Excerpting video - quick and dirty

JoshL

JoshL

Hi all. So I'm doing the soundtrack to my first full length film. I generally compose in Sonar, giving me lots of options as far as MIDI and audio recording/manipulation. For the short films I've done in the past year, I've been able to just import the entire film and start working wherever I want the cue to begin. However, with a full length film, I really don't want it bogging down my resources and otherwise limiting the number of audio/midi tracks I can run at once.

So what I'm looking for is this: a quick an easy way to chop a video into bits. I'm a music guy, not a video guy, so I don't really know what software would be best, but I'd like something that I could just chop up existing files, rather than having to re-render it, if possible. I use Wavelab for audio editing (and before that Sound Forge) and I'd like something that could work that easily. I need something that can run in Windows 7, and preferably something free (or with a demo I could use for this project). Any suggestions?

The film is a no-budget horror film about a guy possessed by the spirit of the Tickle Monster (I am not making this up) who tickles people to death. It's weird and campy, but with some pretty creepy moments. You can see a trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmkthY7c3VE (though I think my music was mixed a little quiet).
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
You got a great idea there !!! Love it. Sleazy & Lurid, reminds me of my family

Do you really need to "chop" the vids for sound ? Im thinking just import the entire project into your video editor, mix the sounds in whatever part you want and just render the audio. Note starting points and when you are ready to create the final output, add in the audio where needed..
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
I do need to chop the video...I'm the music guy. When I compose, I want to be able to watch, synced to the music I'm creating, as well as having the film audio to listen to (to make sure, say, a violin isn't burying someone's voice, etc).

Having the video helps at this stage in my composing career; I've found in the projects that I've done so far, sometimes hit points you thought would work, don't work quite so well and I'd like to know that before mixdown.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
JoshL said:
I do need to chop the video...I'm the music guy. When I compose, I want to be able to watch, synced to the music I'm creating, as well as having the film audio to listen to (to make sure, say, a violin isn't burying someone's voice, etc).

Having the video helps at this stage in my composing career; I've found in the projects that I've done so far, sometimes hit points you thought would work, don't work quite so well and I'd like to know that before mixdown.
Click to expand...

You can do that in any video editor.....lets say you want to score 5 mins to 15 mins and be able to check your work as you go....

put the entire thing in the NLE highlight 5 min to 15 & render. Reload in an NLE add your music, preview, tweak and your done.

OR just load the entire project in the NLE add the music 5 min to 15 min and preview.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Just so you know in advance I work in Pro Tools. Multiple sessions can reference a single video file. I break the film down into "reels" but don't have to worry about chopping up the video.

I start at 01:00:00;00 with the complete film and go through scenes one, two and three, which ends at 01:09:45;17 for example.

I then open a new (template) session and continue working at 01:09:45;17 and find another break point about 10 minutes forward.

That way, when I do imports and/or do predubs everything is already time-stamped when I import it into the master timeline, auto spotting in Pro Tools takes care of the sync. On my last feature project I had over 100 sessions - field recording "dumps"; dialog editing, Foley recording/editing, sound FX editing and music/score editing; builds and predubs; mixes; and finally the master mix assembly.

Another benefit is I only have to back up smaller sessions.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thanks for the advice, and for giving my question some thought! Being able to reference the same file in Pro Tools sounds neat, though it doesn't solve the problem of resource management (once you get over 30 audio and as many, if not more midi tracks, every bit of ram/cpu counts!). So in Pro Tools you can specify a timecode for the beginning of the file? Quite handy, though I'm not sure I can do it in Sonar. It would be handy, particularly if I output timecode to a second computer with the video, thus freeing up all of my main DAW system for audio.

Anyway, the solution I found was a program called Avidemux, which is lightweight, low resource and free (always a plus!) Chops up avis without re-rendering, so the process takes 20 seconds rather than 20 minutes. Output is not perfect, but I don't need it to be perfect, just good enough so I can see what I'm composing to as I work. From there, if it becomes an issue, I can compress further for smaller files, if needed.

Oh, and yeah, polfilmblog, the film is exactly what you'd expect from a low budget horror film ;-) It's weird enough that I found it entertaining, and I'm hoping my work will make it more so (though I'm not sure the audience for low budget horror really makes much note of the score). But, hey, at this stage in my career, it's a paycheck, a credit, and hopefully exposure for some better projects!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top