[Doug Buckser]

Hi Marcus,

Thanks for the information. I downloaded “how to shoot video which doesn’t suck” from Amazon and am learning a lot from it. The author writes quite a bit about doing a bit of planning beforehand, rather than just grabbing whatever happens in front of you. Even for my little home-made videos about family events and vacations, i can see the results would have been better if I’d been better prepared. Shooting with a purpose in mind is going to get better results than randomly capturing stuff and hoping to organise it later.

In the book, the author says that it’s better to shoot the video without zooming if possible, to avoid the shakiness which accompanies zoom. I’m a bit confused, though, about whether shooting at the widest point results in lens distortion (as it can when wide-angle still camera lenses are used on people). If I shoot with a wide angle lens with a Canon 7D for example, the person’s nose becomes alarmingly large if I shoot at the wrong angle. Does this happen with video cameras as well?

I also purchased the design book from Amazon. It’s a very interesting book. I’m just in the first chapter where she’s explaining how horizons work and x-, y- and z-dimensions. No doubt I’ll learn a lot from it as well. I’d like to understand a bit about how titles and lower thirds work — at this point, I don’t have any idea, so it’s going to be good to understand some theory. For example, I’d like to understand how to select a font and how the different fonts affect the effect differently. The bonus is that Red 5 appears to make this process simple, so it’s going to be straight-forward to experiment quite a bit.

I also ordered the second edition of the visual effects book that you recommended. I bought it from the Book Depository in the UK. It’s a bit more expensive than Amazon, but includes postage. As the book is approximately 700 pages heavy, I suspect that the postage is going to be significant…

Thanks again for all your advice. It has given me a lot to think about and I’m looking forward to practicing and putting the thoughts into action.

Regards,
Doug

[Doug Buckser]

Hi Marcus,

Thanks for the book references. I’ll look for them on Amazon.

You asked about what I’m hoping to achieve.

When home users first started to create web pages, there were lots of pages with flashing letters, dancing Santas and so on. Many people didn’t know that because they could do something, that didn’t mean that they should do it.

I’m just a humble home user who wants to make better videos of our vacations and family life. Once I become sufficiently good at it, I’ll start to incorporate the visual effects into videos for work.

I don’t have any formal training in video editing or visual effects production. Therefore, I hope to learn the basics of video design and practices, so I’ll know when and whether to insert a visual effect or fancy transition and when it’s better to keep it simple. I don’t want to create lower thirds full of dancing Santas if it’s not the right time or place.

Red 5 offers so much functionality, I have a responsibility to my family not to burn their retinas out with over the top, counter-productive fancy stuff. So I hope that these books will provide a foundation of what to do and what not to do.

Doug

[Doug Buckser]

Hi Peter,

Sorry to be a pest, but there may be an issue with the files. I downloaded the file, unzipped it and moved it into the Red 5 tutorials folder.

When I tried to import the columns.pct file into Red 5 (step 4, lesson 1), I received the following error message from Red 5:

“Unable to change to the specified media (unsupported image or movie type?).”

Does this mean anything to you? Should I find a converter to change this into a jpeg?

Thanks,
Doug

[Doug Buckser]

Hi Peter,

Thank you very much. I downloaded and moved the pictures and movies this morning. Thanks for the very fast response.

Regards,
Doug

[Doug Buckser]

Hi Peter,

Thanks very much for the advice. I have ordered the on-line training for Boris and the book from Amazon (got the last copy of it, in fact). It should arrive here in about 4-6 weeks and I’m really looking forward to reading it.

I really appreciate the guidance. Thanks.

Regards,
Doug

[Doug Buckser]

G’day Boris,

Yes, it’s a great result. I’ve already studied the first 15 minutes twice, as my brain is full after that. It’s very helpful.

When I fire up Graffiti this evening, I’m going to start with a much better understanding of the fundamentals of how Graffiti works. Please pass on my thanks to the people who created it.

Regards,
Doug

[Doug Buckser]

G’day Marlen,

Thanks for the reference to the Graffiti version 3 manual. I downloaded it and am going through the first tutorial now. I cannot overstate how much reading something targeted at new users is helping. Thanks for letting me know it exists.

I hope that Boris management considers how much an up to date user manual will help their marketing to new users. Now that NLEs are becoming more affordable, more non-professionals such as ourselves are now potential customers. Given that Graffiti is the most inexpensive Boris product and is immediately useful to home enthusiasts, it makes sense that Graffiti would be the first Boris product which we try.

Given the steep learning curve and lack of newbie documentation/training, I wonder how many sales Boris are costing themselves by not throwing a few thousand dollars at a technical writer. If it wasn’t for this very helpful Creative Cow forum, I wonder how Boris anticipates newbies actually get started with the product. When I looked at the Boris website today, I didn’t see this helpful version 3 manual contained in their documentation list.

Anyway, enough whinging from me :). Thanks to your very kind reference, I can start to understand a bit about Graffiti and will hopefully be able to put some lower thirds on our daughter’s school presentation video before it’s due on Sunday.

Thanks again,
Doug

[Doug Buckser]

G’day Martin,

As a fellow new user of Graffiti, I completely agree. It appears to be a very powerful product, but it has a very steep learning curve. I purchased it yesterday and spent the last four hours trying to do something very simple (crawl text along the bottom of the screen) and it’s very frustrating.

If any of the Boris documentation people read this site, I can make some suggestions from a new user’s perspective.

1. Create a translation table between how beginners think and what the on-screen text says. For example, I want to make text move to the left (i.e., a crawl). In the type on tab (which happens to be where I’m looking now), my choices appear to be tumble, spin and rotate. Which one means move to the left? No idea. I’ve been randomly entering values into random fields just to try to reverse-engineer what fields do. The equivalent of a glossary would be very helpful.

2. Explain some basic concepts of the Graffiti motion graphic interface to new users. Why is there a mask in the top level of the timeline, then a mask underneath the face level of the timeline. No doubt there’s a good reason, but I suspect that it’s going to take quite a bit of experimentation to figure it out. It would be really helpful if there was a basic explanation with pictures and arrows explaining what they do. I know how to create motion graphics in Premiere, but have spent four hours getting nowhere in Graffiti.

3. For the tutorials in the on-line help, please, please use more pictures. I’ve spent the last three hours trying to create crawl text using the tutorial “creating animated text”. In this tutorial, the first 15 instructions don’t have any pictures, so finding the buttons and triangles involves moving the cursor from icon to icon on the screen, waiting for the tip text to display. Screen captures are cheap, easy to produce and very helpful to users.

All that said, I’m confident that Graffiti will eventually make sense. At the moment, though, there’s no flight school. They simply put you in the cockpit of an F-18, give you the keys and wish you happy voyages. Once I figured out how to engage first gear, I’ve spent the last four hours slamming into the wall at the end of the runway.

Regards,
Doug

[Doug Buckser]

G’day Rafael,

Yes, you’re right. I watched the tutorial after posting the original message. The tutorial is absolutely brilliant. It was exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks for the reference and thanks especially to Ross for creating the tutorial.

Regards,
Doug

[Doug Buckser]

G’day Tony,

This just solved a problem which was driving me crazy for a couple of days. Thanks so much for contributing the message.

Regards,
Doug