ARTICLE:
Creating Motion Pictures with Blender This allows you to see only the given strip isolated in the preview window.
Step Six - Commit Yourself At some point, make the decision to put your paintbrush down. The more projects you attempt, the easier this point will be to assess and feel comfortable about. To help aid in this evaluation, ask yourself if you have touched on the goals you established in Step One. Consider this a critical moment this is the point where you will no longer make changes. From this moment onward, it is strictly polishing and tightening.
by Troy James Sobotka
Step Seven - Tweak and Twiddle
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This phase commences the march towards final cut. Slip your frames left and right and clean up the project. If you are timing to a score or a particular sound effect, does the cut point feel tight? Evaluate your transitions as well. Does a fade to black work better than a dissolve? Test the duration of your fades and dissolves.
Step Eight - Take a Break Fresh eyes are critical at this point. Maybe put the project away for an hour, a couple of hours, or possibly
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even a sleep. When you return, you may find greater clarity for the hard and gritty analysis of your editorial decisions.
rent project, simply call it project 'next' and make a mental note. There will always be time for another project...
Step Nine - Final Cut
In Closing
This is a final pass that is very much similar to Step Seven. At this juncture you should be doing very little other than the odd frame shifting / tweaking where required. You have agreed at this point that you will be doing no further tweaking on the editing of your project.
Motion picture work has now been dominated by commercial and proprietary tools. Often, there is a perception that you cannot create motion picture work without them. This piece is a challenge to every reader to put down the excuses and procrastination, pick up Blender, and prove that entire misconception wrong
Step Ten - Finish If you have any effects slated for your project, this is where you would commence work on them. Blender's compositor is extremely powerful for complex effect sequences, and as such, no brief summary would do it justice here. You may find that you do not need the compositor if the sequencer effects meet your needs. Remember, the goal is to produce creative work and in the end, the process should be completely insignificant as you work toward that goal. If the sequencer's tools meet the needs of your project, then so be it. Experiment with different looks and evaluate according to the goals you established in Step One. If you find something interesting but are struggling to make it work with your cur-
Troy James Sobotka Troy James Sobotka started cutting film back when you actually had to cut celluloid with a blade and tape the two strips together. He comes from an era where the non linear editor was in its infancy. He wonders what it would have been to have a Free Software tool like Blender back then. Website: http://troy-
Issue 21 | Apr 2009 - Look What I Can Do!!