VegasVideoHelp.com

Although a loyal Vegas Pro user, I acquired the latest Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition for a couple of reasons. One, because it’s pretty capable in its own right. And two, because I enjoy answering questions on Sony Vegas message boards, but felt a bit unhelpful when it came to ones about Vegas Movie Studio (or VMS). I was never entirely sure what features were available in it or what quirks the program had. And with me writing tutorials that may be of interest to VMS users as well as Vegas Pro ones, it’s especially important for me to know how the programs differ.

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Tags: comparison, Vegas, Vegas Movie Studio

We’ve got something a little different today from Youtube. It’s not really a tutorial and not specifically to do with Sony Vegas. (In fact, the description states that the piece was edited in Adobe Premiere Pro. We’ll just ignore that little tidbit. [Oh, I'm just kidding.] Best I can tell, all of the post-production effects could just as well have been done in Vegas.) But what it is, is a series of several filmmaking technique examples from alfredbrownjohn for a high school production project. Part vocabulary lesson and part creative inspiration, it was too well done for me to leave unmentioned.

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For quite some time now, Sony Vegas has been scriptable — it’s a program that can be programmed. Most, though not, of its elements (tracks, events, FX, etc) can be accessed via JScript and C# in order to make the process of editing go faster. There are hundreds if not thousands of free scripts that handle a multitude of relatively simple tasks.

Then there are the mega scripts — scripts that are essentially programs in themselves, complete with tabbed interfaces, that perform dozens of tasks to shorten your workload. Because of the amount of work that goes into them (and the amount of work they save you, though), these large scale scripts are not free. And they may even be out of reach for many Vegas beginners. The two biggest kids on the block are VASST’s Ultimate S for $170 and Ed Troxel’s Excalibur for $120.

But for a limited time (I don’t know how limited — their site doesn’t say), media developer and retailer Digital Juice is selling Excalibur for 50% off. You can see Digital Juice’s website or the Excalibur site for a full list of its features. Pay close attention to the version you request — Excalibur 6 works with Sony Vegas Pro 8. For Vegas 6 and 7, you’ll want Excalibur 5.5.

Also note that if you are using Vegas Movie Studio, whether standard, Platinum, or Platinum Pro Pack, your edition of Vegas does not have scripting; therefore, Excalibur will not work for you.

Tags: discount, scripts, workflow

In the world of hand-drawn animation, an artist would begin a project by drawing several key frames — single images to represent a change in direction or appearance. Once this rough sketch was approved, he (or more often an assistant) would “fill in the rest” — drawing each individual frame needed to get from Point A to Point B. And now we have programs like Vegas which will also “assist” us in filling in from Point A to Point B through the use of keyframes.

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Tags: basics, fx, generated media, keyframes, pan/crop