I purchased Studio+10 about 2 years ago after using MovieMaker2 for about a year. Although I liked MM2, I soon discovered that it had some serious limitations. After looking around I found that those limitations were adequately addressed by S+10, such as: the ability to burn to DVD without using a 3rd party burner; the ability to create menus; picture in picture; and other useful features that hadn't occured to me. Since purchasing Studio I've never looked back. Of course, I've suffered with feature bugs here and there and learned to work around them to a greater extent. Then I discovered the forums, which I now read avidly and make the occassional post. The forums have a great community feel about them. Even if the topics don't directly relate to the issues that concern me and my Studio version, I still find interest and look forward to becoming even more involved.
I use Studio to dress up videos that members of our social group and I have taken whilst travelling away on the many trips we undertake. I add a creative introduction and title utilising the roll, crawl and overlay features as appropriate, which serves to remind our group members about dates and location. I bust up the video into clips automatically then edit each one manually to relocate the odd stray frame back into the clip it belongs with. If it doesn't edit then I delete it from that clip. This allows me to closely examine the capture and exclude bad clips or surpurfluous footage. I then progressively intersperse the timeline with reminders about dates and places using the title feature. Whilst I use transitions quite a lot I try not to use the quirky ones unless the storyline can support it. I believe that this adds a little more interest and emphasis, especially where the scene or venue changes significantly and the change needs a little softening. Otherwise I don't use any at all or just use the fades (up until now that is).
I also add a variety of still shots onto the timeline, especially those that feature things that were not included in the video. This not only fills in the chronological gaps not covered by video but serves to showcase the better stills that were taken by group members, giving them a sense of ownership and contribution to the movie. I'm also coming to grips with some of the more upmarket effects such as PIP and Keyframing. Both of which seem to add a dimension to the finished movie not available through the average run of the mill video camera.
I also like to tag onto the end of a movie those shots, both still and video, that whilst not truly part of the story line, have perhaps a quality that lends itself to manipulation, especially humorous manipulation, either with captions or musical emphasis or with simple graphic editing.
Music,
I find, is the hardest thing to add to the timeline. Smartsound is useful in places but there are only so many variations to a theme and the range is fairly limited and the taste even more limited. Therefore, I use a wide range of free download and royalty free music from only a few sites so far. About two years ago our group did seven nights on a 62ft Ketch around the Whitsunday Islands
off Australia's East Coast. This was my first Studio project (300 plus hours) and the most challenging part of putting the movie together was finding a range of appropriate music to fit into suitable places, such as with scenic shots or where there was a series of stills shown as a short slide show, especially music with a maritime theme. Feedback from some of the group indicated that the time and effort put into music selection was well worth the effort because it added an emotional dimension. Otherwise, normal dialogue and other sounds picked up by the video camera was good enough. Other trips, of course, demand different musical themes, (perhaps I'm the one demanding the themes) so I'm always on the lookout for sources of music, especially, but not limited to, that with themes. I found very early on in the piece that the right music can have a truly transforming effect and is a very important part of the movie making process.
Up until now, I've tried not to get too clever with the editing side of production. For example, I wouldn't have the skills yet to fiddle with a Pinhead movie but from what I've seen of some of the techniques involved (I haven't viewed many yet) some of those techniques would help make memorable events even more memorable and entertaining for our group members, especially when doing manipulations.
Most of the movies I've done so far are about an hour
in length, give or take a bit, and are burned onto SL disks. The quality varies from time to time but I'm coming to grips with that slowly too. I'm hoping that as I become more exposed to ideas presented on the forums I'll become more adept at creating our group's visual reminders of our many excursions and prolong the memories. Time will tell. I've got quite a few more movies to produce yet from video footage and photo's of our trips from last year, so I'm slowly catching up.
Apart from the odd frustration with Studio bugs and system gliches, I find editing in Studio+10.7 to be a lot of fun and I'm in the throws of preparing to increase my investment in time, hardware and software to pursue that fun even further (much to my wife's delight). However, I won't be upgrading any time soon to S11 or higher because the learning curve adds too much to production time and I still need to master what I've already got. Perhaps S12 or later.
I hope this post fits in with the theme of the thread and gives you an idea of what I'm using Studio for and where I hope Studio will take me.
Dan