Collaboration question

suziko
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Tue May 21, 2013 8:13 pm

nesh16041972 wrote:
I'm with Suzi, I've done a few and let the others do the work!;) (Shel, Tom, Chris! ;) ) I have absolutely no idea.....and the idea alone gives me a headache... :S :P

However, collaborations is also just more than one musician in the same place. I for example got together with Willem and Anton, or with Mark, or with Cori and Suzi, or with a friend of mine. Those are collaborations as well.
[/quote]

Good point, Ness! I was thinking just of long-distance collabs, of course. It's a heck of a lot easier putting together a video when people are in one room! Even I can manage that :laugh:


michelew
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Location: Sydney, Australia
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Tue May 21, 2013 11:02 pm

auntlynnie wrote:
I have been enjoying viewing the collaborations so much!
I would like to know how to do this. My daughter has started playing guitar and we would like to do some collaborations, but i don't know how to do it.
We both have Macbooks. Can someone give me a basic tutorial? Or is there one on this site?
I saw the Collaboration Uploader - is that for finished products? or do we upload the first person and then work from there?
Thanks so much for any help.
Cheers,
Auntlynnie
Suzi and Ness, thanks for the votes of confidence. I'm far from a guru. I'm very much still learning. The gurus for my money are Daryl, Tom and Chris (and Al of course)...I hope I haven't forgotten anyone. But, yes I am getting better at this through doing it more. Daryl is not a Mac man and I presume that Tom and Chris are PC users too. So I'm happy to represent the mac-heads on the forum and give you the info that i can.

Lynnie,

Firstly, I use iMovie, GarageBand, Dropbox and Quicktime (if you want more than one window).

There are all sorts of possible collaborations. the possibilities that haven't been mentioned yet are:
- shooting more than one video of yourself playing different parts and linking those together and
- shooting a video with your daughter in person and then including another video of her or yourself playing.

So the possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

iMovie only allows you to use a single PIP (picture in picture). But, you can get around that by exporting a movie with a PIP into Quicktime (where it is converted) and then reimporting that video back into iMove (where it is treated as a PIP-less video) and adding a new PIP. It takes a while and is time consuming, but if you're interested in generating movies in iMovie that have more than 2 windows let me know and I'll send you a link to a youtube video (that Daryl found for me) that shows you how to do the multi PIP thing.

The easiest thing to do if you want to make a collaboration video (when the other person can't be in the same room) is to record two videos and then insert one as a PIP into the other. You'll need to use the longer video as the base image and insert the shorter one. There are other ways you can get around this which involve using a background, (but then it becomes a video with two or more PIPs). To get started, you'll need to create an 'event' - from the 'file' menu 'new event' (which is just a folder that holds video for editing). Then you either record the video directly into iMove, or import the video into the event. Once you have all the video for your project in the event folder, you create a project - from the 'file' menu - 'new project'. Then you:

- select the section of video you want as the main video and drag it into the project.
- select the section of video you want for the PIP window and drag it to sit on top of the first video (a green plus will appear) and let go, which will bring up a menu - pick the picture in picture option, then the new window will be inserted and you'll have the option to reposition and resize it.

Both videos will have audios attached. Listening will allow you to position the second video properly; by grabbing the PIP section and dragging it where it needs to be. After that you can fiddle with a bunch of video and audio options (including adjusting the volume of the videos' audio tracks) if you want to. But, you'll have the basic two window video created. You can of course top and tail it with text intros and outros if you wish.

I actually use GarageBand (GB) as well. For self-collaborations, I generally record each track into GarageBand (using Jam from my guitar or the MiC - both Apogee products) AND I simultaneously video myself using iMovie (which defaults to the computer's inbuilt mic). That way I can mix and edit multiple audio tracks until I get a combined track that I'm happy with and use it as the audio track for the video. Listening to the original audio for the video allows you to position the combined audio track properly. Then when it's all in the right place, you simply mute the original audio. As it happens I do get a lot of crashes when I do this and I've since learned that it's because GB demands A LOT of processor capacity. But I have a new book that has given me tips on how to reduce this happening.

Whether you use GB or not, you'll need to be able to listen to the sound track you're using as a guide and collaborating with. I generally import the guide track into GB and then listen to it (through headphones) while I'm recording against it into GB. That eliminates the need to sync the tracks later. BTW - you can generate mp3 files of GB projects using the 'share' function. That then gives you a track that you can send to others, import into iMovie or put on your iPod. It's cool.

Dropbox comes in handy when you're doing a collab with people who are remote to you. It makes exchanging videos and audio tracks REALLY easy; including the project at various stages of it's development and guide tracks/ audio mixes. Go to dropbox.com to get the program and then you can create and share folders and files with anyone else who downloads the software. It's brilliant.

SO this is probably more than enough to get you going. I hope this answers your question at least in part. I'm happy to give you more info, including the names of the software I use to convert files that are in the wrong form for iMovie. PM me at any time too if you'd like.

I hope this helps and isn't just gobbledegook. It's really not that hard. As with all new things it just takes a little while to get used to what you need to do and to become familiar with the software and it's limitations. I can also suggest some e-books and video tutorials for how to use iMove and GB(?) if you'd like them. Don't be afraid to just jump on in. You'll learn as you go. Trial and error is a great learning approach and you're really not going to break anything if you just give it a go. I'm here to give you a hand if you get stuck. Ask anything and I'll do my best to help.

I'm really happy to hear that you're thinking of getting into the world of collaborations. They really are a lot of fun regardless of whether you're playing with people in the same room, playing multiple parts yourself or collaborating with people who live on the other side of the planet (which is actually REALLY cool).

Have fun and I hope we see a project from you REAL soon.

Shel :) :)


dekotaj
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Wed May 22, 2013 10:19 am

Hey Lynn. You might try Guitar Center, If you have one near by. The guitar Center hear give out free lesson on how to use garage band every Saturday. Good luck and be good.

Kev


michelew
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Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2009 5:43 pm
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Wed May 22, 2013 4:43 pm

Good point Kev. That reminds me that Apple stores run courses on GB and iMovie too, or at least they used to.


BTW - I use iMovie 11. I'm not sure what's available or how the options work in other versions.

There are 'how to create a PIP' type videos in youtube too. Here's one:



The first 2 minutes is probably all you need.

I'm guessing you're not going to go with the option of making yourself look evil. :)


I'm not sure whether you've been using iMovie at all, so this might be assuming too much knowledge. See what you think.

m


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