Okay, I have put out an inquiry on my DW and if people don't respond to that, I will start chasing down individual vidders via email or PM. =) Later this week I will try to chase down some meta/process posts for you by vidders I know of; unfortunately, I nuked my bookmarks/memories ages ago so I don't have a list of links ready offhand.
PLEASE TAKE EVERYTHING WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. I vidded for some years, but I really struggled with the form. And different vidders work differently--take what's useful to you, disregard the rest.
I'm going to start with the music end because that's easier for me, although obviously you can start from the concept/visuals end instead! You will probably choose a song for some combination of evocative/useful lyrics and mood. For your first few vids, I recommend sticking to popular music, which will almost certainly be in common time (4/4). It is helpful if you can hear the beat, because you will frequently want to be cutting to the beat (more anon), but not mandatory. Your vidding program will probably have a way to allow you to look at the song's waveform, and usually the high-amplitude peaks will correspond to the beats in the percussion/bass.
I personally recommend either sticking to a song no longer than 3 minutes 30 seconds or thereabouts, or else using an audio program (Audacity is free, prooooobably works on Win10, and should be sufficient for your needs here) to chop the song down to that length. There have been great vids that are longer, so this is only a very rough rule of thumb, but especially for earlier efforts, a shorter song will make your life easier. If you're going to edit a song down, it helps to know something about musical structure. [1] A typical pop/rock song will have an intro, a verse, a chorus, stanza, chorus, etc., possibly a contrasting segment (usually around the midpoint), and then eventually an outro/conclusion. If you're deleting a segment, you will probably (depending on the song) get the best results deleting, say, an entire stanza instead of deleting three of its four verses and then leaving the fourth just dangling there. Another helpful principle is that music is usually structured around powers of 2. A typical phrase will be eight measures long (again, helpful if you can count beats and measures), sometimes four. You will occasionally run into things that have six-measure phrases or whatever, so be careful. But if you have to guess, go with eight or four.
[1] I apologize if I'm just regurgitating stuff you already know! Feel free either to ask questions or to disregard unhelpful stuff. I am not currently set up to provide examples of chopping up music, but I might be able to do that later on if helpful.
In terms of lyrics, it may be tempting to interpret each phrase literally when it comes time to pair things with clips from the source. I have done this. :p Literal interpretation can indeed make for very powerful moments, but if you do it piecemeal (phrase by phrase by phrase), it can also make for a disjointed vid. You want to make sure that the vid's visuals and emotional narrative have a flow--sort of a character arc over the course of the entire vid, so to speak.
It can also be fun to listen for specific flourishes in the music--an electric guitar solo, or a big percussion flam, or whatever--and note those for special treatment with your clips. (I often think of vidding as being like solving a multivariable system of equations!)
If you're willing to point me to a given song (Youtube, etc.), I can tell you what the phrasing is doing. I figure if I took 7 years of piano and 5 years of viola, I should at the last help my friends out with my misspent youth. :p
There are also tools that will help you determine the tempo of a song, if you need help finding the beat. They're less reliable if the song slows up or speeds up or does weird fermata things in the middle, though.
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dhampyresa
vidding overview: song choice and music
Date: 2016-09-13 10:48 pm (UTC)PLEASE TAKE EVERYTHING WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. I vidded for some years, but I really struggled with the form. And different vidders work differently--take what's useful to you, disregard the rest.
I'm going to start with the music end because that's easier for me, although obviously you can start from the concept/visuals end instead! You will probably choose a song for some combination of evocative/useful lyrics and mood. For your first few vids, I recommend sticking to popular music, which will almost certainly be in common time (4/4). It is helpful if you can hear the beat, because you will frequently want to be cutting to the beat (more anon), but not mandatory. Your vidding program will probably have a way to allow you to look at the song's waveform, and usually the high-amplitude peaks will correspond to the beats in the percussion/bass.
I personally recommend either sticking to a song no longer than 3 minutes 30 seconds or thereabouts, or else using an audio program (Audacity is free, prooooobably works on Win10, and should be sufficient for your needs here) to chop the song down to that length. There have been great vids that are longer, so this is only a very rough rule of thumb, but especially for earlier efforts, a shorter song will make your life easier. If you're going to edit a song down, it helps to know something about musical structure. [1] A typical pop/rock song will have an intro, a verse, a chorus, stanza, chorus, etc., possibly a contrasting segment (usually around the midpoint), and then eventually an outro/conclusion. If you're deleting a segment, you will probably (depending on the song) get the best results deleting, say, an entire stanza instead of deleting three of its four verses and then leaving the fourth just dangling there. Another helpful principle is that music is usually structured around powers of 2. A typical phrase will be eight measures long (again, helpful if you can count beats and measures), sometimes four. You will occasionally run into things that have six-measure phrases or whatever, so be careful. But if you have to guess, go with eight or four.
[1] I apologize if I'm just regurgitating stuff you already know! Feel free either to ask questions or to disregard unhelpful stuff. I am not currently set up to provide examples of chopping up music, but I might be able to do that later on if helpful.
In terms of lyrics, it may be tempting to interpret each phrase literally when it comes time to pair things with clips from the source. I have done this. :p Literal interpretation can indeed make for very powerful moments, but if you do it piecemeal (phrase by phrase by phrase), it can also make for a disjointed vid. You want to make sure that the vid's visuals and emotional narrative have a flow--sort of a character arc over the course of the entire vid, so to speak.
It can also be fun to listen for specific flourishes in the music--an electric guitar solo, or a big percussion flam, or whatever--and note those for special treatment with your clips. (I often think of vidding as being like solving a multivariable system of equations!)
[to be continued]
Re: vidding overview: song choice and music
Date: 2016-09-14 08:57 pm (UTC)Thank you for this!
Re: vidding overview: song choice and music
Date: 2016-09-14 09:00 pm (UTC)There are also tools that will help you determine the tempo of a song, if you need help finding the beat. They're less reliable if the song slows up or speeds up or does weird fermata things in the middle, though.