Developing Strong Nonlinear Editing Skills

A great tool, like our metaphorical hammer, does little good if you don't know how to use it. The rest of this book will give you the details. Even while you're shooting, however, you should understand Studio's most valuable capability so that you can make the best use of this tool.

Simply stated, Studio, like all computer-based video editors, is a nonlinear tool, which means that you can move video scenes around freely, like checkers on a checkerboard. Consider Figure 1.1. At the upper left is the Video Album, which contains the scenes in the order that I shot them and later captured them on my hard disk. At the bottom is the Storyboard, where I can assemble all the scenes that I want in the final movie. (I'm jumping ahead a bit here on the interface side; if you want to bone up on Studio's interface elements, you can take a quick look at "Using Edit Mode" in Chapter 2.)

Figure 1.1. One of Studio's best features is that it's nonlinear, so you can cut and paste videos from anywhere to anywhere.

This is the beginning of a video I'm creating with footage shot at the Fiddler's Convention here in Galax, where I live. This is the opening sequence that introduces the viewer to the yearly, world-famous gathering. Later sequences will highlight individual bands and music and instrument types, like bluegrass and mandolins, and some of the country dancing I shot at the event.

As you can see in the Studio Storyboard, Scene 1 shows an announcer introducing a band on stage. The next scene is the sign at the entrance to the Fiddler's Convention, which I shot first on the way in, so that the viewer instantly knows what the video is about.

Next, using the song from the background music in the first scene, I display several other scenes that visually illustrate the size of the festival: the hundreds of parked trailers and tents spread over about 20 acres, the thousands of people in the stands and milling about. (To make everything work together seamlessly, I use the Continuity system, described later in this chapter.).

Going to the Fiddler's Convention, I knew that I would need these shots to complete the video, but it wasn't convenient to shoot them all immediately when I arrived. Hey, I was being dragged around by two little girls who didn't give a hoot about continuity. No problem, though, because regardless of when I got the shots later that night or even the next day I could cut and paste them in Studio wherever and whenever I need them.

If you've never edited video before, you will find this is a huge paradigm shift that unleashes significant creative potential. As you'll discover throughout this chapter and later in the book, Studio's nonlinear nature is absolutely key to creating watchable videos.

That said, it all starts with the camera. So let's focus on that aspect of creating watchable video.