DSLR's & Video editing

[candleman]

I cant really believe i'm going down this road as I'm a Photographic Puritain and DETEST the inclusion of video on DSLR's.
but here we go,

I've been asked by my good friend (almost 15 years.. it's so romantic ) to shoot his performance at the New Zealand Superlap. He wants to create a videomontage of his race, and include stills of my photography for the day.

Basically its a National Race of the countries fastest street legal cars.
his Rx7 has over 690Hp
I'll have full Pit access, as well as full access to all the corners on the track.
the race is in 2 weeks.

I'm going to be doing quite a bit of video of the day too.. seeing as i have the option available. He wanted to hand the images and video to his friend to put together.. but i've said thats not an option. I'll do it myself, as a learning excercise.. besides its something i've wanted to try experiment with for quite some time as preparation for a street photography project i'm seriously contemplating. dont get me wrong, i'll be paid for my time there... just not full rates

what video editing software do you recommend thats free, or even cheap for a noob to use.

i'd like to make portions of the video look like stop motion, and add colour effects, text, general effects. ....fade to b/w and such.

i'm considering making the video as a slideshow in photoshop elements, but if that fails to do what i want, i need another option.

theres no timeframe of when its needed by..

[Murtasma]

You can't go wrong with Adobe Products. I recommend downloading Premiere and After Effects. I believe Adobe offers a free 30 day trial on both.

Adobe - Downloads


BTW I checked out your gear section and I'm not sure if you have additional memory cards now but you're probably really going to need more memory then that if you plan on shooting lots of video of the event.

To make your video interesting the more unique angles and locations around the track you can capture the better. Look for details to get on video (close up of changing tire, pit crews running around, lights for the racing turning).

I suggest you start downloading the trials now but wait until you have the video captured and on you computer before you perform the installation to get the most out of your trial. I don't believe the trials are limited (such as saving video) but you will want to be sure on that first. If the trials look like they should work for you just hit up youtube for some training material to get you started.


The single most important thing to make your video awesome is to try and storyboard it first. Plan out how you want the video to look, what story will you have behind it, how do you plan to use transitions in the video. What about audio capture? The built in microphone on these cameras stinks for video since it picks up all the sounds inside the camera as well as you holding it. See if you can find someone with an external mic you can borrow for a day. Don't forget the additional memory cards (Shooting in HD gobbles up space fast).

Having your story planned out before you get to the track will allow you to capture the shots that will go well with your montage.

Good luck it should be a lot of fun! BTW show is the video when your done if you can I'd be interested in checking it out.

[candleman]

great, thanks for your response.
all good advise.

I'll definatley post it up when done.
I have 2 weddings to shoot that week, and so i probably wont even start looking at editing the video for at least a month after the race..

In terms of card space, i dont have any more cards than that,
the stills i'll shoot jpeg to save space.. outdoors is pretty predictable so no real need for RAW.
but i did order a new PC to cope with it all.. so the $$ are depleted.
he will have his own "in car" racecam, so we'll throw that in there, and his own handycam which some of the tag-alongs will use.
basically want to keep it short and sweet.. like 3minutes of action packed slides+video.

in terms of Audio.. i was considering going easy on the audio, and simply buying some royalty free music to overlay, and just fade in and out some engine noise here and there.

good idea about the storyboard. i'll see if i can come up with something that can be a "banker".
basically i'm thinking of making it like the intro of the program Airwolf.. kindof showing a basic story but no narration as such.

good stuff, thanks!

[jdepould]

Honestly, I don't think SLR video is the way to go for motorsports. Focus and rolling shutter are a bitch.

The Adobe trial isn't a bad way to go, especially since Premiere can edit h.264 on the fly.