Music Video: "Alone and Colder." BTVS, Faith POV/character study

[exsequar]

IfinishedIfinishedIfinished!!!! *bounces around spastically* It took me almost a year, but I DID IT! And I am very very proud of the finished product. I'd really appreciate if you all took a look at it. I also wrote up a lot of thoughts and commentary, those are optional though :P

Title: Alone and Colder
Vidder: Anne (starsouls1013)
Song: "No More Good Guys" by Skindive
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Seasons 3 and 4)
Character: Faith POV, with focus on her relationship with Buffy
Summary: Faith struggles internally between self-hate and a sense of betrayal by Buffy.
Disclaimer: Joss owns them. Obviously. I grovel at Joss’s feet for giving me this kind of material to work with.
Feedback: Is my bread and water. Seriously. I'd really love to know what you think!
A/N: I was really trying to say something about Faith with this video, about her inner turmoil and her complexity, so I think for a real understanding of this vid, you need to listen to the lyrics as you watch. It’s told from Faith’s mindset after the season four episode "Who Are You". Also, it's very important to recognize that a large portion of the video (at least half) uses footage from Faith's nightmares when she is in the coma. So if you haven't seen the show, all the times where Buffy is freaky and evil are in dreams, and Faith only gets stabbed once.
A/N2: Thank you so much to hermioneluna for a lovely beta job; she really saw the message I was trying to get across and helped me to perceive the video as a whole much more clearly. I’m not sure how many changes I actually made after talking to her (largely because this damn thing took me A YEAR and I was ready to be done with it already!) but she pointed out some really interesting things that I hadn’t even noticed. So thank you hun! :)
A/N3: A huge debt of gratitude is owed to heres_luck, whose stunning Faith video "Superstar" inspired me to start this one. Her written commentary especially taught me so many things both about the technical aspects of vidding and the complexities of Faith as a character. So lots of thanks to her, and I really recommend her vids to anyone.

Download (21.7 MB, wmv) (Right-click -> Save target as...)
(Thank you thank you thank you to Elena over at www.Cheesejoose.com for hosting me!!)
ETA: That file is a little big, so I saved a smaller version. Here is a YSI link for a 9.34 MB version: http://s60.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0HCJYZH4U67NH1DMF7IKM9SYOZ


Lyrics to "No More Good Guys" by Skindive

I died today
But I’m still breathing
Bleeding
For now
I’m broken

You left me here
Capsized and sinking
Thinking
Right now
There’s no more good guys

You left me standing here
Alone and colder
I hope that someday soon
The pain inside will
Stop

You died today
But you’re still breathing
In my mind
That is
There’s no more good guys

I hoped you’d see me
I hoped you’d understand
Or crucify me
For my own failings
My cruel ambition
Hardly justified
And the pain inside will
Stop



So this is the basic idea I was going for: Faith has a fundamental internal conflict. On the one hand, she feels incredibly guilty for all of the terrible things she has done, and hates herself for it. On the other, she is angry at Buffy for stabbing her, and the result is that Faith feels that there are “no more good guys”. Buffy was always this steadfast pillar of goodness, the one who gave Faith the most chances, but then she committed a terrible act of violence against her. Faith obviously knows on a certain level that she deserved it, but of course she feels betrayed. So there is this torment that she is going through, anger mixed with hurt.

Two major moments that highlight Faith’s mindset can be found in the season four pair of episodes, "This Year’s Girl" and "Who Are You" (which really serve as the focal point of the vid). The first is when Faith has Joyce hostage in her own home, and she is nagging about Buffy never being home for Joyce. She starts getting all worked up, and then she accidentally slips and gives us a peek into the true root of her anger. This is what she says:

"Sooner or later you're gonna have to face it. She was over us a long time ago, Joyce. Too busy climbing onto her new boytoy to give a single thought to the people that matter! I mean, you're her mother and she just leaves you here to die!" (emphasis mine)

Faith is revealing how hurt she is that Buffy has finally turned her back. Without Buffy, the only other person who can possibly understand her, she feels abandoned and alone. Faith’s reaction to that feeling is to lash out angrily, violently, spectacularly – taking Joyce was really a bid for Buffy’s attention. And she got it, didn’t she? In the form of another massive fight, of course, but Faith lives for that kind of thing. However, the point is that Buffy’s regard is incredibly important to Faith, and it is in moments of vulnerability like this one that that comes through clearly.

The second moment is when Buffy and Faith (or Fuffy and Baith, actually) are fighting in the church at the end of "Who Are You". When Faith-in-Buffy starts beating up Buffy-in-Faith, it becomes intensely vicious and hateful, and Faith-in-Buffy grinds out a furious monologue as she is beating the shit out of her own face: "You're nothing! Disgusting! Murderous bitch! (grabs her head and pounds it against the floor) You're nothing! (starts punching her again) You're disgusting!" Here, Faith’s self-hatred becomes clear. She switched bodies with Buffy to escape herself, the shell that she had become, where she could not stand to be any longer. When confronted with her old self again, she falls to pieces. Her own past is something she can’t handle anymore, something she would do anything to get away from. The aftermath of this can be seen even more clearly when she shows up on Angel season 1, but I wanted to keep the focus of this video narrow and precise.



Some technical notes and things... first of all, I have to say this song was a blessing from God. Honestly! The lyrics could not be more perfect, and it’s slow and haunting while still having a very precise beat that is very conducive to the type of vidding I like to do. You might notice that I am quite a stickler about getting things to land on beats. I just find that adds immeasurably to the impact of the video and the experience of watching it. A note about the pacing: I don’t like using long clips at all, so as a result this thing moves along pretty quickly, with sharp cuts happening often. I showed this to someone when it was about half done, and they said that that didn’t really suit the music – my thought is that Faith herself is a very jagged person, with a broken psyche, so her thoughts would be harsh and sharp like this, so the effect is very true to the subject matter. So if you didn’t like that either, there’s the explanation :)

I used Windows Movie Maker, which was, as usual, a huge pain in my ass, which is a large part of why this took half a year to complete. It’s also extremely limiting, so keep that in mind while watching. I, however, do not have the patience nor time to learn Premiere or any of those ridiculously complex programs. Not right now at least. Maybe at some point in the future!



Now for some play by play commentary, just to point out some of my personal favorite bits and clarify what I was trying to say.

The musical intro (0:00 – 0:32) - This section basically outlines the basic premise of what I’m trying to say. Usually I don’t like to vid sections without lyrics, but when I started this vid this whole section appeared very quickly, and I haven’t changed it since. Both technically and thematically it makes me very happy. I think the motion within the clips fits the music and the beats perfectly (some of this was serendipity, some my own machinations). For example, Faith falling off the building and landing in the truck – the cut in the middle of that lands on a subtle beat in the music, but it just works. I also love Faith dropping the knife, and Buffy’s little head tilt.. Now in terms of what I was trying to say here, you may notice a pattern to these bits – they alternate between evil/guilty Faith and victimized/stabbed Faith. In order, we have: 1) Faith in her coma, 2) reaching toward the man she killed, 3) falling off the building after Buffy stabs her, 4) announcing "I don’t care" to a stunned Buffy, 5) in the grave during her dream and psychotic!Buffy looking down on her, 6) pushing the dead demon off her and dropping the knife in shock, and 7) Faith and Buffy exchanging blows at the very beginning of The Big Fight. It’s suitable that this last clip kicks off the rest of the vid, because just as it is the start of the fight that will so lastingly effect Faith, so it begins her journey into the mindset which we find her in this video.

Bleeding… (0:48) I just have to point out that I did not tinker with the timing of the blood drops. I threw that clip on the timeline, anticipating much heartache trying to get it in time, and lo and behold it was perfect!

I’m broken…(0:55 – 1:04) Another instance where the timing worked out unimaginably well. First, her hands striking the ground as she pulls herself out of the grave are in perfect sync, and then the lightning flashes, randomly timed as they are, go with the weird pulses of music. I love it! :D Now, thematically, this bit is interesting for a reason that I did notice, way after the fact, but which hermioneluna also pointed out to be – in this clip, Faith is actually emerging victorious over Buffy in her dream. So how is she "broken"? Well, I chose the clip because she *looks* broken, soaking and screaming into the rain. But thinking about it, she’s broken because she had to fight Buffy, because Buffy has become evil (in her eyes). Buffy was goodness, and Faith recognized that even while she envied and despised it – so she is screaming for the loss of that goodness ("there’s no more good guys") and the fact that she had the ability to defeat Buffy, which is a very mixed thing for Faith.

You left me here… (1:04 – 1:11) I’m very pleased with this section. I’ve never used intercutting before, and I wanted to juxtapose Buffy tenderly kissing Faith with their normally violent relationship. The section begins with Buffy holding the clean knife and ends with her looking at it covered in dried blood. I particularly love on the word "here" how it transitions from Faith running in the graveyard to punching Buffy hard. The framing of those shots and the internal motion makes for a really neat connection.

The pain inside will… stop (2:00 – 2:12) From the very beginning I knew that I wanted the moment where they switch back to land on “stop.” For visual reasons, because their hands coming together like that is such a visual and arresting moment, which fits perfectly with the intensity of the word "stop". Thematically, this is the moment where Faith is displaying her enormous self hatred by beating the crap out of her own body, so it is key. In that moment Faith is trying to destroy herself, wanting everything to just *stop*, as the lyrics say, but ironically, instead of stopping, she is thrust back into her own body, which she loathes. From a technical point of view, this section was very very hard to do – to get the punches to land with a rhythm that didn’t jar with the music. It was more difficult than I anticipated. I ended up having to use two different shots of Faith-in-Buffy next to each other, so you may notice the slight change in lighting and position at one point in there.

You died today… (2:16 – 2:26) Another part I had in my head from the beginning. In fact, this line, put together with "I died today" in the beginning of the song, was one of the key reasons I chose this song. There is a very strong parallel between Buffy and Faith’s experiences on this day. I know that Faith technically doesn’t even know about this happening, as she was sort of comatose at the time, but it just works too well to not use it. Also, Angel biting Buffy? Really hot :D

There’s no more good guys… (2:38 – 2:47) This is the second of only two times that this line appears in the song (as I edited it). You’ll notice both times have Buffy as the aggressor, the one who is no longer a “good guy.” However, as hermioneluna pointed out to me, brilliantly, this would have been an opportunity to show that Faith no longer sees herself as a good guy. I really wanted to change to a clip that underlined Faith’s guilt and self-hatred, but I didn’t have the clips I wanted and was too lazy to go and rip them, and also, again, I just really wanted to be done with this video. But that would have been really cool! :P Nevertheless, I love how Buffy jumps into the grave, falling downward with the music.

My cruel ambition, hardly justified (3:04 – 3:11) This section requires some knowledge about what is going on to understand the context and what her cruel ambition is, which I apologize for to anyone who hasn’t seen the show, but it was necessary. In keeping with the focus on Faith’s relationship with Buffy, I wanted to make her "cruel ambition" her plan to take Angel from Buffy by turning him evil. So her ambition is shown when she is trying to cozy up to Angel by coming crying to him, and it’s "hardly justified" both when the "evil" Angel beats her up and when it’s revealed that it’s a hoax (that’s one of my favorite shots ever, by the way, Faith turning around in slo-mo). I’m not sure how well that comes across though, I’m too close to see it objectively.

Stop (3:20 – 3:23) This one is also ironic, as Faith stabbing Finch is actually where all her pain began. The clip changes from color to black and white halfway through, just as Faith pulls the stake out – this represents her world’s complete alteration with this one act, and the cause of her slide into evil. Also, it just looks cool.

End sequenceThis is my least favorite part of the vid, but I was too burned out to change it too much. I do like how Faith slams her hand into the wall right on the ominous downbeat in the middle of this sequence. The style of it is a departure for me, obviously, with the fades and the inexact timing. Which is why I don’t like it, although I’ve been told it works. I wish I could say there was some cool reason why the last two clips were in color, but really WMM just decided to be a butt and refuse to grayscale any more clips. It’s like it ran out of grayscaling juice. But it works out, so it’s okay. And then Faith wakes up again, bringing the video full circle.


So I’ve rambled on far too long. I apologize. All of this was mostly for my own benefit anyway, but if you read it, thank you and I admire your patience! Please let me know what you think :)

Comments

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

Hee, where to start...

Well, first off, which version of Premiere you choose will definitely make a difference. I'd suggest any of the Premiere Pro updates (think it works out to 7.0 and 7.5, but for all intents it's been renamed). It's been much more stable for me than 6.0 ever was.

The version I'm using now (Pro 1.0) has never given me trouble with importing WMVs--I can't recall if I ever tried with 6.0. It doesn't like all of the new WMV audio codecs (even though it will happily *export* to them), but video has never been an issue. I don't use WMVs as vidding source, but I have imported them for work-related projects.

Anyway, clips that work well with Premiere...AVIs would be the best choice. It will also work with MPGs (and mpeg-2), and WMVs, and MOVs. It does not like Xvid or Divx files. It may work fine with them for a while, but eventually they'll start corrupting.

What I would suggest as the best option, for high-quality source that comes from a DVD or from downloaded Xvid/Divx episodes does involve learning how to use one additional program. Which, at the start, was waaay scarier to me than Premiere ever was. ;D Not what you probably wanted to hear. :P You've probably seen Avisynth mentioned somewhere? It's a wonderful little piece of software, but in the end whether it's right for you does depend on your computer set up to some extent.

What kind of source do you want to use at this point? DVD, downloaded eps, WMVs? What kind of storage do you have your machine? Lots of room for HQ source or does it need to be space-sensitive? There are plenty of AVI codecs that work just great with Premiere and compress video to varying degrees--it's when you want to go "lossless" with your compression that you start needing lots of storage space. And that's certainly not how I started out vidding. Though I'm glad I can do that now. :)

As for learning Premiere--I think there are maybe 10 basic concepts that will give you more than enough toehold to start exploring. The biggest hurdle is just having someone point out how to do the simple things, so that the interface loses that first feeling of total mystery. ;) I don't have any really good intro tutorials on hand or anything, but if you ended up with Pro, I bet I could make some notes that would help out--6.0 would be a lot more dodgy, as I don't remember exactly what's changed.

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

Right now I'm trying to download 7.0 from a torrent, I'll let you know if that works out and I get it up and running. *crosses fingers*

As for source material, I've used all DVD-ripped stuff up til this point, and I don't really see that changing (unless I get a strong urge to vid Supernatural, which I doubt a bit). I have heard of Avisynth, vaguely, but I don't use it - what I do is use DVDShrink to rip very specific sections (I prefer it to DVD Decrypter because of it's specificity - you can rip 30 seconds if that's all you need from a scene) and then I use VirtualDub to convert to an AVI. Then, because those are so HUGE and make WMM have convulsions, I use WMM to convert those to wmv to vid with, but that last step could easily be left out.

Unfortunately, storage is a consideration. I have a 40 GB hard drive and it is nearly completely full. I think right now I might have half a GB left. Now, I do have an external hard drive of 80 GB, and I store lots of things on there, mostly TV episodes, but what I use regularly (icons, music, videos) are on my computer. I can free up more space if I work at it, but I don't think I can go for uncompressed AVIs. Do you recommend that I try Avisynth instead of DVDShrink and VirtualDub? My computer is a Gateway laptop, Pentium 4, 2.2 GHz, 40 GB hard drive, 512 MB of memory, and Windows XP. If that helps at all.

Once again, thank you everso - I feel like a noob all over again! My goodness, it took me *forever* to figure out a workable system for ripping DVDs, it was ridiculous! >.< And I've only produced 2 videos - bah. I love doing this, so any way to reduce the heartache and increase the fun would be great :)

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

Yeah, when I switched over to using avisynth and completely changing my work-flow, I felt like it was all new to me again too. :)

DVD source is the ideal thing to use avisynth with. It's not a DVD ripper, it's a program that translates the actual DVD files for the editing software (like Premiere). Premiere thinks it's working with nice AVI files, and really they're the .vob files you took off the DVD.

Here a great guide that goes over all of that:

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech/index.html

You can even download all of the software you'll need in one little package that installs everything. Two things about it all though: 1) You made need uninstall or not install FFDShow, one of the programs in the package. It flips out on some computers. I ditched it. You shouldn't need it if you're going to use Premiere. And 2), that guide is aimed at anime vidders who are extremely picking about source quality. So take the really picky stuff with a grain of salt. Concentrate on the basic program functions and don't get caught up in things like filters and changing the frame-rate of your audio right away. You're familiar with VDub(Mod), so that should help, it's key to the process.

Now this all works if you have the space to keep the DVD files you rip on the computer. If you can't, then you may want to stick with exporting to a more compressed AVI format from VDub and bringing them into Premiere. That's what I used to do. Finding the right codec is sort of trial and error--depends on what kind of quality compromises you're willing to make, and how small the files need to be.

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link, that's extremely helpful. I'm reading through some of it and downloading the program package right now.

However, my problem is actually acquiring Premiere. I downloaded one from a torrent, but it was an iso file which apparently you burn to cd, and my computer froze up trying to handle that (it was over 600 MB). So how would you recommend acquiring the program itself?

[(Anonymous)]

Well, aside from laying out the cash, that would be the way I'd suggest. You mentioned that your hard drive was pretty full. I'd guess that's why you ran into trouble. Judging by the issues I've had with my own computer before I expanded my storage anyway.

One thing that might work would be to use a file zipping/compressing program like WinRAR to zip the ISO file up, try burning that, then taking it to a different computer to unzip and try burning as an ISO file. That of course would involve knowing someone else with a machine that might work?

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's me. Stupid cookies.

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

Okay so. I've got Premiere on my computer now, as well as all the programs in that package at the website you linked me to. I still don't have a concrete idea for a vid in my head, so I'm not sure what source I want to be using.. although I may want to use my downloaded Supernatural eps. So I tried to open one of them in Premiere and three times it said Premiere had experienced a problem and had to shut down. Is that some sort of... codec issue, or something? I'm really so clueless -_- I'm going to try to read up on avisynth, so we'll see if I figure it out. But in the meantime, any basic advice on where on earth to click in Premiere? All the buttons are so foreign! O.O

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's a codec issue. Pretty much any downloaded source you get is going to be Xvid (for new shows anyway). And Premiere hates Xvid and Divx. Some people get the codec to work, but it inevitably causes trouble at some point.

There is a relatively easy way to use Avisynth to trick Premiere into playing nice with that codec though. The only downside I've found is that using Avisynth to import whole episodes tends to eat up RAM, so I do find myself needed to restart the program after an hour or two of solid work. Or it will happily do it for me. ;D

This page of the guide mentions some of the things to look for if you want to try using .avs files to import the downloaded eps into Premiere:

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech/videogetbmeth2.html

I don't use the mjpeg codec for rendering previews, because I don't render my timeline when I'm working. Not in Premiere anyway. I scroll through carefully to check stuff, then export the timeline every 30 seconds or so to see what it looks like.

This is what I do to use those types of episodes. (Reading the guide description of Avisynth will help make this make more sense.) I open up VDubMod, choose import with Avisynth, and pick the file. It should open fine. If you get an audio error, don't freak out. There's a way around that since you shouldn't be wanting the audio anyway.

I then open up the Script Editor (under Tools) and use this script (obviously your file name will be different):

AVISource("D:\My Documents\My Videos\Veronica Mars\veronica.mars.s02e10.hdtv-lol.[VTV].avi", audio=false)
AssumeFPS(24)
LanczosResize(624,352)
ConvertToRGB32()

Adding the "audio=false" to the end will remove the audio. If you get an error after trying import a file into VDub, just open up the .avs file it will have created anyway and add that to the script. Then hit F5 (save & refresh) and it should work.

The other lines make sure you have a consistent frame rate (might vary by source, but make sure all of the source you use is set to the same frame rate), resize the resolution (only necessary if you're matching up different resolutions or want to change the size of it for some reason), and very importantly, make the color scheme match the one Premiere uses.

When you get into Premiere and import a file, just make sure to choose the .avs files, instead of the .avi files.

And I'll start a new comment to go over some of the basics of Premiere. :)

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I mentioned exporting the timeline every 30 seconds--I meant every time I have 30 second sections of the vid done, :30, 1:00, 1:30, etc. Not that I export constantly. ;)

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

That helps SO much. Thankyouthankyouthankyou. I really appreciate your patience, it's so kind of you.

And I just got your comment about the 30 seconds, I understood what you meant, but that's a really funny other interpretation, hee.

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I created the avs file with VDubMod like you said, and it worked fine, but I can't seem to open it with Premiere. The website says you need a plugin, but that it comes with the AMVapp that I downloaded so it should be fine. Meh.

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

What exactly is Premiere doing with it? Refusing to import it at all, or giving you black video with an error?

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

It won't even show the file in the folder when I go to Open, and then when I go to the file itself and Open with... Premiere, it says Premiere does not support that kind of file.

Thank you for the Premiere introduction!! As soon as I can get any footage to work in there, I'll start experimenting. Not right now though, cause it's almost 3 AM! :P

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

And when you made the .avs file you chose Default AVISource (or AVISource) from the bottom pulldown menu in Open window in Vdub?

And you opened up the plugin window to make sure it installed ok?

Uhm, what else...you can check to make sure the Premiere AVS GUI.exe file is in your Premiere Pro, Plug-ins, folder in your program directory.

I opened up one of my Supernatural files and this is the exact script I used with it, and imported into Premiere (though it sounds like the script isn't the problem):

AssumeFPS(24)
ConvertToRGB32()

I changed the frame rate from the 23 in the file to 24 because Premiere doesn't allow for a 23 FPS. It speeds the file up by a tiny fraction technically, but our eyes shouldn't notice it. And I didn't resize it.

Let me know what checking that other stuff shows when you get a chance. You should probably get some sleep for now. ;D

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

I figured out the problem!! I remembered that when I installed AMVapp, I didn't actually HAVE Premiere yet, so i couldn't install the avs plugin into Premiere! So I went and did that, and now it's working beautifully :D YAY. This makes me quite quite happy. It makes my schoolwork cringe and wonder if it will ever be completed, but I really don't care. Hee! Thank you SO SO much. I will undoubtedly have more questions, but you have helped me immeasurably. You are a saint!!

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

Hee, yay! Hopefully it keeps working. The Auto Save feature and keeping an eye on whether your footage starts to lag at all (when scrolling through it jumps from one place to another missing really big inbetween sections), or your audio stops playing (while still on the timeline)...that's all I can think of right now, will be your friends. Those are just things I've noticed as warning signs that Premiere and avisynth are hoarding memory and thinking about crashing. ;)

Premiere Part 1

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

Ok, you used Premiere before, you're familiar with the New Project settings I assume? They're pretty self explanatory. Things that tripped me up at first was making sure I chose the right Pixel Aspect Ratio (any downloaded footage is going to be Square Pixels). Also make sure to pick the frame rate of your footage. Anything downloaded will also be "No Fields (Progressive Scan)" under the Fields menu.

Now you have all the windows. :) The project window, also pretty easy to understand. It's where all the footage, stills, audio, etc. you import will show up. It also contains the tab up at the top for the Effects window where all of the effects and transitions are located. Anything in the Project window can be dragged down onto the timeline.

Timeline window. Not too different from WMM, other than you can a bazillion different video and audio tracks. And zoom into it to look at the clips on a frame by frame basis if you'd like. The little gray bar at the top of the current Sequence can be dragged to look over the timeline quickly, or the white ends of it can be dragged to zoom in or out. You can also do both of those things with the mountain looking icons at the bottom of the window and the regular scrollbar down there.

You can scroll/play through your clips by dragging the little blue triangle/current frame indicator. You can also make each video or audio track "taller" by hovering your mouse over the line that separates each one over where it says "Video 1", "Video 2", etc. This will make your clip thumbnails bigger, or, as I always do, make your audio waveform bigger and easier to see. Then you can actuall "see" a lot of the beats. You can also expand and compress the tracks by clicking the little blue down-pointing arrow. The other little buttons on those headings open up little menus to look at and choose from.

To the left of the Timeline is the Toolbox. The arrow at the top is for moving clips around in the timline window, as well as for lengthening and shortening them. Just hold it over the end of the clip and the cursor will change to a little bracket. Then drag to make it longer or shorter. It won't change the clip speed, just the length. The one that will let you change your clip speed (and length as a result is the 5th one from the top with a wavy two headed arrow and line. Again, just hold it over the end and drag.

You can also change clip speed by right-clicking on a clip in the timeline and choosing "Speed/Duration". That's also where you would go to make a clip play backwards.

There are a number of little icons in that Toolbox, but I'm just going to go over the basic ones that I use. Some of them just haven't been useful to me yet.

Below the wavy arrow is a razor blade (Razor Tool). That will let you slice your clips into smaller pieces.

The Hand tool down towards the bottom will let you move your timeline by grabbing anywhere on it and dragging. The Magnifying glass zooms in.

The little buttons under your timestamp in the timeline (upper left corner) will turn on/off snapping (the ends of the clips snap to each other and to markers on the timeline) and the second one will add an unnumbered marker to the top of your timeline. They're handy for marking beats, etc, where you know you want a clip or action to start or end.

Re: Premiere Part 1

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to follow some of your directions about the buttons and having trouble, and I finally figured out it's cause the version I obtained is 6.5 :( Fundamentally it should be fine, but the layout's different, right? And I'm sure there's plenty of differences. Would you recommend trying to find 7.0 somehow...? I didn't really have luck with that before, but if this is gonna be a big problem... hm.

(I should just make this my default icon :P)

Re: Premiere Part 1

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

Ok, I found a screen shot of 6.5. Forgot exactly how much got rearranged. I never actually used it. I went from 6.0 to 7.0. And I do prefer Pro (7.0-7.5). That said, the interfaces are pretty similar, it's just that, yes, the are arranged differently. I've also found that 7.0 is less likely to crash than 6.0. I've heard of several people who had the portion/plug-in of 6.5 that was in charge of exporting to things like WMV, corrupt itself and never work again. I never had that problem for 6.0 though.

If possible, I'd go with 7.0 or 7.5. I can try to help out with 6.5, but you may need to do something like upload a screen shot with what you need clarified, so that I can be more helpful.

If you got a hold of 7.0, you might also want to check out this entry in permetaform's journal.

http://permetaform.livejournal.com/329736.html?nc=6

She links to some tutorials she's using from school. They're actually for Apple's Final Cut Pro, but Premiere Pro was heavily influenced by it.

Premiere 6.5 is definitely miles above WMM, but I think 7.0 is superior to it, if there's any way to get your hands on it.

Re: Premiere Part 1

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

I think for now I'm not going to mess with a happy thing; I'm really having so much fun just putzing around, clicking things, squeeing when I accidentally discover something new :) If I find that I'm really going to get heavily into vidding (I'm not, yet; two vids barely qualifies me as a beginner) and dedicate a lot of time to it, I'll look into upgrading. But for now, I think I'm happy :)

Re: Premiere Part 1

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

Well feel free to poke me if you get stuck. I should be able to offer some help if you describe the issue. :) Have fun poking! ;D

Re: Premiere Part 1

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm really glad you pushed me to do this, I'm going to really enjoy this :)

Premiere Part 2

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

The Monitor window in the upper right is where you see the timeline in action. It's mostly a media player, though one with a lot of control. I don't generally do anything fancy with it.

The Monitor to the left of it (in the middle) is for looking at the full files you imported into your project window. You can scroll through the big files and choose the section you want to clip, then drag it onto your timeline. I find this very handy, and it means I don't have to make a billion clips anymore.

Just double-click a video file from the project window and it should open there. Scroll through using the bar at the bottom (just like the timeline window) to find what you want. Then use the little wavy brackets (without arrows) at bottom left to set the In Point and the Out Point. Then that section will be highlighted in gray. Now just click the image in the window above it and drag it to your timeline. You can also drag it to your Project window if you'd like to make clips for later. There you can rename it by clicking on the name, so that it doesn't get confusing.

Behind that middle preview monitor is the Effects Controls window where you get to experiment with all of the effects settings. I can try to answer any specific questions about effects if you have them.

The default effects window for each clip will have Motion and Opacity. Motion contains the position and scale of the clip, Opacity is pretty straighforward.

Only other really basic thing that might be confusing at first is how to apply transitions like Cross Dissolves or Wipes, or what have you.

To do that click on the Effects tab in the Project window, open up the Video Transitions folder and sub folders to find the transition you want, then drag it to either end of the clip you want it added to.

If the clip you drag it to is butted up against another clip, Premiere will automatically use those two clips as the A and B sources, but you won't get to see in the timeline exactly what its doing. I like to make sure the clip I'm adding it to (say a cross dissolve) isn't touching another clip on that end. Then whatever clip is underneath that clip will show through as the clip either raises or lowers it's opacity.

Clicking on the purple triangles with the arrow (Selection Tool) will let you drag the effect to a longer or shorter duration, just like changing the length of the clip itself. If you click the purple triangles you will also get the transition itself to show up in the Effect Control tab in the middle window.

I think I'll stop there for now. Feel free to throw specific questions at me if this is enough to get you started, or let me know what's still tripping you up.

Also you may want to consider playing with the Auto Save preferences under Edit, Preferences. It's nice to have back-ups if the program does crash, etc. I set it to save a version anywhere from every 5 to 10 minutes, and I have it make up to 5 versions. The files will show up in a folder in whatever directory you have your project file saved.

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

I assumed it was you :)

Ah, I didn't realize that that would be the default way for downloading a program. Do you then install it from the disc? I have some friends with new Macs, that might work. I did have Premiere on my computer before though... *thinks* How did I get it? I think someone might have YSI'd it to me. Hmmm. I'll figure it out somehow!

Someone else recommended a program called Vegas, do you know anything about that?

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

I haven't used Vegas, but I've seen a number of people that seem very happy with it. :)