Free Video Editing Tips and Tutorials from Video Blocks

Stop motion and time lapse are a fun effects to occasionally incorporate into your video editing projects. You may think, however, that you need fancy software or high end video editing programs to get the job done. Not true! Even iMovie can create stop motion and time lapse videos if you know how to manipulate it. Here are step by step instructions for creating a stop motion or time lapse sequence in iMovie. 

Who doesn't love free ice cream on a beautiful sunny day? The employees at VideoBlocks were lucky enough to be visited by the Free Ben and Jerry's Truck today at our headquarters in Reston, VA! They served us delicious Greek frozen yogurt that everyone loved. The company favorite seemed to be the Banana Peanut Butter, but I personally loved the Raspberry Fudge Chunk and Blueberry Graham Cracker. Thanks for a great time, Ben and Jerry's! 

I was greatly saddened to hear about the death of 83-year-old children’s author, Maurice Sendak, this morning. I’ve always held a special place in my heart for the creativity that comes to life in children’s literature, and Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are certainly finds itself in the elite of that genre. As a child I loved the story for its spontaneous stream of consciousness and its relatability. As an adult, I appreciate the subtle life lessons it teaches and admirable whimsy that Sendak was able to conceive even though he wrote it in his adult years. So as I sit here listening to the soundtrack from the Spike Jonze theatrical interpretation of Sendak’s greatest work, I’ve decided to reflect on the lessons that little Max can teach us video editors. 

The VideoBlocks office is based in the Washington DC area, so we got the amazing thrill of watching the Space Shuttle Discovery loop around outside our windows a few weeks ago. It was amazing to see this impressive piece of American history land right outside our door!(Well, not right outside...but pretty close!). Little did we know that our friends over at Footage Firm were cooking up a NASA surpise of their own! They just released 10 DVDs worth of stock footage, stock photos and audio clips from the best of NASA's archives. And as always, they've somehow managed to give it away for free! 

It’s been an exciting week here at the VideoBlocks office. On Monday we put in an order for a Phantom Miro M320S camera! In the past we’ve outsourced our high speed camera footage, so we are beyond pumped to finally create those epic shots in house. 

If you have an iPhone or a 4G iPod Touch, you’re walking around with a high quality camera in your pocket at all times. Start taking advantage of it! Use that little camera to capture spontaneous moments and candid memories! It is really easy to process iPhone video footage in iMovie if you know the quick workflow. Here’s a breakdown of how to do it in both iMove pre-’11 and iMovie ‘11. 

The “Pleasantville Effect” is a video color correction effect made popular by the late 1990s movie, Pleasantville, starring Tobey Maguire. Though that is in no way, shape or form the only movie to use the isolation of color, it certainly has inspired the use of the tool in many movies (and home movies) since. Basically, the idea is to isolate one color at a time and have everything else in black and white. It gives the picture real "pop" and, when used correctly, can be a great story telling device. Here’s how to create the Pleasantville effect in Final Cut Pro 7. 

A few weeks ago we were extatic to announce the winners of our VideoBlocks Educators Photo Contest. We asked teachers to take a picture of their class using technology for education and include how they would use $1,000 and a year long subscription to VideoBlocks.com. Out of all of the enteries, the lucky kids and staff at John Simatovich Elementary came out on top. 

A couple weeks ago we told you at Footage Firm's great deal on their grab bag production music deal. The concept was simple...buy their collection of five production music DVDs and get a sixth mystery grab bag item included in your order! Well, the grab bags have been shipped and the lucky buyers that received the big ticket items have been revealed. Here they are: 

Hey Everyone! It's finally Friday! We wanted to treat you to a special blog today to help get you pumped for the weekend after a long week at work. Here it is...the first ever VideoBlocks Friday Stock Footage Dance Party!