Make Clip Flash with beats in Vegas pro 8

[Karim Amanali]

Hi guys,

I am still very new to editing and am still at the learning curve. What I am trying to do is I am making a video for the cricket game which I taped and trying to make a music video and I am trying to flash 5-6 different clips with the sound of the beats of the music playing in the background. I cant figure it out how to go about doing that, is it transitions that I should be using by fading the clips and adding a transition effect or do I have to download a different plug-in.

TO sum it up I am trying to make a highlight reel for the game by incorporating some of the catches, bowling, and main highlights of the game in to a 4-5 minute video but I want to use many clips that i have recorded.

I hope I have made myself clear and if I can get any input I would greatly appreciate it very much. If you need any further info please let me know and i will try to provide that to you guys.

Thank you in advance.

Karim.

[Stuart Campbell]

Hi Karim,

I would start by laying down your music bed and hitting M on the keyboard with every beat you wish to cut to. Zoom in on the track and fine tune the marker locations. This is a very crude and basic way of cutting to music.

Then you can drop your cuts onto your time line and effect transitions to match your beat markers. You can then apply whatever cut transitions to each beat marker.

We have cut a promo film for promoting cricket in schools in the past but it's not on the web to see I'm afraid! We've also shot a cricket manufacturing film to music but there are some serious legal issues still ongoing with the music we used, so it's on their web site with some nasty generic production music at the moment. Hopefully, very soon, we can get the paperwork out of the way and you can see how cuts are used with music beats.

http://www.salixcricketbats.com/manufacturing.html

Also, keep your cuts to matching time signatures. Don't stick cuts on off beats as it can look pretty strange.

Hope that helps!

Good stuff doing a cricket vid by the way.....the worlds best game!
Stuart

[Mike Kujbida]

Karim, see if this will help.
Set up your first transition as a basic fade.
Make it 5 frames long to start.
Highlight about 4 seconds of the area (2 sec. before and 2 sec. after the fade).
Press the loop button on the timeline and then press play.
If you don't have a fast computer, set your Preview window to Preview/Auto.
Adjust the transition timing as desired.
Now drop any FX you want on the transition area.
If you hold the Ctrl key down while dragging the FX on to the fade, you won't get the pop-up box.
When you find an FX you like, make the remaining clips transitions the same - or change them to something else if desired.
I hope this helps.

[David W Williamson]

If you want actual flashing, like the flashbulb of a camera as your transition, start by adding another video track above your footage. Then...

- Go to the media generator tab, choose 'solid color' on the left, and drag 'white' into your timeline on the new video track. Make it 4 or 5 frames long (yes, that short).
- Position the start of the white clip at the start of your cut (which should line up with a beat of the music) .
- Add a fade out curve that runs the whole length of the white clip (see the attached thumbnail).

Tah dah! Camera-style flash.

You can experiment with the merge mode of the track (screen, multiply, overlay, etc), as well as different types of fade curves to adjust the flash look that you're wanting.

[Terry Esslinger]

You could use the flash transition. Works almost as well and a lot easier.

[Karim Amanali]

Thank you Stuart, Mile and David for your help. I will try out your suggestions once I get home from work.

Stuart, yes Cricket definitely is one of the best games and I love playing the game and filming it. I just filmed one of the games for our team and am trying to make a music video. I am in no means a pro at editing or filming, just a hobby for now. I will post the link to it once I have created the clip.

I will try all the methods descibed above and see which one works best.

Also, one more quick question regarding slow motion, I know how to use the envelopes but I have heard of a plug-in called Twistor (i believe that is whats called), is it worth purchasing that plug-in? If so, does it really make that big of a difference?

Once again Thank you for the quick tips and suggestions :).



Cheers.

[Mike Kujbida]

Originally Posted by Karim Amanali

Also, one more quick question regarding slow motion, I know how to use the envelopes but I have heard of a plug-in called Twistor (i believe that is whats called), is it worth purchasing that plug-in? If so, does it really make that big of a difference

I think you mean Twixtor.
It's available for every NLE except Vegas :-(