A Suggestion From Andy

Here is a very helpful (cough cough) thing I found, written by Andy Lempke himself.... mind you, do not take any of his tips, they blow goats, just as he does....jk andy.

Tips on Making a short movie



What's up, I am here today to tell you what I think should go into a short (1-10 min) ski movie. First of all, you should create a directory for the movie, such as

C:\movies\

so you can organize the different files easier.

Then you should organize the clips you are going to use into different folders for each person in the clip... such as

C:\movies\AndyLempke\
and
C:\movies\BryanGallant\

This enables you to be able to quickly check if you had used all the footy for this person, and makes it easier so you dont have to sort through clips looking for each person.

After that, you should take all the music/sound files you are going to use and put it into its own subfolder in that first movie folder like

C:\movies\music\
or
C:\movies\soundfx\

this also provides greater organization and it saves a lot of frustration.

After that, you should take any still images you are going to use and put them in thier own subfolder or into each respective person's folder.

like c:\movies\AndyLempke\stills\

or

C:\movies\stills\

after that, make a misc folder to put other things, like credit titles and things like that into

C:\movies\misc\

Now, you should be ready to make your short movie.

Now, what I like to see in a movie is flashy intros for each person, like showing a clip, then pausing the clip and adding a cool effect and showing the name, then continuing the clip again. Each person should also be mentioned either in an intro like clip, or in the credits, people like to know who the skiers are. I will come back to credits later.

For music, I think that each person has his/her own personal preference. I like fast paced punk music with fast drums. Some people like techno, some people like rap, etc. But I think that all music should go with the movie, i.e. drum beats striking as an important part in the movie appears. You should adjust your clips accordingly.

Another cool effect is to add slow motion. I assume that you are using adobe premiere, so slow motion is easy, just right click the clip in the timeline and click speed, then change the percentage accordingly. I usually use 70% for low spins with grabs, or flips, and 60% for high rotations (720 or above) Using slow motion allows the viewer to see what is going on with the trick easier, i.e. did he get the grab, what kind of grab is it.

I would advise using too many visual distorting effects, or color changing things in a movie, it gets annoying after awhile.

About credits, you should add everything that helped you into the credits, music names, locations, skiers, cameramen, special thanks, any sponsors, and your name of course.

Format to save to, I use .wmv usually just because I see it as the most lossless CODEC. Another good one is DiVX but a lot of people dont have divx while everyone has windows media player. Another good one is quicktime. To compress to WMV format easier go HERE and DL Windows Media Encoder.

I have a ton more tips, but I am super tired... Email me at LineSkiEastCoast@earthlink.net or AIM me at LineSkiEastCoast, i will be glad to answer any question within my ability.

Thank you,
Andy


-Pat