Help: Several questions

[Xesdeeni]

Last weekend I attended my brother-in-law's wedding, and since he didn't have a videographer, I volunteered (after 9 years in the NAVY, you'd think I'd remember that N.A.V.Y. stands for Never Again Volunteer Yourself) to tape the ceremony. I used a Canon Optura Pi digital camcorder in progressive scan mode, without a tripod, but with optical stabilization, and without any external microphone. I'll be editing with Premiere, and then producing a VHS tape, a VCD, possibly an SVCD, and hopefully a DVD (once I can buy or get access to a DVD burner).

1. Even with the optical stabilization, there were still some times when my movement was too distracting. I have a demo of a plugin for VirtualDub that does post filming stabilization, but it puts a huge logo on top of the image. Is there a free/shareware version of such a filter?

2. I've captured the whole ceremony (51 minutes) to my HD, but a couple of places have tape dropouts. I know I can export frames for rotoscoping from Premiere, but it seems to be extremely cumbersome. What is the best way to export, modify and then replace selected frames using Premiere?

3. The audio is just what came from the on-camera microphone. The babies crying that were close to me (including my own), and a panicked switch to the internal viewfinder as the battery ran down near the end of the ceremony, are very audible, but the ceremony itself is much less so. Can anyone give me suggestions on how to bring out the soft, faraway audio and cut down the loud, close audio, using something like SoundForge?

4. I remember seeing information on animated menus like DVDs have on VCDs and SVCDs, but I can't find the reference (I need to learn to write this stuff down). In an attempt to be artsy, I went outside the church and walked in through the doors and up into the church, which I think might be a nice animated menu, ending in a half-faded shot of the front of the church with the title superimposed over it. Does anyone know where this procedure is located?

Thanks for any and all help!

Xesdeeni


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Xesdeeni on 2001-11-16 15:01:20 ]</font>

[Xesdeeni]

Any experienced wedding videographers have some input on this?

Xesdeeni