Tutorial to edit your video with Flowblade Movie Editor

Tutorial to edit your video with Flowblade Movie Editor

Last modified April 24, 2020

This site has been automatically translated with Google Translate from this original page written in french, there may be some translation errors

Object

This page aims to provide you with the basics to be able to edit videos with Flowblade Movie Editor. This is not a master class on video editing, but this page will allow you, by example, to make your first edits. For the installation of the software you can consult the page on the installation of video editing software.

You can also consult this page which gives a small glossary and the general principles of video editing.

Quick overview of the interface

We launch Flowblade Movie Editor from the menu of your favorite distribution, this is what it looks like when launched we will choose the Standard mode by default. By default this mode uses the Move tool by default while the Movie mode uses the Insert tool by default.

We will have noticed that we have a mixture of French and English. Flowblade is divided into several workspaces:

You will find:

1 the display monitor
2 The contextual tabs where the properties of clips, filters, compositions and rendering will be displayed
3 The timeline which is made up of several tracks (5 video tracks and 4 audio tracks by default)
4 The library of project files and sequences

You can resize the monitor but the rest is frozen. Be aware that there is always a way to go back from the Edit->Undo or Redo menu ; there are also buttons

found in the timeline tools.

We will start with some concepts and vocabulary, flowblade uses the term composition rather than transition and filter rather than effect. Regarding sequences, a project can contain one or more sequences, each sequence is a completely independent montage. The final video can then contain several sequences. For complex montages it is sometimes useful to use several sequences to order and organize the work and not end up with an overloaded timeline.

By clicking on the button

you have access to a menu that allows you to customize the interface tools and we also find the configuration between Standard mode and Film mode via Workflow Presets .

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Configuration

The software preferences are accessed from the Edit->Preference menu , I only changed the default project format in the first General tab , for the rest I left everything as default.

The project manager window accessible via the Edit menu allows you to define your own profiles, knowing that it is already well supplied as standard.

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Importing files

We import video and audio files by clicking on the Media tab and right-clicking Add, Video, Audio or image...

Videos are found by default in the Bins project space

Imported files can be ordered under Bins by creating directories

By drag and drop we move the video in the monitor, which allows its visualization

If you notice a slowdown, a jerky video, you will probably have to go through intermediate videos (proxy mode), this consists of degrading the video during editing so that it is smoother and to restore the original quality when rendered. To do this, you will have to select the imported videos and from the context menu Convert to proxy file .

It takes a little processing time

That's not all! Now we open the Proxy Manager via the Project menu . We will need to click on Use proxy and the Current proxy mode should be on Use proxy .

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The assembly

The principle

Please refer to this page to learn the main principles of assembly.

Arrange clips on the timeline

The first step is to select the parts of the video that will make up the final video. We start by moving the first video imported from the Media tab to the video monitor by drag and drop. You then have the classic VCR controls to move around the video

. You will then need to locate the part (or parts) that you would like to keep in the final video, by clicking the Mark In

button at the beginning of the sequence and the Mark Out

button at the end of the sequence. The selected sequence will appear grayed out on the time scale as can be seen below.

We will then move the video from the monitor to the V1 track of the timeline by drag and drop. This will give something like this:

The same VCR buttons will be used to move around the timeline, you can also use the cursor

. And you do the same with the other imported videos by putting them on the same track or alternating with the V2 track. In the end you get something that looks like this.

You have the zoom buttons

to zoom in on the timeline, the last button allows you to adjust the timeline to the longest track. At this point you can add a soundtrack by dragging an mp3 file onto audio track A1.

The soundtrack will materialize the total duration of the final video, the sequence of clips on the different tracks should not in theory exceed the duration of the soundtrack but we will keep a margin of at least 20% of additional videos for effects and transitions.

It may be useful to cut pieces of a clip, for this you will need to select the track on which you will find the clip, the arrow

must be present. We place the cursor at the beginning of the sequence to cut and click on the razor button

the clip will be split into two contiguous clips

Pay attention to the color at the level of the gray cells at the level of the tracks, in the example below the track V2 is selected as well as the track V1 (darker gray), when we click on the razor tool to cut, this will split both the clip of the track V2 but also that of the track V1 as we can see below.

We will delete the chosen video sequence with the tool,

this will give a hole like this

On the other hand, if we delete with the tool,

it will automatically fill the space by moving the following clip on the same track like this

If you cut a clip a little too long you can lengthen it by pulling one end

This will have the effect of completing the clip with the rest of the originally imported video, this is called the trim tool and it works both at the beginning and at the end of the clip.

At this point you can arrange your clips in the order you want on the timeline simply by dragging and dropping them. If you want to select several clips to move them in batches you can enclose them in a rectangle that you draw on the timeline (by holding down the left button) or by selecting them one by one by holding down the CTRL key, with the rectangle option it gives this:

everything has been selected including the compositions that we will see later.

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Add compositions

Transitions are video effects to go from one clip to another, we can obviously do without them in this case we will go abruptly from one clip to another. You will note that we will not put them everywhere because the excess of transitions can make the video heavy to watch. To set up a transition, we must prepare the clips by overlapping them (for the duration of a transition) from one track to another like this:

By selecting the clip of the V2 track at the top, we bring up from the context menu by clicking on the right mouse button and Add composition we choose a composition of the Wipe/Translate type

it will be necessary to reduce the size of the composition so that it is limited to the overlapping duration of two clips, in the central position we will find the properties of the composition, with the cursor we will be able to see in the video monitor the effect of the transition.

Little by little we will place transitions, move and adjust the clips, this is what it looks like with the complete sequence, you will notice that all the clips do not exceed the soundtrack.

The compositions explain in particular why clips are placed on several tracks and not on just one so that the clips can overlap.

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Add G'MIC filters and effects

A filter or more commonly effect is a particular video treatment that modifies the appearance of a clip, we will quickly understand what it is by selecting a filter in the filter library. We access it via the Filters tab. They are stored in several categories (Alpha, Enhancement, Artistic, Audio, Border, Color, Distortion, Color effect, Audio filters, Blur, Motion, Transformation). They are also accessible by selecting a clip then from the context menu Add a filter. In the example below I selected the Contrast effect that I dragged and dropped onto a clip in the timeline. We can then adjust the properties of the filter which are visible in the central position. We can also see the two sequences appear, the active sequence is marked with an active. To switch to the other sequence and make it active you will have to double-click on it.

The Clip Filters Stack area allows you to view the list of filters that are applied to a selected clip, add them, remove them, and enable/disable them.

To switch filter properties from one clip to another, you will need to double-click on the clip. The selected clip appears with this little symbol, a sort of white square placed in the middle of the clip.

Still in the effects/filters section if you click on the button you open the G'MIC

effects window you load a video with the Load Clip button , note that it is not necessarily a video that has already been loaded into the project. Then you choose an effect from the list (below on the left at the Cartoon level), in this case I chose a Cartoon effect and by clicking on Preview we see the result that is displayed.

Note at the bottom left, the information messages of the gmic command that are displayed. You have a copious choice of effects they are arranged by category as can be seen below

that's not all, you will select the part of the video that you want to keep and use with the Mark In

and Mark Out tools

by default it will generate a series of images that will have to be reintegrated into the project, I choose to also generate a video corresponding to the selected part of the original video and with the Cartoon effect that has been applied. For this I check Encode Video, I enter the destination directory of the video, the name of the final video and the rendering parameters

This is what our G'MIC window now gives us, we can see the gray selected part between the marks. The Frames Folder indicates the directory where the images will be found, then we click on Render. Rendering is quite expensive in system resources.

This will generate a video (and a series of images) that will need to be re-imported into the project in order to use it.

Otherwise, by selecting a clip from the Export to tool context menu , you can

Slow/fast motion : speed up or slow down a clip
Reverse : reverse the clip

From the same menu you can add a fade to black when opening or closing.

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Create a title

We will now create a title clip from the titler button

, this will also be an opportunity to illustrate the sequence functionality with Flowblade. For now we will therefore create a really basic intro title with the titler.

This will generate a png file that will need to be saved somewhere. We will now create a new Title sequence , this will completely reset the timeline and it amounts to making a new montage. In this case we will simply import files to create a credits sequence, we will import in particular the png file created previously. In the example below the credits will consist of our title, an introductory soundtrack and a short video. I will spare you the steps, but below we find the new Title sequence, a specific Bins directory which contains the credits files. To allow the text to be embedded on the video track, we will apply an Affine blend composition.

It's exactly the same principle if you want to add a subtitle somewhere in your video to make comments, without necessarily having to create a particular sequence.

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Key images

Flowblade has the keyframe feature, this feature is interesting when you want to make editing a bit more advanced. They allow you to sequence a clip by stopping points that mark a particular event. To illustrate the interest and the functioning of keyframes, for the last clip of the sequence that closes the video we will set up a filter with the image that will translate and disappear little by little with the black background that will take its place. To do this I move the Position Scale filter on the clip.

Notice the strip at the filter properties that allows you to place keyframes and the VCR just below that allows you to move from keyframe to keyframe. You'll see that if you move the red cursor, you'll move around the clip.

With the + I will create 2 keyframes

in addition to the first one at the beginning of the clip. The idea is that between the first and second keyframe the properties of the effect do not change, while they will change between the second and last keyframe. For the properties of the last keyframe, I move the frame in the middle of the Position Scale screen completely outside the monitor. In fact, between the 1st and 2nd frames, nothing changes and between the 2nd and last we will see the image translate little by little until it disappears.

Still on the same keyframe line, you can move them by drag and drop.

Please note that keyframes apply to most filters, the keyframe line is not displayed by default, in the filter properties, you will first need to click on this button

Last illustration of the key frames, for the last clip, I added on the lower track a black color clip ( Project->Create a color clip ), between my last clip and the color clip I added an Affine blend composition . Now for the last clip I added an Alpha->Wipe filter . I placed 3 key frames, there is no change of properties between the 1st and the 2nd key frame, however the threshold evolves between the 2nd and the last key frame so that the image disappears completely to make way for the black background.

We can also play with keyframes to vary the volume of a video (or audio) clip by placing the keyframes on specific events in the timeline. To do this, select a clip and then from the context menu choose Edit->Volume keyframes. The window below appears and with only the mouse we will create and move the keyframes.

To find the filter properties and be able to modify the key images, you will need to select the clip and go to the filter properties, we will find our key images created previously.

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Finalization

We had an introduction to the sequences previously, we will now finalize the video by adding the title sequence at the very beginning of our sequence of clips. We will first place ourselves at the very beginning of the timeline, then from the menu Sequence->Import Another Sequence Into This Sequence. A window appears where we can select the sequence, by default it is added ( Append ) at the end of the active sequence, I choose to place it at the cursor which was placed at the very beginning.

And here is my finalized project with the Title sequence which is found at the very beginning of the timeline.

Now, so that the sound of the video tracks V1 and V2 do not overlap with that of the soundtrack, we will mute the tracks V1 and V2 via the audio mixer by clicking on the button

. A separate window appears, I have set the level of the tracks V1 and V2 to 0.

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Exporting to the final video

Be careful if you have used proxy videos, you will have to tell it again to now use the original videos ( Project->Proxy Manager ) we click on Use originals and the Current proxy mode must specify Use originals