Crafting a Rough Cut


Now that you've got all your clips collected and organized, it's time to put together a rough cut. A rough cut is just thata rough assembly of the shots you want to use sequenced together. You create a rough cut by dragging each clip into the timeline in the order you want it to appear (Figure 5.17). Now watch what you've created and ask yourself three questions:

  • Is the story all there?

  • Does it make sense?

  • Are the clips in the best order?

Figure 5.17. A rough cut consists of clips without transitions or effects, as shown in the Movie Maker timeline.


If the answer to any question is no, adjust your rough cut until the answer is yes.

Once your basic sequence is together and the clips are in the right order, you can start to refine it. This is the stage where you do things like trim off that unnecessary footage at the beginning or end of each clip (the handles) or reorder the sequence of clips. This is the real work of the editing process, and there's no one way to do it. You can place all the clips in the sequence you want, then adjust the length of each clip. Or you can edit an individual clip and refine it, then edit and refine another clip, and continue to edit and refine as you go. Along the way you might ask yourself some of the following questions:

  • Is the story clear?

  • What can I add or take away to make the story clearer?

  • Is this section of video necessary?

  • If I remove this shot, will it help or hurt the story?

  • Is this edit too distracting? What would be better?

  • Where does the sequence drag?

Editing is the process of slowly circling in on your story. You will cut, watch what you have, make notes about what to change or fix, then do it all over again. When you're happy with the order and length of your clips, you might want to add transitions and titles, and then music and voice-over to complete your video.




Secrets of Videoblogging
Secrets of Videoblogging
ISBN: 0321429176
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 81

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