12 Most Used Cuts & Transitions in Hollywood

So it has been quite a few weeks now since the last time I went off on a mindless rant about the use of transitions in amateur video editing.

Because I really can’t help myself, here we go again!

Every video editing software program that you will see at the amateur or even semi-pro level will have as part of its marketing the loud announcement that the program has a million transitions.

OK, so maybe a million is a bit of an exaggeration but hundreds are usually on offer.

The problem with this is that when you see those transition actually used in a project you soon realize how utterly naff they are.

After that if you have any taste at all the vast majority of them will never be used again!

If you look at pro level editing you never really “see” the transitions and that’s the point!

A good transition carries the attention of the viewer forward without drawing attention to itself.

In fact there are very few transitions that are regularly used in professional productions.

I came across the video below this week and it gives a great rundown on the transitions the pro’s actually use and why they are used.

How Music Can Change Pace & Tone

This is an excellent video from the guys at Film Riot covering the subject of music in your video projects.

Of course it is no secret that the audio is probably going to be having a more powerful effect on your audience than the visuals which is kind of strange really!

Here we are working in what is predominantly a visual medium yet it is the audio that seems to be driving things!

I am not really sure why this is the case but my guess is that although we are using what we see as the “apparent” driving force we are pre-programmed to be constantly searching for confirmation of what we see by what we are hearing at the same time.

Now as far as the video below goes I have to give you all a bit of a heads up.

Although there are some great tips in the video and some stuff I have never seen let us not fool ourselves here!

This is a long promotion of an online music licensing service called Artlist.io so as far as choosing the music and using their service goes you can take that all with a pinch of salt.

Everyone has to pay the bills at the end of the day so I’m fine with a bit of shameless promo!

The real value to me in this one are some of the tips and tricks being shown on how to choose the music and especially how to manpulate that music so it more professionally sits below the voice track and does its job.

10 Steps to Shoot Epic B-Roll of Anything

I just realized going back through a few of the Friday Roundup posts that I do tend to included tutorials on B-roll footage quite a lot!

I guess the reason I push it so regularly is that I figure most of the people following this blog are going to fit into the amateur or at least prosumer level of the video editing spectrum.

I don’t think anyone here is delusional enough to believe that they are going to be making the next episode of Star Wars at home in the living room.

What I think we are all trying to do is to within reason, lift the standard of our videos out of the 60’s dad home movies on Super 8 to at least a slightly more professional level.

To that end I really cannot recommend too much the idea of shooting and using B-roll in your projects.

The video below gives some great tips and if you just search for B-roll on this site you will come up with a bunch posts that have equally valuable tutorials.

Ultimate Guide to Camera Angles: Every Shot Angle and Camera Height Explained

This is Episode 3 of the Studio Binder series on shooting film and video.

In the previous episode they covered shot composition and you can check that one out on this blog post here.

In this episode they cover camera angles which takes us from the concept of “what” the audience is looking at and branches us over to “how” the audience is perceiving that subject.

There is no way that as an amateur videographer I am suggesting that any of us are going to be shooting at this level of detail.

The reason this is worth watching is that if you know how a shot is going to be perceived (good or bad!) then you can adjust what you are doing to get better footage.

Build a YouTube Studio for Less Than $100

This is an excellent article with a collection of videos videos covering how to build your own video recording studio.

Well worth taking a look at if you are regularly using what could be described as a studio set up for your own videos.

The emphasis here is on making use of what you probably already have and not trying to buy your way out of trouble.

As a side note, they say “YouTube studio” but you don’t have to only use it for that!

• Build a YouTube Studio

How To Look Your Best On A Webcam Video Call

Just some great tips here for looking good in a webcam situation with absolutely no need for any pro equipment at all.

How to Use Phone Camera Settings for Better Videos

Most of us are carrying around a phone these days and most of those phones can capture some pretty good looking video out of the box.

All phones come with a bunch of video features that have been set to factory defaults based on “most common usage.”

Those settings may not actually be the best settings for you under all circumstances and given the limitations of phone cameras it is a great idea to lessen those limitations by learning a few adjustments.

Using Shutterstock’s Media Library – PowerDirector 365

This week CyberLink announced another addition to the Powerdirector 365 and Director Suite 365 video editing programs.

If you are using these version you will now have access from within the user interface to tens of thousands of videos, hundreds of thousands of images and hundreds of music tracks.

Check out the video below to see it in action but basically you can select Shutterstock as an Import function, browse the catalogue, preview then choose to import directly into the media library of that project.

This is NOT access to the entirety of the Shutterstock collection of media assets.

It is access to the CyberLink assets and the whole shebang is being “powered by” the Shutterstock platform.

If you are using stock footage, images or music tracks regularly then possibly may be worth it for you to go over to the PowerDirector 365 subscription model as it works out at around $4.00 per month.

• PowerDirector Review Here

How to Find Magic Tools in PowerDirector – CyberLink PowerDirector 17 & 18

A few versions ago in CyberLink PowerDirector a set of tools called the “Magic Tools” appeared to have been removed.

In reality none of those tools were removed.

For those of you unfamiliar with PowerDirector I’ll just briefly explain the Magic Tools.

They were a set of advanced features aimed particularly at common editing functions.

They varied quite a lot depending on the function but generally covered correcting and working with video, audio and image files.

The reason people believed the tools had been removed was because the single access button to those tools was removed to simplify the user interface.

Access to them was shifted to the menu system more logically associated with each particular tool.

In the video below you can see where they went and how to access them.

Fake Unpredictable Dude Perfect Trick Shot

I like “how to” videos where they take a video sequence or effect that looks really complicated and show you how to replicate it.

In doing so you discover how simple it is to do and you can do it yourself.

This is NOT one of those!!

It is a good effect but the shooting setup is really complex and I know I wont be doing it any time soon!

You are certainly welcome to give it a try!

How To Make An Intro In Resolve

This is another excellent video from Casey Faris using DaVinci Resolve.

This week he shows how to make a simple text title as an introduction sequence for your videos.

However once he is finished with the basic editor part of the tutorial he then goes into Fusion.

Once there he shows how to make a really fancy pants title sequence and along the way you get to see what Nodes are in Resolve and how they work.

Original post The Friday Roundup – Hollywood Transitions, Musical Pace and Camera Angles