I recently posted the second video I made with Shotcut (to date there are only 2). I’ve been messing around with the program on and off for a little while now, so here is my very first effort, also made during COVID-19 lockdown. This was obviously intended as a “learning” experience while I explored the various features and tried to understand more about the process of making a decent video. The intro was inspired by @jonray, and using keyframes for the first time I attempted to create something similar.
Actual video quality is poor, since it was taken on an old low end android phone (Samsung J1-2016) that supports HD only; the footage came out slightly blurry even in good daylight, and I had to use several of the built-in features to sharpen and colour correct the serving section. I expected more tbh, even from that phone. I was surprised at how well the program did at stabilising the footage taken when I was entering the club, since some parts were very shaky.
Not terrible for a first outing, but room for improvement. Any tips or recommendations gladly welcomed.
I liked it for the most part. Very good use of Shotcut’s filters. The only thing I didn’t like was the song you chose when you’re on the tennis court. It as nothing to do with my taste in music. I just think it was too err… intense for the context. Maybe I’m getting old
Carai…pues para ser “novato”, está muy bien, de verdad. Se nota que has trabajado mucho. Me han encantado el uso de los filtros y transiciones.
Una pregunta, ¿como haces para parar la imagen del clip y seguir después?
No, I understand your point. The part you reference was motivated by a thread at that time on the talk tennis forum I sometimes visit and was possibly too intense for the subject matter.
You can also do it without exporting by enlarging the timeline, cutting the frame then copy-pasting it e.g. to a new track then resizing it. It’s a bit fiddly though.
También puede hacerlo sin exportar ampliando la línea de tiempo, cortando el marco y luego copiándolo, por ejemplo, a una nueva pista y luego redimensionándolo. Sin embargo, es un poco difícil.
Nice work here. I would have been tempted to make those little graphics in Inkscape and import them in, but I assume you did all of that in Shotcut itself? Your use of filters here were really effective and helped get your message across. I’ve also been wondering how to freeze a frame in the middle of a clip, so your explanation was helpful. Keep up the good work.
Edit/PS: My own kids are Millennials, so I’m somewhat familiar with the music. Oh, and I recognized the TED audio logo at the beginning.
Hehe, I’m 50 mate! That’s interesting, since I never really associated darker metal genres with the Millennial generation, good to hear.
I thought about the text bubbles for a while and decided against the graphics option - no svg meant they would have to be pngs and scalability is a bit of an issue. I could have made one graphic for each text entry I guess, but really wanted a Shotcut solution so settled on regular simple text with a dark background, and then added another simple text entry with a special character to create the bubble effect. That way if I changed the text there was no extra work (it does sacrifice rounded corners). Maybe there’s another solution but that was the simplest from my novice perspective.
I think I used these little guys, but lots of alternatives: ◂ ▸ Edit: It does look like I screwed up the sizing/placement on the last set of bubbles, but oh well.
Actually, I was really impressed with what you did with simple geometric shapes and lines during the first 10 seconds of the video. Was that Shotcut, or did you create that in something else? I thought it was a really effective introduction (and nice call on the John McEnroe audio as well).
New in Shotcut at this time and starting to learn.
Your first video was awesome for me as a beginner, although I would select a different song (it depends en preferences I suppose).
Thank you for sharing, your video was the first I saw and helped me decide to suscribe.
Thanks, glad to hear it. Shotcut has a good amount of features, it’s easy enough to learn and produce a half decent video without a huge time investment.
Of course, there are productions utilising higher end techniques in a great way (at least according to some of the youtube channels I’ve watched), like this fishing video by @bentacular :
I thought that was super cool. Then there’s this by @Earlybite, with lots of interesting effects and transitions.
So plenty to aspire to. I started by watching a few basic tutorials on YouTube and then just played around. Good luck!
You are most welcome. I watched a few YouTube “experts” during my learning process, and it appears to me you have used speed ramping, a camera wipe, and a few other cutting techniques in addition to some smooth camera angle transitions; all of which are done quite well and give the video a polished feel. It’s only an opinion of course, since I’m still very fresh to the world of video creation!
