Douglas Spotted Eagle Sundance Media Group Stockton, Utah, USA

Article Focus: Music videos revolutionized the music industry in the early 80’s with the explosion of MTV and VH-1 making their broad stroke on the cable scene. Most large-arena bands such as Quiet Riot, Poison, and even Yanni made their careers entirely based on the quality and visuals that accompanied their music. More importantly, a music video allows the musician to more capably express their vision and meaning behind a particular song. With more and more musicians coming into the new revolution of desktop audio and video production, it can be safely assumed that a new musical revolution is just beginning. In this tutorial, Douglas Spotted Eagle gives a quick demonstration of the making of a current music video.

The Sony Vegas application originated as an audio-only application for recording studios and multitrack enthusiasts. With the advent of video editing capability being added to the application, it’s logical that musicians already familiar with the audio tools would want to take advantage of the video editing tools. Music videos revolutionized the music industry in the early 80’s with the explosion of MTV and VH-1 making their broad stroke on the cable scene. Most large-arena bands such as Quiet Riot, Poison, and even Yanni made their careers entirely based on the quality and visuals that accompanied their music. More importantly, a music video allows the musician to more capably express their vision and meaning behind a particular song. With more and more musicians coming into the new revolution of desktop audio and video production, it can be safely assumed that a new musical revolution is just beginning. There are two basic types of video production: Concept and performance. Concept videos tell a story that may or may not directly relate to the audio heard in the song. Performance video is generally a live or psuedo live performance of the song being heard in the audio track. In both formats of music video, audio and visual image is generally synchronized in beat/measure/tempo format so as to not disrupt what the ear is hearing with the eye perceiving non-rhythmic changes. Synchronizing audio and video together is somewhat of a challenge if it is to be done effectively and be visually compelling. Poor visual movement/editing will quickly detract from the emotion or intent of the musical track. Vegas Video 3.0 makes this exceptionally easy to avoid. Remember, Vegas was originally created for audio-only, so the toolset is incredibly powerful. Open up Vegas, place audio on the timeline. The audio can be an MP3, . aiff, .wav, . wma, .mpg, . ogg, .snd, .pca; just about any sound file type from nearly any operating system can be imported to Vegas. Play the file and listen for the beats heard in the music. Rewind the file, and play the audio again, this time, tapping the ‘M’ key in time with the music. This will deposit/insert markers along the timeline, striking the beat points of the song. Be sure the ‘enable snapping’ (F8 key) is enabled. To snap video to markers for hard cuts, enable ‘snap to markers.” (shift+F8) If particular portions of the song demand or inspire visual changes, place markers at those points as well. Much of the time, the tempo/downbeats will be very visible. Look closely at the waveform in the audio track, and a pattern will be readily visible in the event that the beat cannot be heard or felt. In some songs, the cadence demands that the visual move quickly to continue the emotion of the song. For instance, in the tutorial song **, notice that the bridge to the chorus has a unique movement that demands the video move quickly to keep with the momentum of the song. Hard cuts will elaborate strong downbeats, while long, pretty dissolves will lend a feeling of intimacy and soft emotion . As a general rule, page curls, pushes, and page rolls are not used in music videos, but let your creativity go where and how it may. Place video in the trimmer, place the cursor on the media where the insert point is desired. Media can be dragged up onto the timeline or inserted between marker points. Dragging the media has no effect on the length of the media; selections made in the trimmer will drag at selected length. To insert media in between markers: Double click BENEATH the lowest track point on the timeline, between th e markers that the media will be inserted to. Place cursor on marker where media is to be inserted. Select ‘in’ point on media in Trimmer. Press “A” key, or click the “add media from cursor” button in Trimmer.   This will insert media in between the marker points. The edits will be hard cut/edits, but media can still be dragged in either direction to create transition points. To make a transition occur directly over a beat marker, drag the media in equal directions over the marker, so that the marker is situated directly in the middle of the transition “X” point. Any transition created will now be in ‘time’ with the musical beat as specified by the marker inserted earlier.     One important consideration when doing music video for DV: Be certain that your audio file is 48K when working with synchronized video. Audio ripped from CD will be 44.1, and cannot be correctly synchronized. Either rerender the audio to 48K, or capture/edit audio in 48K. This will save tremendous grief later down the road. If synchronized video is not important, then the 48/44.1K audio issue is of no importance. These same practices apply when using stills to create tempo-based slide shows. Place still photos on the timeline at marker points. To best utilize Vegas for this type of media, use the pan/crop tool to create the effect of photographic movement. There is a tutorial here. For quickest renders and ease of use, place png, jpg, gif, or bmp images on the timeline. Tiff files, commonly used for photos, require Vegas to implement a Quicktime reader application, which slows down the render, and occasionally causes problems within Vegas when dealing with a third-party application and large files. (25-30 megs or larger photos) This should be enough to get a basic music video underway. Shooting skills, production quality, and a good song are all that's needed to bring the visual impact and musical impact together once these simple skills are mastered. While this tutorial is about using Vegas to edit musical content to beats, some suggestions for creating a great music video: Shoot with various camera settings such as progressive scan while making slow pans across lights. White balance before every shoot; your eye will be fooled by stage lighting. Shoot freehand and tripod mounted. Shoot 10 times the footage needed if only one camera is available. Playback audio at double speed and have the performers keep up. Then use half speed/50% velocity on media to bring sync back to correct speed. Performers will be in sync in slow motion. (no reference to boy band N'Sync) Use fog or mist sparingly, but use it. It will make lighting appear far easier, and make the shoot look more high dollar. Rent or borrow a jib, hoist, or other device to get the camera and/or operator into the air. (author bears no responsibility for dropped cameras or fallen camerapersons.) Practice SAFETY! Rent or borrow a dolly, use a skateboard, use a pushcart, but get the camera moving. Zoom out while camera is dollied towards subject. Very interesting effect. Do the opposite, pull back while zooming in. This gives a wonderful effect in long hallways, similar to famous "The Shining" movie hall scenes. We once used a crane zooming in while crane was lifting camera straight into the air, pointing down at the ground. Made for a wonderful 'falling' feeling. Shoot for long dissolves. Have someone keep track of how one shot finishes and match that pose for the next shot composition. Copy the masters from MTV, VH-1, CMT, TNN, and then build on what you see the pro's doing. Use your imagination. Happy editing! Douglas Spotted Eagle ** The tutorial video is NOT from the official/broadcast Quiet Riot video "Rock the House" from the "Guilty Pleasures" CD. To see the production video, you'll need to purchase the CD, as the finished video is on the mixed-mode CD. Purchase the disc here. Thank you Rudy Sarzo! ©2002 Douglas Spotted Eagle. All rights reserved.

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