Well, this video will provide you with some ideas to create a wonderful final project. And I hope that it will help you think through how you will put your project together.

First off, be sure to do a lot of planning before you do your editing on your final video. Take a look at the video (movie trailer) and consider what you will need in terms of your  sound effects, for instance, gun shots, noises, or groans, or cheers, or crashing cars or anything like that. You will want to search for those sound files. Be sure that you save all of the references. Start your collection of places in the video where you think it would be appropriate to have those different sounds.

Then in addition, you are going to need to collect music that you think is appropriate for the video. You need to consider the emotional impact of the music, how it fits the drama., the appropriateness to the location, the audience, etc. And you want the sounds clips to retain the interest of the viewer. So changing the music, having a variety of music at changes in scenes, and things like that is very important to creating the best video.

Now, let’s take a look at two videos from students that I had in Fall 2011. Both of these students picked the same video. It was “Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Mummy.” You will see, however, that they are really quite varied and different. A lot of that is because of the choice of music and the ways they put together the videos. I hope that you will learn from the two of these.

The first video we have here is from a student that used a PC and so the editing is in Windows environment. You can see that this student was really quite organized. In the beginning we have voice overs, a well configures timeline, there is a MIDI file here, there are different fx (Reagate), you can see that there are sound effects, fade in and fade out. I think that the timeline I have given you will be even more helpful in the future because you will have the sound clips put in one area and the music in another area. So you can figure out how to do that. It better shows progression (in the timeline).

So let’s take a look at this first video. We are just going to examine the opening section and see how well it works.

Female student voice: “…of an ancient tomb” “echoes a sound that shakes the world” “with laughter” “Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Mummy.”

[percussion music starts]

OK, we are going to stop right there. You will notice that this student opted not to have any music right in the beginning and as a result it is a little more “flat.”

Now here is another student. This is a student that used a Mac. Let’s see how she handled the opening.  

[mysterious music starts]

Female student voice:  “ Out of the depths of an ancient tomb” “echoes a sound that shakes the world”

[groan in background]

Female student voice:  “with laughter”

 [sliding sound] [Hollywood orchestra type of music]

Female student voice:  “Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Mummy.”

OK, so this second student had “spooky music” in the beginning and then brought in music that was related to Abbott and Costello old movies, black and white (film) music. So this has a different feel to it. It has this old-fashioned music going with it that would be appropriate for music theatres in the 50s and 60s, even 40s. It carries along the drama. You can see that she had a few more sound effects in hers as well. OK let’s continue this. Here is the second student. Let’s watch more.

[Hollywood orchestra music]

[screem]

[Hollywood music starts again]

[slap]

[Electric noise]

Female voice (unsure of text) “…I only pose in Shakespear films”

[Hollywood music starts again]

OK. I think you get the idea that the second student kept reusing the same 40s-50s music over and over again in a loop. What was so effective in the beginning has not become a little hackneyed, boring, because the same music was used over and over again even though we had different scenes. In the one scene with the singer there was some other music layered over it—that was helpful. This student did very well with putting in different noises and sound clips—that was excellent. But the choice of the music here is burdensome and we are losing attention. Let’s see how the first student did in continuing with her scenes.

[Pecussion music]

[Egyptian sounding music]

[gun shot]

[MIDI music?]

OK, so this student did vary the music a bit more. That was effective. The use of the Egyptian sounding music; she writes here about the Egyptian and some different Arabic/Egyptian files that this student found. This more nicely fit the scenery. This is what you would expect from the “Arabic” looking movie here with the mummies in Egypt.

This student was less effective in terms of balancing the audio tracks. There were problems with the sound (levels) being too quiet. We could have used more of the sound effects.

Part of your project is also going to be putting together the end product: mixing the sound effects, the voice overs, and the music so that they all go together well. In some ways this music here (video 1) works a little bit better, at least in this middle part with the changes.

I hope that this has helped with your final project. First begin by gathering your sound clips. Also gather your music, carefully looking at where you will place them. For you video use the timeline as a guide. Then when you put this altogether be sure to mix it  so that all of the parts are audible so that you can hear the music and the sound clips that you have chosen and your voice overs.

I look forward to your final projects. Thanks, bye.