Testimonial:
The Story of Gerrit Janssen, Pinnacle User
It was the early 90s and Gerrit Janssen, of Veldhoven, Netherlands was about 33 years "young" by his account when he went on an organized hiking holiday to Cornwall, England. Armed with a fairly new still camera (film-based), the ten-day hike would take him through some rough, but beautiful country.
"I fell in love with the country and nature. It was my first real big holiday in another country in years because I had always said ‘why go to another country when you haven't seen your own?' I took a lot of pictures on that trip, around 300 or so; and when I came back and told friends of the holiday and showed the pictures, some of them said that I should buy a camcorder. The pictures were nice, but they didn't show the real ‘depth' of what I had seen. My friends told me that my story was much more than the pictures could show."
It was these remarks from friends that first made Gerrit consider buying a camcorder. A cautious shopper, Gerrit reviewed several video cameras, considered his budget and meticulously reviewed all of his options. A year later, Gerrit bought his first camcorder. Through trial and error, and many walks through the woods, Gerrit experimented with his new tool and soon learned the basics of recording.
"I quickly noticed that I shouldn't move too fast from left to right. It was awful to watch on the television. I also noticed that zooming was nice but never used it much."
Soon he was ready for his next holiday, another group hike. This time through La Gomera, one of the lesser-known islands in the Canary Island chain. At the time of his trip, the island had no airport, very few tourists, and was still pure in Canary culture and traditions.
"The people were not yet spoiled by tourism and I made about two hours of tape with the camcorder. Most of the hikers were not used to camcorders either, but I let them tape also when we where on the road. When we got back, I started ‘editing' the video, on my knees, in front of the television, in combination with the stereo pressing a button on the camcorder, another on the VCR and third on the CD-player to mix the video with some music. I always needed an extra arm, which I didn't have, of course. This rudimentary form of editing was no more then cutting out some bad parts and putting together a nice compilation of clips and mixing some music with the original sound."
Gerrit knew there had to be a better way to edit video. A friend of his bought an early Pinnacle (Miro) TV1 computer card to edit video and watch TV on his PC. The two of them quickly found that the card was nice, but compressing the captured video using the hardware in combination with the system's Intel 286/386 processor meant a lot of frame loss. Later, in 1998 or 1999, Gerrit bought the Pinnacle Studio DC10 plus card, and with the digital 8 camcorder he bought, came Studio DV.
"I started using, actually more trying, to edit my raw video with the Studio DV software. I soon got the hang of it and it was straight forward from there. I had friends who talked about buying video editing hardware like the Casablanca, but I always believed that with a PC, your possibilities would always be growing with the expansion of the PC's capacities. Just buy some additional software and your possibilities expand directly. With hardware, the initial costs are high and for new features, you usually have to buy completely new hardware. With all the features that came with Studio, I only needed the software upgrades, so now I have upgraded from DC10 Plus/DV Plus to Version 8, Version 9, 9 Plus, 10 Plus and now the latest, Version 11 Ultimate. I even bought Hollywood FX Pro add-on with Studio 8."
Through his experience, trial and error, Gerrit recommends that anyone new to video editing begin by adding their clips and stills in a timeline in the order they want them. He then suggests new video editors add a few effects, some nice music and sound effects and adapt the movie to match with the music.
"When you're new to editing, that's what always happens is when you get new features, you try to use all of them at the same time. The results are usually awful. Why? Because when you're new, there's usually no real plan behind the movie you're making. You're excited at first and use too many effects, which can take a lot of time. You usually run short on time towards the end and feel pressured to finish the project so there are fewer effects at the end. When you're done, the movie is not what you wanted. Trying new features is fun, but now I only do a few at a time, to explore the possibilities. It is not as time-consuming as doing it directly into an entire movie."
Gerrit is also a big proponent of watching movies and television series, and studying how the professional Hollywood editors piece scenes together, as well as how, when and what effects are added to create various feelings in the audience.
"I noticed that a lot of movies are shot as stills, in which the people or cars move! I noticed that you can use movement of those stills to create tension or emotions. For example look at the television series that are based in the emergency rooms of hospitals. They use a lot of motion of the environment and make the people relatively still to give you the feeling of a hectic ER department. I really like this technique. Another technique is suggestion, imaging a western where a cowboy on a horse comes riding in, then he stops and carefully, real carefully, he take a bottle from his saddlebag. You already know that this bottle is very dangerous and can explode with any sudden movement because of how the bottle is being removed, the close-up on the bottle and the tense music, but five seconds ago he was riding a horse? So I'm still learning and leaning and learning. As they say, ‘the more you know, the more you know that you don't know,'"
After many hours of "research" on his couch and many more hours of experimenting with editing, Gerrit honed his recording and editing skills on his family/friends; breaking out the camcorder for virtually every family holiday and special event.
"I mostly have my camera and camcorder with me on holiday or at family events and typically record about 100-120 minutes video and take 800-1000 pictures on a single holiday. I've noticed that a lot of people aren't comfortable having someone recording; but so far, at each of the family/holiday reunions, once I show them the final movie, everybody likes them and wants their own copy."
Gerrit's computer experience dates back to a Commodore Vic 20. He later became a full-time IT person in the nineties. Still, Gerrit modestly insists he only has "some" computer experience. Regardless of the amount of time he has spent working with computers, Gerrit insists it's the simplicity of the software that gave him the professional-looking results in his movies.
"With the software from Pinnacle, editing was easy. The graphical user interface was very easy to use. Within a few hours of exploring, I had seen all of the buttons and functions available for me to use. The biggest problem for me was to remember to start slowly, instead of trying to use all features and tools at once. The nice thing about Studio is that the software walks through the editing process in steps. First, you build the movie by putting your clips in the order you want, then add some music and sound effects and make any necessary cuts to the clips so that the pictures and the music match. Then use transitions and effects to give the movie some extra emotion. Pinnacle makes video editing easy, but to learn the essence of editing is still very difficult."
To learn the "essence of editing," Gerrit has joined a video club called the Dutch speaking Pinnacle Video Club (P.V.C.) lead by Leon Vlems and populated by 15 other enthusiastic Benelux video editors. Some members drive as many as 130 km to participate in the meetings where they and sometimes guest amateur video hobbyist can share tips and ideas for improving their own movies. The Pinnacle forum is another resource for the club members to ask questions, post comments and share tips.
"I use the software sometimes once a month but mostly more frequently. If I'm not editing a movie, I'm looking at the software to learn. One of the persons at the forum has a saying ‘Een film is niet half zo interessant als het maken ervan,' which translates ‘A movie is not half as interesting as the making of it.' I think this person is right. I'm always playing with the software, trying what others in the forum are writing about. A lot of people think that editing is difficult, but I always explain how easy it can be and with Pinnacle, you can get very good results."
The "Prize Winner":
http://www.pinnacleshare.com/final/includes/projects/view.php?
fromlist=4&idprojet=a441e40b6a5643adb650d6e0db9f1168
The Janssen Garden:
http://www.pinnacleshare.com/final/includes/projects/view.php?
fromlist=4&idprojet=f700f02b7d448451d09b4f1fdff6df4b