Home video’s doesn’t have to be professional but they can be fun to watch. There are a lot of software out there you can use to edit your home videos. From the more professional Final Cut to the free Windows Movie Maker. I’ve tried several editing software and one that I found user friendly is Sony Vegas Pro 8.0.
Lets assume you already have your home video on your PC. If you don’t then you need to check your camera’s manual to see how you can transfer your footage to your PC. Cameras make it fairly easy these days with memory cards and usb transfer.
First open up Sony Vegas and go to File>Open and select your video. Once it is loaded up you will see there are two tracks. One video track and one audio track. Sony Vegas can get advanced for the professionals but I am going to show you some simple tips to get you started on making a fun home video.
Cutting Video and Taking Out Unwanted Parts
Notice if you zoom into the video you can see the video frame by frame. Use this if you want to take out unwanted spaces or parts of your video. Zoom into the unwanted part of the video and click at the beginning where the unwanted part starts. Now click “S” on the keyboard. This will cut the video to make it two parts. Now go to the end of the unwanted part of the video and click. Press “S” once more on the keyboard and you will notice the unwanted section is by itself in between the good clips. Right click on the unwanted part and select cut. It will delete and then you can hold down left click on the good parts and slide them together.
Text
Lets say you want to add some text or some words in your video. Right click under your video and audio and select insert video track. This is where you will put the text and make sure the new track is above others. Look at the tabs and click Media Generator. You can choose one of the options but lets just say you choose “text.” Left click on the one you want and drag it down to the new video track. Now the text box will show up so you can type in what you want and check the properties until you get it to fit and look how you want it. It is very easy to navigate through the tabs. Edit,Placement,Effects are all self explanatory.
Transitions and Blending
If you want transitions in the middle or somewhere in your video then use the cutting technique mentioned above. At the end of each part that was cut you will see a symbol for Event Effects. Click on the Transitions tab and drag which effect you want into which clip you want. You will see it will show up at the end of that clip and you can edit the effect in the effect box that popped up. There is many effects you can go through and play with so have fun and experiment.
Blending one clip into the other is a real easy tool. First you can split/cut a clip and put one under the other just slightly where the end meets the beginning. Now run your mouse over the end of of the clip in the top right hand corner. You will see a box with an arrow and that means you can stretch or shorten the clip but when you get the right hand corner it shows 1/4 of a circle and says fade. When you get this symbol to pop up then drag your mouse left. This fades the clip out and will blend into the next clip that is underneath.
Slow Motion and Speeding Up
To make a clip slow or slow motion just run your mouse over the end of a clip until you see the box with an arrow. Now hold down Control (ctrl) and left click where the box/arrow is. Drag the clip out as much as you like and play it back. Slow Motion at it’s best and that is just how easy it is.
To speed things up right click on the video or clip you want. Select insert/remove envelop and click Velocity. A green bar will show up on your selected video. This green bar is another way to put the video into slow motion but if you raise the bar it will speed up. You can adjust the bar to your likings to have control over how fast and slow your video is.
That should be enough to play around with and create a cool home video. You can try these tips all throughout your video more than once. Put them into different places and cut your video up. Duplicate clips, slide clips, and add music. There is no wrong or right way to have fun with your home video’s.
