A few people have asked me in the past how to go about making their own videos so I thought I would have a page on my site that can help with that.

I consider myself an intermediate vidder and can only tell you my own personal preferences when it comes to vidding. There is no right or wrong and chances are you already have your own ideas anyway but hopefully you'll still be able to find something here that will prove useful.

Before you can do anything you need software. There are many ways to rip your DVD's in order to get the source material you will need to make your video. A simple Google search will bring up lots of alternatives but I use DVD Decrypter along with VirtualDubMod.

To edit my videos I use Ulead MediaStudio Pro because I find it easy to use and yet it still has lots of nice features. Adobe Premiere and Sony Vegas (both of which are favourites amongst vidders) no doubt produce better results but I find them difficult to work with. MediaStudio Pro is simple yet effective and does everything I need so I'm happy using that.

The following is a guide to my own personal preferences when it comes to vidding but everyone is different and has their own way of doing things. For more help and advice please check out the links at the bottom of the page.

Talking in Videos
I have a "thing" when making videos, in that I try to make sure the characters aren't shown talking. There are so many videos out there that contain clips of people talking so there are obviously a lot of people who don't have a problem with it - but I do! Sometimes you can't help it because there are scenes that you just have to include that contain talking but in my opinion, for the most part, shots that contain talking are very rarely needed. The reason for this is because when characters aren't talking they're looking at someone or doing something that is so much more dramatic than if they are just sitting or standing there chatting away to someone. I don't rule it out completely because sometimes you just can't help it but wherever possible I try not to show anyone talking - it's just one of my pet hates.

Having said that, a handful of my favourite videos show characters talking. If they are fast-paced and the clips are short, I'm more likely to overlook it.

Transitions
I also only usually use one transition and that's fading from scene to scene (or fading to black/white). If I don't use fading then I just move straight from one scene to another. I've watched quite a few music videos and I rarely see a transition other than fading. Sometimes other transitions work (it depends on the material) but anything other than fading can be quite distracting in my opinion.

Colours
I haven't really had that much experience with using colour tones for certain scenes. I've only experimented with black and white and sepia but I've seen a few lovely videos where the vidder has used different tones throughout their video and it's worked really well.

Editing
As far as I'm concerned editing clips to fit with the music is an essential part of vidding and pretty much what it's all about. Anyone can listen to some music while watching TV with the sound turned down and if you're just stringing together scenes that don't fit with the music then that's basically what you're doing and there's no skill involved in that. You should edit your clips to go with the music (like on the beat), the words of the song or a particular sound effect.

Internal/External Motion
Internal motion is when something happens in the source material that you can put to good use like a punch or an explosion. External motion is when you use the source's camera motion or create some motion yourself (using pan and zoom etc.) that you can fit to go with the music.

Credits
Credits are a nice way of providing the viewer with information about your video - from which particular fandom you're vidding for and what song you're using to who you are and whatever other information you'd like to provide.

Keeping It Clean
Always make sure your videos are clean - by that I mean make sure there are no stray flickers of scenes that shouldn't be there. These usually occur around cuts and transitions. There's nothing more annoying than watching a wonderful video only to be distracted by little flashes of clips that shouldn't be there.

Research
Try to download and watch lots of other music videos. Look at how the vidder has gone about doing something a certain way (transitions, cuts etc.) and learn from them. Also think about the things you would have done differently and keep it in mind when making your own video.

Music
I can't stress enough how important the music is. Usually I'll watch a film or TV programme and think about the different scenes in my head and then go through my personal music collection to see if I have anything suitable. If I don't then I type a few keywords into Google and see what comes up.

If you're really lucky then someone will suggest a song that works, although more often than not they don't (work, that is). I always say that I welcome music suggestions (and I do!) but non-vidders sometimes forget that you have to make every line of a song work. The problem is, while a lot of songs may be nice to listen to, if the lyrics are a bit ordinary then they don't tend to have a lot of umph. I love using what I call visual songs because then you can have a lot of fun matching the clips with the lyrics. For example, a love song can go on and on about how wonderful love is blah, blah, blah (and don't get me wrong, it can be a lovely song) but if it doesn't have lines you can match up with your clips and make an impact then it's like, what's the point?

Also, take a good look at your lyrics before you make a start and make sure you think you can do something with the whole song. There's nothing worse than picking out a fantastic song, only to find you're really, really stuck with a certain line it's just impossible to match up with a clip. Sometimes you can get away with putting something in that's not perfect but then the end result doesn't always work.

Choosing Clips
Never, and I mean never use clips from someone else's video to make your own. That person has spent time and effort creating something unique and it's really unfair to take their editing and chop it up for your own personal use. Even if you intend to credit that person, it's just not right. Make the effort and rip the material you need yourself. Chances are you'll end up with better quality clips anyway and you'll also have the satisfaction of knowing it's all your own work.

When you've got your source material ripped and ready to go you're obviously going to try and pick the right clips for the right lyrics but don't make the mistake of letting scenes run on for a long time - even if you've edited them to fit the music. It can make the video boring, especially if your audience is familiar with the clips. I suspect I may have done this myself a few times but it's so easy to let a scene run just to fill up a space when a certain bit's not going right and then you end up spoiling the whole thing. That's when it's time to...

Take A Break
If you get stuck or if a certain part you want to get just right is driving you crazy then take a break - for a couple of hours, a couple of days or even a couple of weeks. It's like writers block (vidders block, I suppose!) and no matter what you do, you just can't seem to make it work. I've had that happen many times and you'll find that taking a break can really help sometimes. You'll go back to it feeling refreshed and when inspiration hits you'll definitely know about it; it's a great feeling when everything starts going exactly how you want it and that final viewing of the entire video is just around the corner.

If you're still awake at this point you may like to check out these links...

Tips and Advice on Clips
Questions and answers about choosing the right clips.

Vidding for Newbies
Lots of useful information and links for when you're starting out.

Vidder Weekly
More advice for beginners.

Foolish Passion Vidding Tutorial | Foolish Passion Forum
A detailed start to finish guide on how to vid using Ulead VideoStudio along with tips and tricks for users of other software. Tutorials available for Mac users too.

Video Elite
A fantastic resource site which has a huge list of music video sites - useful for doing research and also finding videos for your favourite fandoms.

I think that's everything - for what it's worth. Like I said, it's just my own personal opinion on how to make videos. If you'd like to comment on any of the above please get in touch - I'd love to hear from you.

Good luck!