The vexercises are how I got into vidding! The 2021 summer round was I think cut a bit short as the mods had RL stuff go on, but I did make some vids for it, even though I skipped the music remix and aspect ratios challenges at the end:
Five 2-second shots, followed by seven 1-second shots, followed by five 2-second shots = one 27 second vidlet
Finally, an excuse to use all the gameplay footage I've meticulously recorded from when I've been playing Star Wars: the Old Republic! (Or if not all, then a select amount.) I also figured that since we were cutting at the second, something at 60 or 120 bpm (1 or 2 bps) would be best. A bit of poking around the internet, and turns out that Stratovarius has released a 120 bpm called Destiny. Given the expansions I was using footage from, the title fit excellently, and so did the lyrics – even if I only ended up using a bit of the instrumental intro. Behold:
Use transitions for every edit. Extreme version: use as many different transitions as you can.
My first thought when I read the summer school assignment was "Was George Lucas actually just doing the summer vexercises when he was rudely pulled to the past?" since that man definitely has a slide cut fetish. So, I obviously made a vid for Revenge of the Sith: A Turn of the Wheel. The music, Volturian - Crimson Dust, was 1:10 on its own so I didn't do any cutting there.
Since transitions were the point of the thing, it sort of changed the editing mindset? So instead of cutting on the beat, clip-internal stuff happened on the beat. I also tried to do motion matching with the transition types – swirly spiral transition when they were going around, side wipe when someone was coming from the side etc – which sort of worked? The side wipe enhanced some of the sideways movement, though a lot of the rest was more handwavey, especially since there wasn't always much overlap for the clips. (I clipped EVERY lightsaber fight in RotS. Then I ended up only using the stuff from the first sequence. /o\) And if the transitions are silly, well, that's just canon-typical. :P
Kdenlive notes:
Let color guide the logic and flow of this vexercise, either by selection or special effects. Highly recommended: download an LUT or more and try using it!
I have extra free LUTs: FreshLUTs. You technically need to register to download anything, but you can just make a fake name and tell them your e-mail is example@example.com
Revenge of the Sith again. The source isn't super colorful – I could've done something with lightsaber colors, I guess, but I already sort of did that last vid – which meant I had an excellent opportunity to use LUTs! I used cool-toned LUTs whenever Palpatine was on scene and warm-toned ones otherwise. I did my best to make it blatant, as that was sort of The Point(TM) of the vid, and the vaguely dreamy look fit the vaguely dreamy music. Some of the shots ended up looking extremely pretty! Definitely using LUTs again. (I did not end up using LUTs again unless prompted.)
Return to the vid index! Or look at the pechakuchas I made for the regular vexercises 2021.