This article is the second part of our continuing series on the technical side of creating video montages for weddings, quinceañeras, or bar/bat mitzvahs. If you haven’t read the first part, google it first before reading the second part.
When we last left you, you had successfully navigated past the PAL/NTSC option, decided whether you wanted your montage to be 4:3/Full Frame or 16:9/Widescreen, and chose whether or not to create your montage from video in high resolution. high definition video, commonly known as high definition, or standard definition video, also known as standard definition.
You should also have figured out how to import your photos and video clips into your project and now you’re ready to go.
An entertaining montage for an event like a wedding, bar or bat mitzvah, sweet 16, or quinceañera is most effective when it tells a story. Rather than simply moving from one photo to another while music plays in the background, you want the montage to enlighten the audience as to who the subject of the montage is: what makes him/her/them/the person(s) ) which they are, as evidenced by photos, video clips, music, voice-over, and graphics. I won’t spend a lot of time explaining how best to accomplish this, as this series is mostly focused on the technical aspects of creating a montage and that falls a bit more in the creative zone, but there is some overlap here, so I’ll stick with it. I will do. mention some of the technical tools used to create an effective assembly.
The basic elements that an assembly includes are the following:
- Image/images
- Sound
- Titles or Graphics;
- transitions;
- Special effects
The “image”, or the images seen in a montage, are primarily (a) holding over a period of time on a photograph; or (b) allow a video clip to play for a certain amount of time.
With stills, your montage will be infinitely more enjoyable if you can use “camera shake” during the time the photograph is on the screen. Different software packages will allow you to create these movements in different ways, with the end result allowing a “camera pan” to zoom in, zoom out, or move in any way across the image. The rate at which the motion will occur depends on how long the photo is on the screen and how big of a motion you program.
For example, say you have a nice, wide photo of a person standing on the beach, and the person’s full figure is only half the height of the photo. If the photo will be on the screen for two seconds and you program the computer to start showing the full photo and then you want it to end up close-up on the person’s face, well that’s a big move that will happen in two seconds and The movement to get there will be relatively fast. It will appear slower if you lengthen the amount of time the photo is on the screen, or if you choose an end point that isn’t drastically different from the starting point, such as going from the full photo to ending up framing the person from their head. up to the knees instead of just the face. This would require slower camera movement to get there.
As in a film, the movements of the camera also serve to signal aspects of the photograph to the viewer. They help “tell a story.” If you start with a close-up on the photograph and then “zoom out” to reveal another object or person, the viewer conveys a certain feeling, ie, “Look, little Mikey is having fun at the beach. Oh, he’s there with cousin Bobby.” !” Or, if you start wide in a photograph of a group of people, the viewer will first take in the whole group at once… but if you then zoom in on a particular person, the camera shake will focus the viewer’s attention on perhaps pointing out something about that person, for example, “look at Lisa’s expression! She’s rolling her eyes at the person next to her.” This way, you can make a still photograph much more exciting and informative by conveying the information little by little.
Note that camera movements are also effective when they are not repeatedly the same, but rather varied, i.e. sometimes they start out wide and zoom in; other times starting close and pulling back wide.
Video clips should be chosen to help add to the story about the person featured in the montage. Be careful not to use a clip that is too long: keep asking yourself what is the shortest length in which the purpose of the clip has been conveyed, and then move on to the next material.
The sound can be the audio from the video clip, a selection of music, a voice over or sound effect, or a combination of all. Obviously with photographs there won’t be any natural sound, so all of the above can be used to make photography more interesting. Also, just because a video clip has sound doesn’t mean it can’t have more sound, like music or sound effects, that you add to it. Also, there may be instances where you don’t want to hear the natural sound of the video clip, but instead want to use the clip for just your footage, with a different soundtrack behind it. Image and audio should always be considered as two separate items, and you have unlimited freedom to change them regardless of whether there was anything there in the first place. Again, these options are what combine to help you tell a story through editing.
Titles or graphics are elements created in your publishing system (or elsewhere) that convey visual information. Titles can appear on top of black (or other colors or backgrounds), or they can be added on top of a photo or video clip. Titles and graphics can be an effective way to impart information in your “story” and also serve to add some variety to the visual impact of your montage, giving the viewer a moment’s break from looking at photos and video clips. This can be used to separate sections of the montage for a purpose, or to build up a particular photo or video.
Transitions are the methods in which you switch from visual to visual. The simplest is known as cutting, which simply replaces one image with the next at a particular video frame or point in time. For montages, breaks can be effective when they occur in time with a beat of the music. Cuts can also be jarring, whether on purpose or not.
A smoother or more delicate way to switch from one image to another is with a dissolve or erase effect. A dissolve is a gradual replacement of one image by another over a period of time, which can be adjusted in length. Essentially, one image fades in while the other fades out, creating a more lyrical shift from one to the other. A “cleanse” can come in many different forms. The image can slide off the screen while the other image slides; it can twist, bend, break; shrink; etc. There are circular wipes, page turner wipes, pixel wipes, etc. As computers have become more sophisticated and software packages more developed, the number of “preset” erases has only increased.
A word of caution. Be careful with the wipes!
They might look cool when you first look at them, but if you use too many too often they can be distracting and ultimately look cheesy or cheap instead of cool—the opposite effect you might have been thinking. In my opinion, cuts and dissolves are the “classiest” tools, and the occasional use of a creative erase is an effective way to bring some variation to the montage. But use them sparingly! Just because you have it, doesn’t mean you have to use it!
Special effects can also be effective if used occasionally. One trend that has made its way into event montages, but is beginning to get into the “cheesy” zone, is the use of green screen compositing with video clips. This is where a character in a clip (usually newly created for this purpose) is inserted or composited onto another background or moving image, such as a familiar movie. The biggest problem I have with this is not so much the idea itself, but the poor quality of the composition work. Composition/green screen is hard to get right. In fact, I directed a commercial film where we shot two-thirds of the film in front of a green screen. It was a movie called Gamebox 1.0 (look for it on VCR or TV!), and the story involved a video game tester who finds himself literally inside a video game, and the only way out is to win the game. (The upcoming Tron movie has a similar premise.) So I’m very familiar with green screen work. To get green screen right, you have to use the right tools and shoot a certain way to make the integration look believable. If you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all, in my opinion! There, I have said my peace.
Obviously, with special effects in general, if it “adds” to the story of the montage, then great, do it. If not, then don’t do it. Sometimes simplicity is the best way to tell a story.
Now is the time for you to take care of assembling the assembly using all the elements described above. Happy editing!
This concludes the second part of our series…
Stay tuned for part 3 of the video montage tech talk tutorial, which will cover the technical aspects of completing a montage and preparing for your big screen debut.
