Free Video School

at Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church

Editing Your Video Program at VHUMC

After you've e-mailed Penny Ford, one of our volunteer editors will contact you to arrange a time when we can meet at the church to edit your program. You'll need to stay with the editor from start to finish, and you'll need to bring your camera, its AC cord, and all the tapes on which you've recorded shots for your program.

We'll be using software called Final Cut Pro HD. We'll begin the process by capturing the shots from your camera. Typically we will capture each shot individually and store them on the computer. We will assemble them to form a rough cut of your video program, and then begin tightening up the program and make sure it flows smoothly.

If you're using any still images (photographs, etc.), we will introduce them into the program as well. Make sure you bring them to the studio in electronic form, because we can't scan them at the church. We prefer the photo format called "jpeg." You'll be able to recognize this format by its "jpg" suffix, as in "vhumc.jpg." Please bring your still images to the studio on a CD or a jump drive. We have no way of reading diskettes, zip disks or other media. If necessary, we can pull a still image from a motion picture clip on your DV camera.

There are some things we can do easily on the editing equipment. We can add titles at the beginning and end of your program, and anywhere else in the program as you would like, and we can make the titles "move" in various ways, using software called LiveType. We can do an almost limitless variety of transitions between shots, like dissolves and wipes. We can do the same thing with audio transitions.

There are also some things we cannot do easily. We can't easily correct your too bright or too dark picture, filter out noise, or make your talent sound better than they do on your tape. We often hear people saying something like "We'll clean that up in post," meaning somebody will be able to do something in the post-production process to correct a problem that occurred during shooting.

When you hear someone say "We'll clean that up in post," know that this is a person who hasn't spent much time in post. There's virtually no correction or adjustment in post-production of the basic picture and sound that can't be done much more quickly and simply in the production process itself. So please, if you have a problem with wind noise, or dialogue that's too faint, or a picture that's not quite dark enough, address it while you're shooting so we won't have to worry about that in the editing process.

Now, a word about music. You have three basic options:

It's fine for you to bring a friend with you for editing. In fact, if you're a minor, we insist that you have one of your parents come with you. Our request is that your companions not distract you or your editor. We have limited time available for editing and lots to get done, so everybody needs to be task-focused while we're together.

After your program is finished, we'll store it on the hard drive of the editor for a reasonable time to make sure you have the opportunity to make whatever copies are needed and whatever changes are needed. From time to time we delete old programs to make room for new ones, so don't count on us to maintain a copy of your program.