Creating a clip movie for a program

[darthkevie]

Hi, this is my first post on here, and I didn't know where else to put it, so here it goes.

In my band class we are playing two different songs, one is Pirates of the Carribean, and the other is a John Williams medley (E.T, Harry Potter, Star Wars). My band director has asked me to create a "clip movie" to show in the back on a screen in the back of the theater when we have our concert. I have experience making movies on the computer, but only by taking recordings from a video camera, transfering them, and then editing them. How would you make a clip movie for the selections (I would probably be able to get my hands on copies of each of the DVD's)? I know it can be done somehow, they did it about 5 years ago for "The Grinch". All help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[redwudz]

Welcome to our forums.

You can use a program like VOB2MPG to convert a DVD file to MPEG-2. From there you cut out the part you want with a MPEG editor, then reauthor the MPEGs back to a DVD. Cuttermaran is a freeware editor that might work well if you don't have one. If you don't use the audio from the DVD, you shouldn't have any sync problems to worry about. There is a legal problem here with using copyrighted video without permission, though.

You would also want to know how long the music will run, so you can time your video to it. You don't have to sync the video to the music unless you want to spend a fair amount of time with the project. As an alternative to the DVDs, you may be able to download some trailers of both DVDs and use that video with less problems.

[darthkevie]

Thanks for the tips. Just curious, but what would the copyright problems be? We wouldn't be charging admission to the concert, so we wouldn't be making a profit. When the group did something similar a couple of years ago with the cartoon verison of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" I don't think that they asked the studio for rights or anything (I could be wrong though). And we are purchasing the actually music.

[redwudz]

I'm no expert here, but I imagine you would need the video owners permission to use them, non-profit or not.

Here is one site for trailers for Pirates and one of the Starwars movies that are downloadable. Many others available. This may be easier than getting them from a DVD, and probably less problems with using them.

http://www.ultimatedvd.org/en/Trailers/Details.aspx?Trailer_Id=851

http://www.ultimatedvd.org/en/Trailers/Details.aspx?Trailer_Id=57

A program like SUPER works well for conversion from Quicktime to MPEG format.