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jonathan7 said:
Firstly, if I wanted to fo example add some explosions to a scene, say the two rockets fired at Obi-Wan in the opening of RotS how would I go about doing that?
There are a number of programs that can add special effects. Most of them are paid programs. And most of those paid programs offer paid packages to install into your editing program.
There should be some free programs with free FX packages to install, but might not be as great as paid content.
Next if I wanted to manually take out frames, and edit them in photo-shop, is that possible and how do you then place them back in the movie?
With Sony Vegas, you can select the frames you want and export them as picture formats (PNG or BMP is preferred as they are lossless picture formats, JPG is a lossy format and visible picture quality degradation will be noticeable). You can Adobe Photoshop or other picture editing programs to do with as you please. Just remember to save them again in a lossless format: PNG, BMP, TIF/TIFF, GIF, etc.
Importing them back into the movie is actually tricky. As you're only importing still images, there is no frame rate assigned to each still image. By default, most video editing programs set the images to display for a number of seconds, usually 5 or 10 seconds before switching to the next element in the timeline.
You will have to set this manually. I can't remember, exactly, how Vegas handles images to simulate video frame rates... There is a method, that I'm sure. You'll have to right-click on each image and set the image properties.
I've done this a long time ago, video and picture editing.
Generally I take a different approach and export all my edited pictures to an AVI file. You really have to learn your picture editing software for this option, however. And it's not entirely easy, as most products don't really provide much information on complete video support. The best and safest method is to export your edited pictures (if it's in sequence), as a video in AVI format with Uncompressed encoding standards. This will take up a lot of space, but it is worth it for video editing. You'll also have to get the program to set the animation to the movie standard frame rate (23.976 "FILM"). This will ensure that importing your edited pictures will be implemented flawlessly and virtually unnoticed.
A very helpful hint: Always pay attention to the "Chroma/Transparent" settings and the Masking tools if you're going to be adding just a single element of a picture. Say you want to just add a simple picture of a cheesy "POW!" bubble, like in the old Batman TV series. For that type of effect, make sure the image for the POW! has a transparent background.
For pictures, PNG/GIF formats support Transparent backgrounds, but you have to make sure to enable that setting upon export.
For videos, the setting is found in "Chroma" settings. This is when you edit frame-by-frame to allow for a transparent part of the screen to overlap a second layer of video.
It's always good to work with multiple layers of video, as you would with multiple layers of audio. Layers can be adjusted to very finite details to mask the transitions and edits near flawlessly.
Lastly; with regards music tracks, is it possible to change music but keep existing effects in place? So for example if I wanted to change the standard droid tune to the Imperial March when Anakin sacks the Jedi Temple, how would I do that?
This is quite a difficult one to answer. But, yes, there is a method. However, it's not 100% guaranteed it will work.
Before you even think about this, you must make sure the audio you're editing (either from DVD or Blu-Ray), must be in 5.1 surround sound.
Let me repeat that, it must be in 5.1 surround sound.
If it is, you can proceed to split that audio into 6 separate mono wav files (.wav extension). Each channel (Left, Right, Center, LFE/Sub, Side Right, Side Left) will be separated and stored into its very own WAV file.
The main dialog/SFX are stored in the Center channel, most often. Unless, of course, the movie scenes call for the dialog to appear in any of the other surround sound channels. For instance, two main characters on screen talking to each other while being on the extreme ends of the screen. Person 1 will be entirely in the Left Channel while the Center channel is void of dialog. Person 2 will be entirely in the Right channel while the center channel is void of any dialog. The same applies to other dialog/SFX that might appear in the other surround sound channels.
Music is typically stored in the front speakers (L,R) and the surround sound speakers at a lower volume (SR, SL). Sometimes you'll find echoes of dialog in these side/back channels. Or sometimes full on dialog or sound effects, if the movie scene calls for it. Sometimes there will be music in the center channel as well, if the director so wishes it for whatever reason.
If you do find music in the center channel, there's not too much you can do to get rid of it. Unless you do a lot of fancy editing in audio editing software (more info later).
There are several programs that separate multichannel audio files for you...
DVD Audio Ripper/DVD Audio Extraction can do this for you. You'll have to set the parameters to rip the audio into individual mono files. Most often these are paid/trial programs. Might be lucky enough to find a free version or even a shareware version.
Not my typical approach, however.
I much prefer to use a freeware command-line tool: eac3to.
It can rip the DVD/BD audio into six separate mono WAV files without any quality loss. bit-for-bit copies. and it will do it properly as well.
But it should be noted that eac3to requires quite a bit of googling and other work to get it setup perfectly for DVD audio needs. It requires other product DLLs in order to rip AC3 audio. Or even Blu-Ray audio.
And it also requires a fair amount of diligence if you want to learn how to use it. But, it's very useful when you do learn it, as it can do much more than just ripping DVD/BD audio.
If you find the center channel has some music playing faintly in the background, you can mask this by playing your own music layered over the center channel. You can also lower the volume for the music when there is no dialog/sfx. Or if you have the same music found in the center channel, with an audio editor (like Goldwave or Audacity), you can use an advanced method of Noise Reduction by using the exact same time frame of the source music. Basically you run an audio fingerprint of the source music against the Center channel and it will do its best to reduce matching frequencies. This might cus some dialog/sfx loss if any of the dialog/sfx happen to share the same frequency band the same time the music is playing. There's also compressing and other filters you can use to try reduce the music levels found in the center channel. Much of this requires trial and error, as every movie, every scene, and every audio sequence is made differently, so there is no absolute formula to working around music in the Center channel.
It would be preferable to work with Blu-Ray audio, as it usually will be of higher bitrate and also in a lossless format.
Lossless audio formats on Blu-Rays are DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby TrueHD, and LPCM audio. These formats you can convert to WAV and edit them without losing any quality. Unless of course you do any editing that reduces quality (like muting, etc).
Sometimes you'll see some Blu-Ray audio have an AC3 track only, for reasons unknown. AC3 is the same format as DVD audio (so is DTS, but DTS on a DVD is entirely lossy, whereas DTS on a Blu-Ray can either be lossy or lossless). AC3 on a DVD has a standard bitrate of either 192/224/384/448. Maximum of 448. Blu-Ray AC3 has a maximum of 640; 192/224/384/448/640.
The higher the bitrate, the better quality. Especially if it's a lossless format.
There's a lot to learn and take into consideration if you want to do some video editing. Especially some audio editing.
Here's some examples of the things you can do with extensive audio/video/picture editing with Sony Vegas Pro...
Extracting individual frames to picture formats and using a photo editor and then reconstructing again into video format...
Using 2 layers of video to create a video-over-a-video sequence with some transparent parts of the video (using Chroma Keyer and frame-by-frame editing to set points to create a template to make a section of the screen invisible)
Working with only the center channel for dialog/main sfx to add different music.
Working with only the center channel for dialog/main sfx to add different music, using 2 layers of video to create a video-over-a-video sequence with some transparent parts of the video. No picture editing with a photo editor.