HEYDAY
SKATEBOARDING

So, you have some skate footage that you’ve shot, but can’t seem to make a decent video out of all of it? Get yourself a good video editing program, like Sony Vegas. If you’ve never dealt with something this technical before, have no fear. This lesson will guide you through some of the basics of Vegas, and teach you how to create title text.

Step 1. Open up Vegas. After everything is done loading, putting your clip up is easy: just drag it up to the timeline at the top of the page. You can alternately drag it into the lower left box to store the clip and edit it first, but that isn’t necessary. We’re being basic here.

Step 2. Edit your clip. Chances are, you don’t want to keep everything that is on your video clip. You need to cut the junk out, and keep the good stuff. Right click on your clip, and choose “open in trimmer.”

Step 3. In the lower left box, your clip will appear. You can hold the mouse down just above the clip, and drag the cursor to the left or right to highlight a portion of your clip.

Step 4. If this is a part you want to keep, then right click on it and choose the “copy” command. Then go back over to your project timeline, right click, and select “paste.” If the original clip is also present on the timeline, you can click on it to select it, and then right click and delete it from the project. The clip will still be in your project media list, safe and undamaged, so don’t worry if you mess up a part. You can always go back and try again.

Step 5. Lets look at fading for a second. If you click on your clip, you’ll see a tiny triangle at each corner. The top two triangles are your fade offset markers. If you want your clip to fade in, click and hold the left top corner, and drag it to the right. The distance you drag it will determine how long the fade in will be. The same goes for the fade out. You can also set the fade options for the audio clip as well.

Step 6. If you add a second clip, you can drag it over the first clip, and youll see the fade offset lines, indicating that the first clip will fade into the second. Dragging the second clip in further will make the fade longer.

Step 7. Notice how you can add multiple audio and video channels. Lets say that you want the audio from one clip muted, but you want to hear the audio from a second clip. Just create a new audio channel, and drag the audio clip down to that track. You can click the mute button on the top track, but you’ll still hear the audio on the second. You can use this in conjunction with an mp3 track to make a nice sounding montage.

Step 8. Want to have a title at the start of your video? Simple. Just right click on the project timeline and select “Insert text media.”

Step 9. Type in your title. Change the font and size if you want. You can do a lot more than just the standard font editing, though. Click on the “placement” tab and you can grab and move your text anywhere on the screen.

Step 10. The “properties” tab lets you change your font color, and also the background color of your text event. Keep in mind, by default it is clear, not black. That means you can drag your text media over a skating clip and it’ll show the text without blacking out the screen so you can’t see the footy. The tracking slider bar near the bottom of the page will widen or shorten the horizontal spacing between the words. The leading slider bar will adjust the vertical spacing between your words. The scaling slider bar will adjust the size of your text. Its good to mess around with these, so you can learn to do some cool things with them later.

Step 11. Click on the “effects” tab. Here you will see that you can add a color outline to your text. You can also add shadows and “deform” your text as well. Deforming can make your text seem italicized, or just plain ugly. Use it at your own risk.

Step 12. Have you noticed the small timeline at the bottom of all of the menus? Thats for even more customization of your text. If you right click anywhere on that timeline, you can add a keyframe. Thats basically a bookmark for how your text looks at that point in time. Lets say that at the 00:00 mark, you have your text at the top right portion of your window. Click on the 02:00 mark to move the slider bar there, and click on the diamond with the plus sign below the timeline. That will insert a new keyframe. With the slider still on that keyframe, make some adjustments to how the text looks. Change the color, position, and how wide the letters are from each other. Now, if you drag the bar back and forth between your first keyframe and that one, you’ll see the text transition from the old positioning to the new one. You can add as many keyframes as you see fit to do all kinds of transitions. Try them out and see what looks the coolest.