Making A DoD Movie: The Complete Guide
Editing Footage
Now we need some software. This I will not provide. If you are thinking "Windows Movie Maker!", then suicide. If you are thinking "Premiere!", then you are close but still a cum droplet. We need to work in Sony Vegas. Why Sony Vegas? This argument has gone through the ages. Basically Vegas is very user friendly, has great key framing capabilities, it allows you to interact with all aspects of your flick, it is fantastic with media management and things do not become muddled. When making a movie which comprises of a lot of clips like a DoD movie you want space and no clutter. So download Sony Vegas 6.0 or higher.
I will not stake you through everything to do with editing in Vegas as movies need to be individual. Play around with the effects, the presets and anything you find. Remember less is more. Some movie makers (and Australian ones mainly) have been guilty of trying to use to many effects and the end result is messy.
Open Vegas.
Click: File - Properties
Now copy my settings as shown
Use the NTSC setting of 29.97. You can use a pixel ratio of 1 (square) if you wish. It all depends on the look you are after. I often use different settings depending on whether I want wide screen or square screen etc. DoD pixels are rendered as square so it is often best to use a ratio of 1 which will aid in not having quality loss in the pixels.
To add your clips to the Video Track, simple click "File" "Open". Then find your folder and open it. Click on the FIRST clip in the series (and only the first. Note: It may take a second to load).
Click the "Open still image sequence" box. Ignore the rest and click OPEN
Basically this pushes all of your bmp's into one video file. After you have clicked open it will open this box:
Note: You can get back to this screen by right clicking on your clip and selecting properties.
Now, DoD .bmp's have a aspect ratio of 1. If our video is set to 0.9 then the clip will fill the rest with black. SO, IF your video is set to 0.9 then make sure the "maintain aspect ratio" is UNTICKED. This makes your bmp's take on the video's ratio. However, IF, your video is set to 1 then you can leave it ticked. Leave it as "smart resample".
Play back rate refers to how fast we want our clip to play. Now remember our video is going to play @ 29.97 or 30. When we recorded our clips we recorded them @ 120fps (if you altered this number then read below). Now since 120 is 4 times SLOWER than 30 fps we need to change the play back rate to 4.0 for it to play at our eye's speed. IF you changed your fps record rate then all you do is divide your rate rate by 30. I.E 90fps / 30 = 3.0 etc
This is as far as I am going with the editing process. From here you drag and drop your effects on to your footage. Drag music in etc. This is where you make it your own unique movie. I can write pages and pages on how to do it good; but I won't. Play around with the program. Make test clip on you jumping off a bridge and apply effects to it in Vegas to create different looks, transitions and feels. Don't be scared.
Congratulations you have now reached the level of: An Arj