Let's See Videos of Your Fish!
 

<edit> Glad I posted this video to RC's Reef Fishes Forum. Someone there IDed my angel as a Rusty Angel. Had to update the file name as well as some of the video's titles, but the bulk of the video remains as is ....

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/v-rusty-angel.wmv <\edit>

nice video. How did you do it?

To make my videos...

Tools:

- digital camera with movie making feature (in my case, a Nikon Coolpix 8800)

- middle of the road tripod with tilt up/down, side to side, horizontal to vertical, and higher/lower features

- cable to connect camera to computer

- software (in my case, River Past Video Cleaner Pro, bought off the Internet) to convert .MOV files to .avi files for editing program

- software to create titles (in my case, a very old MS graphics program called Image Composer)

- video editing program (in my case, Pinnacle Studio version 9.1, bought at the computer store)

Production process in this video:

- set up camera on tripod where fish will likely swim by. Do the usual focus, framing of the scene, adjust camera for lighting, zoom in a bit, then let the camera roll for as long as it can (in this case about 55 minutes)

- connect camera to computer via cable, move .MOV file from camera to computer

- view .MOV file to determine if there are enough clips to make a movie (which there was), making notes along the way at what times fish were in view

- use River Past Video Cleaner to convert .MOV file to .avi file

- open Pinnacle Studio (which will not accept .MOV files, but will accept .avi files), open graphics program to create titles (Studio has title making abilities, but I prefer MS Image Composer because it's more flexible)

- choose music, make titles, edit the .avi file, add transitions between the file clips

- play the movie over and over and OVER AND OVER AGAIN as individual clips are added to edit them for content and length, making sure they're all in the right places for the mood of the music as well as for continuity

- take many breaks from editing so eyes and backside get a rest once in awhile, maybe feed the fish, eat something for myself, go for a walk

- try not to get up in the middle of the night to get those few nagging clips to fall into place better

- once I've watched the video in the editing program at least 200-300 times, instruct Studio to make the actual movie in .wmv format for easy viewing for most Internet users

- add the video to the video page of my website, upload to server, then post to whichever reef boards I like best





And that's about all I did to make this video :biggrin: :wink:

oh is that it. Wow alota work. I think i may try it some day.
Thanks so much for the info.

As always Bev, a well explained answer. :smile: Once downloaded, :surprise: , I enjoyed the video.