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Bringing
Hollywood home " IT Web"
The home movie
market has come a long way in the past year or two. Home videos have
taken on a professional look and feel - at least for the moviemakers
with the skills to optimise the new technology available to them.
According to Rui
Pereira, general manager of Rectron, one of SA's largest computer
distribution organisations, the recent advances in affordable digital
video (DV) equipment and editing software have given home cameramen
the opportunity to dream again.
"They have also
given professional artists the opportunity to produce fine-tuned
documentaries, commercials, music videos and other works of video
artistic expression much more easily and cost-effectively," he says.
"DV editing is
becoming easier thanks to the efforts of hardware and software
companies, which are making professional video editing as easy as
pasting holiday snaps in a photo album," he notes.
"These days,
shooting high-quality DV movie is a relatively inexpensive
proposition, and editing it on a computer has become much easier.
"It is only in the
past few years that home computers have been powerful enough to handle
the task of video editing, and what they promise is unprecedented. It
just takes equal parts desire, dedication and creative talent."
Pereira says home
movie-making products will fly off the shelves this year as they reach
new levels of popularity, fuelled by a plethora of new cameras,
desktop video editors and software solutions and other "toys" that
have reached the market.
"Every year the
industry sees a significant step forward at this time, as vendors vie
with one another for a bigger slice of the lucrative Christmas
market," he says.
"This year, the
market has certainly taken a giant stride forward with new generation
video editing equipment set to enthuse even the most non-technical
cameramen and women, boys and girls.
"Using the new
video editing suites on the market is simple and fun," he enthuses.
"To produce a movie today, you can follow in the footsteps of the
great Hollywood producers.
"Firstly, there is
no need to shoot scenes in a chronological order. You can shoot them
randomly - depending on location, costume and a host of other
criteria, and then correlate everything afterwards.
"Once all the
footage is 'in the can' on your camcorder you then record it into the
computer. Then you use the software to edit it, adding visual effects
such as 3D transitions, drop shadow titling, neon glows, slow and fast
motion, image and colour correction, embossing and polarisation.
Then come the
sound effects, usually culled from a CD featuring a broad range of
sound track options. However, the latest video editing suites have
software that allows you to compose, edit and "sync" the sound to the
on-screen action.
"Finally, when
you're happy with the movie, you can play it back out to a VHS tape or
CD for home viewing, or even turn it into a movie that people can
watch on the Web."
Pereira adds that
for the best results from the latest software advances, faster and
more powerful PCs are required to crunch the huge amounts of data
involved in image streaming.
"Slower computers
can still process video but you will be missing some quality - and it
will take much longer to make the final movie," he concludes.
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