Enhance your audio in iMovie

It is always better to get a good recording in the first place, but sometimes you will end up with an audio track on your video that is not as good as it should be. It could be that the microphone and cables introduced a hissing sound and you wouldn’t know about that until it was time to edit the video on your Mac. Maybe there was electrical equipment operating near to you when you were shooting the video. That sort of thing can introduce a hum into your audio and you might not necessarily notice it while you are doing the recording.

Hum and hiss removal in iMovie

When you have your video in the timeline in iMovie you can click on the gear icon that you will see at the beginning of the clip, to get access to the video and audio enhancement tools. So if you haven’t already put your clip into an audio application like Amadeus Pro to remove the extraneous noises, you can get the problem sorted out in iMovie. It can be nice to do all of what you need to do in just one application. The first option in the audio enhancement dialog window is for the volume. Maybe the recording is too low and you want to increase it, just remember that if you do increase the volume of the whole track, you will also increase the volume of any imperfections. You may then have to do other audio enhancements.

Audio Enhancement – Ducking audio in iMovie

You need to think about ducking audio if you have recorded a voice-over or if you have talking in your video clip and then you add some music. You don’t want to have the voices of your subjects drowned out by the high volume of music. The way that you do this is to go to the track that you want as your primary track of audio and choose the ducking feature. This has the effect of reducing the volume on all of the other tracks of audio. Automatic ducking in iMovie is one of the simplest audio enhancements to use.

iMovie fade in and fade out of audio

Depending on the audio, for instance it may have a loud or harsh start at the beginning of the track, you may need to use a fade in to get some audio enhancement. The same at the end of a track where it is better for you to have a gradual fade out rather than a sudden stop of the audio. You can set this up in the audio adjustments dialog window or it is possible to move and adjust with adjusters that are actually on the track itself in the timeline.

The slider to enhance audio

If you put a tick in the box to enhance audio, you can then use the slider to enhance the sound. What this feature does, is to try to remove background sounds like hum or hiss. The thing to do is to play the audio and to move the slider across until the sound that you want to lose, disappears. If you take the slider too far to the right then you will start to affect the sound that you want to keep. Because of this you will want to move the slider the minimum amount necessary to get the best audio enhancement.

Using the equaliser in your iMovie audio editing

iMovie gives you a 10 track audio equaliser and by moving these vertical sliders you can increase or decrease specific frequencies of sound. To the left you have the bass sounds and to the right you have the treble. You can move any of these individually or you can try some of the presets. If you are new to this then using the presets is a good place to start so that you see how this works. If you use the preset for enhancing for voice, you will see that it removes some of the bass and also does a reduction of the treble. This has the effect of enhancing the mid-range and should make the voice clearer to hear.

Edit audio in iMovie – Using the Equaliser

In the equaliser there is a preset which is specific for removing hum and is might be worth giving a try if you have that problem with your audio. Often the best thing to do will be to apply a preset and then to make some small adjustments yourself while listening to your audio. You will of course need some decent speakers or headphones to get the best benefit of this.

Getting the best audio in iMovie videos

If I know that the video I have recorded is going to have a problem, like some hiss in the recording, then I’m quite likely to open up the Amadeus Pro beforehand and sort that problem out. On the other hand, if I’m going to be using iMovie rather than using Final Cut Pro, it is because I want to make a video quickly and I will do a quick audio enhancement using the tools of iMovie. Another possibility is that I’m already opened up in iMovie and there is just a short video clip that has an audio problem and it is just much easier to stay in the same application rather than changing.

If the situation is that I have to take out some other sounds in a video clip and I can’t chop them out as it would mess up the synchronisation between video and audio, using Amadeus Pro is going to be the best option. I am grateful that there are some good audio enhancement tools within iMovie and when I want to do something that affects the whole clip it make sense to use what iMovie has to offer. Editing audio in iMovie is simple and easy to do and you don’t always need special audio enhancing software to enhance audio in your video.

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It is pretty easy to do green screen video with the video editing software now available. With iMovie or Final Cut Pro on the Mac or you could be using Premiere from Adobe, you can easily do green screen on YouTube videos. So long as you set it up right and take care, especially with the lighting of the green screen, it is as easy as falling off a log. As far as green screen lighting tips go, there is really only one tip. Just light your green screen as evenly as possible. All you have to do is to make sure that the light that you cast on your green screen, covers the whole area without there being either bright spots or shadows.

Green screen video made easy

When you’re trying to work out how to do green screen video the first place to start would be with your actual green screen. This can be a material which you hang or stretch behind where your talent is going to stand. It is really easy to find from various sources including eBay, either small cuts of green screen material, or quite large sheets of the stuff. On the other hand, what you could do is to buy some paint of the right colour which is a putrid bright green. If you have a nice flat wall that you can paint with this vomit coloured, vomit inducing colour of paint, it could be a perfect solution for your chromakey background. Obviously one of the cons for this would be that you don’t have any mobility, but it’s something that you could consider for a more permanent video studio.

Lighting for green screen video

It really is all about the lighting, because if you light it correctly, then green screen on iMovie is simplicity itself. I must have got the lighting just right with the last green screen movie that I did with iMovie. After importing the video clips, I was able to use all of the default settings within green screen iMovie and I was done. I have found that when you are doing green screen, depending upon the talent that you are shooting, that you might need to test with both a dark background and also with a light background in your video editing software.

Getting the green screen iMovie editing right

If all is not correct when you have used the default settings of iMovie, then you can make adjustments to suit the green that you have created with your background and lighting. You can make adjustments to better suit the exact colour of green and also make adjustments for the edges around your subject. You may need to do some twiddling and fiddling with the settings in your green screen video within iMovie. Certainly you may find that a bit of practice is required to get it just right. You want to get rid of any fringing around the edges.

There are quite a few instructional videos on how to do green screen on YouTube videos. Here is a green screen on iMovie how-to type video to get you started. Do make sure that in iMovie you have it set to show advanced tools. You will not have access to iMovie green screen effects otherwise.

Green screen Final Cut Pro

In the video on this VideoMagical post, we are looking at green screen iMovie editing. In Final Cut Pro X, you will find that the chroma key green screen editing is just as easy as it is with iMovie. One of my green screen tips in Final Cut Pro is that you can do samples of the green screen at various points during the movie. So that if I have found an area that for some reason at one point during the move does not work, then I can make another selection of the green, to improve the green screen editing. Still bear in mind though, that if you have got good lighting for green screen you will have less tweaking of the settings to do.

Selling the illusion with green screen on YouTube videos

If you have your talent standing in front of a scene that is windy, then you might want to use some sort of blower to move their hair in a realistic way. The actor will also be required perhaps to react to objects that are not really there. It will be the attention to small details in your green screen movie, that will help to sell the illusion to the viewers.

Green screen background videos

Once you have managed to key out the green screen background then you can add green screen background videos. You want to try and make it so that your talent will to fit into the background scene that you add. If the background video is of a sunny summers day, then your talent will need to be dressed accordingly as well as being lit suitably. You may also want to take into account the shadows and the direction of light, so that the foreground and the added background will match. Green screen video will be a great addition to help you make that viral video for YouTube

File renaming app – Rename video clips

I have been busy lately making videos / screencasts I have I think, fourteen Motion 5 tutorials to put into this site. I have also been making videos about using various Mac apps. The latest I made today is also pertinent to video makers. When you import the video clips from your camera you should make sure that the files are properly named and use something like the EXIF Renamer app to  do this. It will give you the file name based on what is in the EXIF meta data and be ready for you to bring into Final Cut Pro X. You could also use it for setting the time code of your video.

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Video tutorial about renaming video with a file renaming app

 

 

 

I will not be doing any motion 4 tutorials, but you can expect more of the motion tutorials of the Motion 5 variety. I plan to make this a great place to come to to learn motion video animation with the latest Apple movie editing software. Video motion animation is easy enough in Motion 5 if you give yourself time to learn the app with a Motion tutorial or two. I have made about fifteen Motion 5 tutorials that are already posted on Youtube and I have loads more to do. Some of this I am learning and then making a video to show what I have learned. Learn to use Motion 5 and Final Cut Pro X with me. I am having loads of fun diving into what Motion 5 video graphics animation editor from Apple, can do. It is a brilliant application for the creative amongst us. The stuff you can do with the virtual cameras in Motion 5 look exciting and I can’t wait to start using that to make some fly through type of video animations that I can then share with my readers. I would also be happy to hear from you too, if you have some ideas about areas of Motion 5 I could cover on this site. Have a look at the post about motion 5 text effects

VideoMagical the website for YouTubers

Welcome to this new video makers website and it is all about looking to see what we need to do to create that viral video. There is going to be a lot of tutorials showing you how to use my favourite products for creating videos. I do a lot of screen casts showing how to use Final Cut Pro X and Motion 5. So you will be able to come to VideoMagical to learn some of the technical details of how to create videos for Youtube as well as looking at the more difficult side of things, which is how to make things go viral. As well as using applications that work on the desktop Mac we will also be looking at how we can use applications such as iMovie iPad.

YouTube video maker of the week

Each week I will choose a prominent YouTube videographer and have them as the YouTuber of the week. Apart from using that as a way to promote a video maker on YouTube that impresses me, I would also like to have it as a way to discuss what they do and how they do it. I may even try to get a chat with that person, perhaps with a Google Hangout. Let’s see what people have done so far and had success with and see if we can replicate that success. If you would like to suggest yourself for the position of YouTuber of the week, then contact me using the contact form on the Video Magical contact page. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Reviews and discussions about hardware

For making my own videos I use Canon cameras. Lately I have bought a Canon 600D and I also use a Canon Vixia, which is an excellent, fairly inexpensive video camera. At present I don’t have a phone or iPad that records video, but I do plan to buy the iPad 3. I like the way that the DLSR video shooters community are looking at ways to cut costs for making video, by making their own tools for the job. I have already made myself a tabletop dolly that I am really pleased with. I have set it up so that I will also be able to use it on a track of some sort and I will be showing what I’ve done on VideoMagical website in a future posting.

Audio for video is extremely important if you want a viral video for YouTube

This will be an vital area of discussion on this website, because as everybody knows people will watch a video even if the visuals are of poor quality, so long as the sound is good. Whereas if the sound is bad, more viewers are likely to stop watching, even if the video quality is good. I am still building up the hardware that I want for recording audio with the video. I have a number of microphones that I can plug-in directly to the camera and other microphones that I can use to capture audio. I have a Zoom H2 recorder and I can also use the iPad to record sound externally. The microphone that I use with the iPad is an iRig microphone. I do plan to buy a preamp, probably a Juiced Link CX231, so that I can use phantom powered XLR shotgun microphones as my audio source. Another essential item that will have to be bought at some point in time, will be a decent clip on microphone. Initially I expect to buy one that will plug into the camera and eventually I would like to get a wireless clip on lavalier microphone.

Video is the future of the Internet

With the increase of broadband speeds and the ubiquity of the Internet and the ability to record video easily, there is going to be an increase of the use of video online. We see from time to time on the news items on the television, that there has been a silly video that has gone viral and had thousands or even millions of views. Let’s have a discussion about how that happens. Mostly it is down to luck and the video being picked up by some big player, that is able to generate a large number of views for that video, so that it takes off like a runaway snowball getting bigger and bigger. I do like that it is possible for the ordinary person to be able to create a video and to share it out and to take on the video professionals. Sometimes all that is needed is enthusiasm to make a viral video for YouTube

Ask me some questions about video

While I am not a video professional myself, I would like to think that I should do a good job of sharing with you what I am learning myself about video as I go. If I don’t know the answer to your question, then I do have resources to be able to find an answer for you. I do have the added benefit that my son Liam Allen is a professional cameraman and quite often that would be the first place for me to go to get the answer to a question. Seeing as he is a professional cameraman he does tend to prefer the expensive professional solutions to YouTube viral video. On the other hand I can balance that out with my desire to produce video as inexpensively as possible while getting the best possible quality out of what I can use.

 Hands up all those people that want to make a viral video for YouTube.

Making a youtube video or making videos for youtube and have that video viral out on the interwebs is the aim. Videos viral or viral video YouTube is easy and also hard to make happen and sometimes just needs luck to give a video a case of the virals. Youtube 3 is something that will have to be looked into, what does it mean for us video makers? Youtube make a video. One thing that is certain is that we would all like to know how to make a viral video. It wouldn’t have to be one of the best viral videos, just so long as it goes viral on YouTube. I would like to  have this site like a viral video film school.