILL!! Things move in front of it. Now check the transitions. Seldom do they “Shatter” the screen, sometimes they “fade out” (bedtime scenes etc.) and generally, to create tension, they go straight from one shot straight to the next with no transition.

The movie I put in here has been deleted from my channel! I don't know why or who has removed it. Den.

Example of this.
Mum is standing on the front path with baby in the pram ready to go for a walk.
Shot one; Mum and the pram take up less than half the frame centred to show the surroundings, mum smiles at the camera. You can see that she is happy and you have a good shot of the front garden.
CUT!
Shot two; reasonable close up of baby showing baby in the pram, include part of the pram, not just baby’s face. About 3 to 4 secs. Do not zoom in to this.
Shot three; bit further away as a close up of mum smiling. Again, just a short clip waist to head, 3 to 4 secs.
Shot four; Similar to shot two but a bit further away to show more of the pram.
Shot five; Similar to shot one but include the direction she is going to walk. She walks – the camera stays still so allow enough space in the frame for her to walk. Fade to the next episode.
This tells the story for what it is without it being confusing with zooms, transitions and pans.
Any still shot more than five to seven seconds becomes boring. Any movie shot more than 12 to 15 seconds is in the same category.
My wife went to New Zealand on holiday to see the grandchildren. She took the video camera, set it up on a tripod and left it running. I now have one and a half hours of a 5 year old and a 3 year old running around their yard and jumping on their trampoline on the camera tape. Now edited for keeping it has been reduced to just on 5 minutes. Just the important points.

The Garden Walk.

This is the great one for “Home Movies.” You show a clip of your favourite rose bush. You zoom in to a rose. Great but you want to see the underside also so you walk up to the bush trying not to move the camera too much. Mum yells out “How about the blue flower?” so you swing around to find the mentioned blue flower. Might as well include the big tree…!
Watching this afterwards you see that you have “Painted the garden” swinging left to right, up and down and there no intelligent continuity.

Continuity

You are filming mum going for a walk with baby in the pram. Wonderful! You notice that little John’s pedal car is on the path so you stop the camera, remove the offending item and then carry on filming. Great until you put the movie together. There on the path is a pedal car and suddenly it disappears, GONE! That sort of thing really stands out.
You are filming your wonderful flower beds along the garden paths. Everything is neat and tidy. Mum calls out “What about my geraniums?” You stop the camera whilst she puts a H U G H pot of geraniums onto the concrete slab. When the film is shown later the big pot of geraniums suddenly appears as if by magic. “Bop!”
It happens to even the best of people. When they were filming Ben Hur everything was going smooth until they developed the sequence and previewed for continuity. They then saw that one of the soldiers was wearing a watch! That caused quite a lot of consternation as the whole scene had to be shot again.

Planning.

Planning is the great answer. What is interesting to you when you are filming, example; silly shots of kids sideways and screwed up faces, may not be too exciting in a years’ time. Holiday time, bright warm sunshine, then ice and snow! There must be something in between to show that you have left the lowlands and gone up into the hills. I don’t like titles and descriptions scrolling up across my beautiful photographic masterpieces. The TV series Dr Kildare had the credits running across the screen for the whole program. To me it was a complete distraction. Movies are to tell the story. One advertising agent told me a long time ago; “If you can’t get your message across when the sound is turned off then you have missed the point.”
Well, that’s my take on making interesting movies. Watch some of the “Holiday Movies” on YouTube and I think that you will get the point.
Kind regards, Den.

[dentyr]

Transitions.
Building up a Real Holiday Movie.
This section is not about page curls, fade in or slide across but about real transitions that make your movie something interesting to watch.
The Start.
You are planning an overseas trip! Wonderful. For this you need to make preparations like buying tickets and getting the kids organised. You are going to foreign parts so be prepared.
You are going to take the paddle steamer, Bristol Queen, from Newport in Wales to Weston-Super-Mare in ENGLAND! You need a whole load of transitions to make your movie come alive.
First, a week or so before the adventure you go to the bridge and take a shot of the castle. Then across the bridge and take a shot of the boat stern on as she will be tied up there. No pan or zoom, straight shots, Now, if you have made the necessary enquiries, you can go down Dock St and take a shot of the transporter bridge and then a shot of the Bristol Queen on her way to England. Now you have the first transitions. Pack them away.

The day arrives and you film mum and the kids leaving home on the way to the boat. You don’t have time to take ad lib shots, the kids are too excited. You get on the boat and film the family wandering about. As you leave the wharf you take shots of the shore line (river bank ) and a good shot of the transporter bridge. DON’T move the camera, the boat is moving! Soon you are out to sea. Go forward and take shots of the wake, then go to the stern and take shots of the stern waves created by the paddle wheels. Next, up to the big paddle wheels and a shot of them going around. Now into the engine room. You can’t get into there but you can get shots of the piston rods pushing the paddle wheels.

Arriving at Weston-Super-Mare pier you film the approach and then have to gather up the kids. Now is a good chance to tell them that the people there speak a foreign language so be careful.

Now do what you normally do, run amok with the camera. Film everything insight, mum scoffing candy floss, the kids covered in ice cream, the look on mum’s face on the pier as she turns the handle on the penny machine “What the Butler Saw”, and the kids in the paddle boats.
You now have an opportunity to opt out of the packing up as you are filming the departure. Not much more to film except the arrival at the wharf back in Newport.
Putting your movie together is now exciting. You do not have to have mum and the kids leaving home and then on the boat with nothing in between. Some of your transitions can be used over and over, the paddle wheels going around and the rear waves created by the paddle wheels.

Exciting parts are shots like this. 3 seconds of mum with her face in the candy floss, 2 seconds of one of the kids staring at her, back to mum then back to the kid. Quick flash shots, may be 2 or 3 times. Then everyone laughing. Taking these shots may be minutes apart but editing the film you put them together as snap shots.
To sum up this, write your storyboard first and add to it as you go. Take a thousand shots, some you may not use but short sequences of 10 to 12 seconds keep the attention of your audience. Nothing is more boring than 3 minutes of mum sleeping in a deckchair.
Remember also; DON’T MOVE THE CAMERA. Let things happen in front of the camera. Moving the camera confuses people.

As an end to this. It is now 71 years since I did this trip and my memory may be failing a little but the gist of the idea of making an interesting movie is there.

Regards, Den

[dentyr]

Synchronising Sound and Video

To me, this is important when showing slides with your music but it is absolutely imperative if you are playing, filming your hands on the keys and then showing other videos and slides in between.
Explanation.
First of all, the basics of slides (jpgs) to music.
Record the music as it is generally a fixed time. Open your video program, I use VideoPad, and put your music into the audio slot. Check how long the music is. Important.
Now put your slides into the library, as many as you want but think about the time you have. A song that lasts for 3:30 is 210 seconds long. The default time of my slides is 7 seconds. I need 30 slides OR adjust the time of the slides using only 20. That is your choice. You can add or subtract slides as you will.
Now the fun part. Start the song playing, the intro plays. Check the timing of this, say 12 seconds. Then you need 2 Title frames of 6 seconds OR one title frame that scrolls for the full 12 seconds. Now your melody of the song will start at the same time as your first real slide. Check where your song changes to the next line, depending upon whether it is a waltz, tango or foxtrot. Amend the timing of the slide so that the first one changes to the second slide and coincides with the change in the music. Continue along this line until you reach the end. At the end of the music you do not want to have any pictures so you eliminate all the excess slides and put in a final frame to end the show.
I have made a rotten demo to try and show this.
You may be satisfied with your haphazard “slides to music” to start with but after a while, especially if you want to show the finished product to others it is nice to have a reasonable polished performance.

[Hugh-AR]

Den,

I find changing the slide at the right point in the music distracting. Why? Because it is distracting me from listening to the music. I am waiting for the change of picture to come with the end of a music phrase. I think like anything we do, too much of the same thing doesn't bode well. You said this a while ago about using SLIDE and GLIDE on our keyboards. Use those sparingly .. don't use them in every bar right through the song. So putting the change of slide exactly with the change of music done in moderation is what really adds to the enjoyment of the video.

Two examples here of videos I have done where the change happens at exactly the right time with the change of music.

1. Sunny Side of the Street sung by Michael Clark



First comes the INTRO, then when he sings "Grab your coat and get your hat" at 0:15 I have synchronised the lady with the coat and hat to appear. It would be no good for her to appear 10 seconds after Michael had started singing! I achieved this by 'cutting' the duration of the initial part of the video with the Title .. which was a Pixabay video clip.

Then later on in the video, when Michael stops singing and has a saxophone playing I have synced the birds to come in when the saxophone starts (at 1:25), and end when he starts singing again (at 2:41).

None of the other photos/video clips have been set to synchronise with phrases in the music while Michael is singing. To me, that would be a distraction.

2. Adagio, from Secret Garden played by Jacky Cordier (ernest)



Not the video changing with phrases in the music this time. Jump to 3:47. The man walking across the log is walking in time with the music. You can do something like this by changing the speed of the video. Slowing down the speed will make everything happen a lot slower; and increasing the speed will make it run faster. With a bit of skill you can get the video to fit the music you are playing.

DEMO of what happens when you change the video speed.