Need some help from the Video makers

[Brenstel]

I want to make a 6 month perspective of CJ for our families and I have an idea of how I want the entire thing to look but I have no idea what software tools are out there that can do what I need.

What i want to do is to use a mixture of video clips and Jpegs while having a background song i DL'ed from Itunes is playing in the background. I want the sound on the video clip to be more prominent when they play that the background music but want the back ground music to return to it preset volume when the video clip ends.


also if the software you recommend has the ability to "photoshop" photos too that would be a big plus.

TY in advance,
Brenstel

[Ffran]

I'd recommend Premiere from Adobe.

you can get the CS5 suite from a torrent site. It's a little complicated but you can easely find tutorials online to get the basics.

In the suite you will also find the adobe software to make video special effects. All of those are compatible with photoshop so you can insert images with transparency masks that will cover your videos. you can also open your video in frame by frame inside photoshop so you can edit it in all kinds of way like treating the colorlevels/contrasts/luminosity add porn shots between frames fightclub style

Make sure you follow the directions carefully when you'll crack it. you must disconnect your computer from the internet until it's cracked as it'll connect to adobe servers and mess up your computer.

GL

[Brenstel]

TY ffran for the suggestion but cracking software is not for me...but we do have in mind to spend a few hundred dollars on a good but not 2.6k that adobe want for CS5

[Ffran]

if it's not for commercial use, you still think it would get you trouble? big braw?

[Tigridia]

Many end up getting a Mac for stuff like this. iMovie is included with every Mac, and if that isn't enough for their needs, Final Cut Express is only $199.

Of course an iMac is at least $1200... But hey, for $2.6K you could get two iMacs and a copy of Final Cut Express.

[Dotmatrics]

I had the same issue, not wanting to break the law and not wanting to pay a fortune. I settled on Corel X5. It is the retarded cousin of Creative Suite. It is not as complicated. And it is much cheaper. I think I paided $350 for mine. Just my two cents.

[Phrostbyte]

Honestly I would say that you could probably get what you want with just Windows Movie Maker. I've only assisted my mother with it once or twice and it's very straightforward. I am not sure about editing the audio levels by clips, but I think it should be able to do that. If you have the funds and you think you want to get a little bit deeper into it, then I would also suggest Final Cut Express or Adobe Premiere Elements. Adobe Premiere Elements is in the same league as iMovie and it's pretty straightforward and easy to use. Do you think you will want to continue to turn your home videos into DVDs for your family or is this a one time thing? What kind of system are you running right now?

[Brenstel]

Honestly I would say that you could probably get what you want with just Windows Movie Maker. I've only assisted my mother with it once or twice and it's very straightforward. I am not sure about editing the audio levels by clips, but I think it should be able to do that. If you have the funds and you think you want to get a little bit deeper into it, then I would also suggest Final Cut Express or Adobe Premiere Elements. Adobe Premiere Elements is in the same league as iMovie and it's pretty straightforward and easy to use. Do you think you will want to continue to turn your home videos into DVDs for your family or is this a one time thing? What kind of system are you running right now?

I'm used to movie maker and I just want to make a movie every now and then. I actually read a review on on the sony movie maker "vegas movie studio hd 9.0" and it has the audio adjustments I want and it's controls look as simplistic as WMM. Its only 40$ at best buy. I probably only used it maybe once every blue moon the more I think about it.

I did honestly had a "shoot the moon" kinda idea of what I wanted to do but time is at a premium now and I don't have the time to read through extensive manuals I've seen in some of the demos.

[Cremate]

You can do what you need to with Windows Movie Maker. I did the entire recruitment video using that program alone. It will take some meticulous fine tuning, splicing, and dicing to do anything really fancy... but its not hard to learn.

[Possa]

What operating system are you using?

If OS X: iMovie will probably do what you need (I'm not sure).

If Windows: Windows Movie Maker may do what you're after (I don't know if it supports layering audio tracks ((background music + foreground narration))). As an alternative, check out VideoPad Video Editor (I recently found this and haven't used it much, but it looks good).

Depending on your skill, you could use Premiere or FinalCut, but remember these are pro tools so they'll be a bit more complex.

Also, check out YouTube for video guides. There are a ton of great how-tos.