Video Making, Sans Camera
by Jon Sasaki

Somehow I got it into my head that I wanted to make videos on a home computer, so off I went to the PC store and plopped down all my funds on a slick new system. In hindsight, I should have thought it through more carefully, because the slick new system didn't come with a slick new monitor, or any operating system of any kind, slick or otherwise. Fortunately I was able to scrounge up a decent monitor at Value Village, and a copy of Windows was graciously donated. However, I was still left with a maxed-out credit card and no video camera to shoot my projects. Lacking the MacGyver-esque skills to build one from scratch, I opted to make videos using alternative means.

Compositing still images

I always loved those goofy slide strips they used to show us in elementary school. There would be a periodic beep on the soundtrack, and the projector would have to be manually advanced one frame. Cool format. Filmmaker Chris Marker did something similar in "La Jetée," proving that successive still images can be used for more than just toboggan safety films. You don't need to look far for source material. TIFFs and JPEGs can be pulled off web pages with a right-click of the mouse, you can use scanned bitmaps, screen captures, even have your 35mm camera photos put onto a CD-ROM at little cost. Once you have all your images, they can be assembled using a video-editing program. Some that I've seen: Videowave is cheap and simple. Adobe's After Effects is like a time-based Photoshop; great for effects and titles, maybe a bit excessive for stringing together stills. Not too intuitive, either, I suggest reading a manual. The one I picked up was clear and slightly amusing…like Hemingway but without all the epicures and bullfighting. The software's price tag is pretty steep, unless you download a cracked version. Serious note: it would be hypocritical to tell you not to pirate software, especially after suggesting you steal copyrighted images from people's web sites. Keep in mind there can be stiff fines for using unlicensed applications. If you don't want to risk it, but have no cash to shell out, there are decent freeware video editors out there. (Slide Show Movie Maker 3.0 looks pretty promising.) Google it and cross your fingers.

Animate something

A program like Flash will allow you to animate shapes, photos, text, whatever, and export it in almost any format you'll need. Although a lot of this stuff ends up looking like a bad version of South Park, it doesn't have to. Flash can animate scenes with photorealist precision, and conversely, I've seen brilliant work using only basic black text on a white background.
If you feel like tackling a steep learning curve, you can make use of a 3-d animation program like 3-D Studio Max, Strata Studio Pro (Mac), Poser or Maya to take your video to the next level. To get started, you can likely download pre-fab 3-D models so you need not build your scene from scratch. Once your scenes are assembled and animated, they can be rendered and output as a Windows .avi, a Quicktime video, even a series of stills.

Steal footage

Suppose you rented a VHS tape from Blockbuster, and saw some footage you HAD to steal. In order to get it into your video-editing program, you first need to convert the analogue footage into digital. With an analog video capture card plugged into your computer, the video world is ripe to be plundered. Any analog source (from a VCR, television cable, camcorder) can be jacked into the back of your computer tower and translated into a digital file. (DV cameras by comparison, require no such translation process. Footage is already stored in a form your computer can deal with, and is easily transferred to your computer via a firewire cable. Plug 'n Play.) Keep in mind, regardless of origin, computer video files can take up big chunks of hard drive space. You might wanna keep your clips short, or compress them to a manageable size.

Once you've saved all your video to your hard-drive, you can begin to assemble clips on the editing time-line. (Zwei-Stein is a freeware editor that will do the job.) Tip: Try splicing together footage of George W. Bush playing golf, McDonald's commercials, and nuclear test explosions in strobelight jump cuts. People can't get enough of those mind-blowing composites.

Video Screen Capture application

Wouldn't it be cool to make a video about a little cursor arrow that buzzes around the screen and occasionally turns into a tiny pointing finger or an hourglass? A video screen capture program will allow you to record a video file of anything that happens on your monitor. Record yourself surfing the net, swirling the cursor around, or getting a .dll error message. Dreamworks eat your heart out. Good software contenders would be "SnagIt," and the higher-end version "Camtasia", both by TechSmith.

Webcam footage

Well, technically these are video cameras, so they shouldn't really be mentioned in a discussion of cameraless video making. Pros: they're dirt cheap, easy to use, and the footage has a lo-fi, almost sleazy look to it. Your camera will likely come with a proprietary program that will allow you to record and store video clips, but this can also be done through most video editing suites. (Once the camera is installed, it should appear as an option in the capture utility drop-down list.) Cons: they usually don't record full-screen video, and you can't zoom. Also, they have to be plugged into your computer's USB port, so unless you have a portable, you'll have to shoot a pretty limited set of locations. Still, you could re-make Rear Window if you felt inclined.

All this sounds like the consolation prize for not owning a video camera, but I see something rather relevant about a film that has its genesis, production and consumption entirely on the computer. The fact is, your creation never needs to leave the screen, which is not a bad way of preserving an artistic vision. To put it another way, this is the era of fileshared feature movies. Films that were shot in glorious widescreen for the theatre are being downloaded and viewed on 14" monitors, losing volumes in the translation process. The same movies are also pan-and-scanned for the video rental shelf, again, distorting the filmmaker's vision. The completely computer-generated video, however has a congruency of inception and end-use that is beautiful in itself.

Jon Sasaki is a Toronto artist who writes for Lola Magazine and contributed a videocamera-less piece about a game teenaged boys play for Novel Amusements #2.