This was an incredible project to work on. This is the second time that I’ve used VSDC movie editor. I learned a lot from watching different tutorials. The good things about working on a project like this when you don’t know everything you need to know in order to make it happen, you only need to learn whatever operation it is once, and then you can repeat it. I learned how to fade music in and out, how to download video from online to turn it into a file you can manipulate. I learned how to add visual effects, manipulate sound levels, add sound effects, and even use a GoPro.
I feel like I grew a lot working on this project. It feels really good to have put something together that is both meaningful to you, and that you’ll take with you forever. It’s not just the video that I’ll have, it’s the experience of learning all of these new techniques. I learned some things on accident too. Unfortunately, for the part when I’m holding KJ’s hockey stick, the camera bag got in the shot. I tried editing it as much as I could and tried to put it into three parts to make it less noticeable. But then, I accidentally had space between one and it looked like the camera represented someone blinking their eyes. I will definitely keep that as an idea because I love the way it turned out.
If I had more time, I would go through with a fine toothed comb in regards to the audio levels and in regards to the music. I would make the video a more even sound throughout. It’s difficult to tell on preview what you have. You almost have to export it to really tell. In a perfect world, I would have snapped the images to fit in-time with the music. Though I’m sure I could figure out how to do this, and might at a later date, I didn’t have time. I would have also done more cuts to make it shorter. What I have is a final product, but I think I’m a few steps away from a final project.
As a little kid, I used to love making movies. The first one was “Attack of the Mutant Feet,” a B-Horror film made with me stomping toys in the sandbox when I was probably seven. I wrote a script and everything! For all of my enthusiasm, throughout the years, I was told that it wasn’t ever going to get me anywhere, and that I was “too smart” to go into the arts. I find it life giving to create art. And I don’t think any sort of academic grades, high, low, or otherwise prohibit one from bringing something beautiful into the world.
It might have been George Lucas who said, “Movies aren’t made. They escape.” That’s what this feels like. I know it’s not necessarily perfect, but it’s compete.
UPDATE 11/28/22: You can see the final version here. I edited it and I was able to figure out how to make the visual images sync with music at the end. I also cut almost 15 seconds off the time so it’s a bit more snappy, and I tried my best to make sure that the audio levels were more balanced so there weren’t really loud and really quiet parts unless it was explicitly my intention to do so.
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