Friday, 26 January 2018

2012 to 2014 sketchbook tour & a rant about video editing


So… I got distracted. I am going to post up the first comic page but for some reason I felt a great need to film my sketchbook instead? 

Anyway, you can find it on YouTube here

I've been meaning to get my sketchbooks up on YouTube for a while now, partly to share them with those who are interested but also as a way of having a permanent record of them where even if the original burns they'll still be safe. 
The sketchbook I picked I had kicking around for a while...it's pretty old...it's pretty anime...the anatomy’s terrible......at least it's proof I've improved? So yeh, as the sketchbooks go this might not be the most interesting one, it's nearly all bad or unfinished art, but I decided I may as well start with this one since I am planning on getting them all up. Maybe I can switch back and forth between new and old books as I do so...make the old books a little more bearable.

So I went to record my book.... turns out that process was much harder than I thought it would be.

First of all, I've only done a tiny bit of video editing using the adobe programs which I no longer have so I had to go on a hunt for a good free one. All the reviews suggested different programs.... I was looking at long lists that didn’t have a single name in common. 
I originally went with shortcut, I think after 20 lists or so it appeared two or three times. I installed it, I couldn't work out how to make it run..... I eventually gave up.
Then I went with Lightworks and so far it's been okay. The tutorial covered nearly everything I needed and for the most part it was easy to find answers to questions I asked. I think I'll stick with it. 


There was a scary moment when rendering where it froze and wouldn't let me save until it finished rendering. It looked like it might auto save so I ended up force shutting it down, then I couldn't find a way or reopening it....
So I freaked out over potentially losing a few hours work and got my pet programmer to fix everything whilst I tried to reinstall it. It ended up working, all my stuff saved and I was able to render it...I have no idea how. 

Actually, editing the video was also a pain, though that was more my own fault and I think I know how to do it better next time. 
The problem was that I couldn't just use the audio from the video footage since it was too quiet so I ended up trying to do a voice over. It ended up being filled with me stuttering and going 'umm' all the time that needed editing out. I was going back and forth editing the audio to remove long pauses and mistakes and then editing the video to try to match it with the extremely different in length audio. Hence why the video randomly speeds up at times.  

I think next time I'll record the audio first and I'll do more takes to get all the 'umms' out. That way I know exactly how long it is and I can make the whole thing shorter. Fifteen minutes is a bit long, at least for my tastes in sketchbook tours, maybe if I can get it down to ten or twelve.
Also if I can be careful to remove my hands from the view of the camera after I turn each page it means I can edit the speed of the video without it being so obvious since it'll be looking at a still book. Also means I can give more time for my camera to focus correctly, a few pages came out a bit blurred. 

The simpler things are to edit the better. It took me about four hours to edit 20 minutes of video. Granted I was learning at the same time but there are things I could have done to make it so much easier like just re-recording the lines if they are filled with mistakes. 

For some mad reason I decided to record myself talking whilst still being ill and having a raw throat…this was a terrible idea. I advise against it. For one it made the audio sound terrible.

Ah well, I know for next time. I'm not sure exactly when I'll do the next sketchbook, they're all currently at my mums so I'll have to grab a couple next time I'm over there.


No comments:

Post a Comment