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Hack 56 Digicam Movie Editing Made Easy

Almost all point-and-shoot digicams capture
video footage in addition to still photos. But how do you turn those
short snippets into your own personal movie?

If it comes down to a choice between bringing
along a camcorder or a digital camera, I'm going to
choose the camera. Even though I enjoy shooting video, I like still
photos even more. Plus, digital cameras are smaller, and managing
pictures is easier than dealing with hours of video.

But there are times when I also want to capture a few snippets of
video. Certain special eventssuch as a speech at a wedding, a
greeting from an old friend, or a child's first
stepsare communicated better with moving pictures and sound.
Fortunately for us, most digital cameras have a respectable Movie
mode, and some even have great ones.

The problem is, once you have captured the footage in your camera,
what do you do with it? Before I answer that question
outrightand I willlet me explain the difference between
the video your digicam captures and the footage from a digital
camcorder.

These days, most people shoot video with a digital video (DV) camcorder. DV is
becoming the format of choice. Once you record your movie clips, you
can plug the camcorder into your personal computer and an application
on your computer launches, ready to download and edit your footage.
On the Windows platform, you might use Microsoft's
MovieMaker; on
the Mac, you could use Apple's
iMovie or
Final Cut
Express.

But when you plug in your digital still camera, these applications
don't seem to recognize it, even when
it's full of video. One of the reasons for this is
that you're probably plugging your still camera into
a USB port, while your camcorder uses the FireWire port. Most
video-editing applications look for devices connected via FireWire.
But that's not the only difference.

Digital camcorders typically record in the DV format. Your digital
still camera is using a completely different format, such as
Motion
JPEG OpenDML, which is an extension of the AVI file format. You can play these
files on your computer by using QuickTime Player; in fact, this
format is part of the QuickTime media layer. That's
why almost every digicam under the sun provides you with QuickTime on
its bundled CD.

Playing the files is one thing, but hooking them together and editing
them is another altogether. If you can't use the
DV-editing software that came with your computer, then what do you
do?

In this hack, the answer is QuickTimethe Pro version, that is.
Sure, the free QuickTime Player you download from Apple lets you
watch the movies. But the Pro version you buy
online lets you edit them too, plus do a lot
more. QuickTime Pro is an extremely versatile digital-media
application. But for the moment, we'll focus on
editing, stitching, and trimming.

The first thing you need to do is transfer the movie files from your
camera to your computer. If you don't know how to do
this already, you'll have to crack open your
owner's manual. Every camera/computer combination is
a little different. If you're lucky, your camera has
what is referred to as Mass Storage Device
connectivity. That means it appears on your computer like
a regular hard drive. Nikon, Olympus, and Kyocera cameras usually
have this feature. In those cases, you simply open the
"hard drive," drag the movie files
out, and save them on your computer. In case you
don't know which ones are the movie files, they will
usually have an .AVI extension.

Now you need to purchase the Pro version of QuickTime. Go to
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/
and click Upgrade to QuickTime Pro. You'll receive a
software key that unlocks the Pro features in the Player version of
QuickTime.

Now you're in business. You need to learn only three
commands in QuickTime Pro to edit your movies:

Trim

This command enables you to snip off the yucky stuff on either end of
your movie. Simply move the bottom triangles on the scrubber bar to
the endpoints of the content you want to keep, as shown in Figure 5-15. When you then go to the Edit drop-down menu
and select Trim, the gray area will be kept and the white area will
be trimmed away. You've successfully snipped off the
content you didn't want to keep.

Figure 5-15. Editing in QuickTime Pro

Add

Most digital cameras allow you to shoot only a few minutes of video
at a time. So, to construct your movie, you have to combine these
short clips into a longer presentation. Use the Add command for this
purpose.

The procedure is similar to copying and pasting in a text document.
First, move the bottom triangles to select the section of the video
you want to copy. Then, go to the Edit drop-down menu and select
Copy. That will put the snippet on the clipboard.

Now, open the snippet to which you want to add the copied content.
Move the top triangle on the scrubber bar to the end of that clip;
then, go to the Edit menu and select Add. The video you copied to the
clipboard is now added to the second snippet, including the sound
that was recorded with it.

Make Movie Self-Contained

Once you've built your movie from the snippets you
captured with your camera, choose the Save As command from the File
drop-down menu. Give your movie a name, and be sure to click on the
Make Movie Self-Contained button. This will
flatten all the layers you've
added into one movie, without any dependencies.

Congratulations! You've now made your first
featurette from short clips captured with your digital still camera.
Regardless of the platform on which you created the movie, you can
play the movie on both Mac and Windows. If you want, you can even
burn it to CD and share with friends.

To help you make the best
minimovies possible, here are a few
shooting tips:

Capture all your video at the same frame rate, preferably 15 fps
(frames per second) if possible.

Hold the camera steady and don't pan. Since you
can't lock in the exposure when shooting video with
most digicams, you don't want lighting changes in
your shots. The camera will try to adjust, creating annoying lighting
shifts. Instead, focus on your subject, shoot 15 to 60 seconds of
video, and then pause. Set up your next shot and go from there.

Don't use Automatic White Balance. You could get
color shifts in the middle of your clip, which you will find most
annoying. Instead, choose one of the presets, such as Cloudy, to lock
in the white-balance setting.

Frame your subjects tightly, as shown in Figure 5-15. Digicam movies are usually only 320 240
pixels in dimension, so you can't afford to stand
back too far; if your frame is too wide, your viewers
won't recognize the subject.

Beware of the microphone port. It's usually close to
your fingers. Don't cover it up or run your hand
across it while recording.

Now it's time to go shoot something and combine
those clips into a movie. Look out, Martin Scorscese!