Stutter Edits....how to?

[DVX100Shooter]

You've seen these edits in all sorts of Music Videos. The editors at Mtv use them all the time where it looks like the video is stuttering. I have seen them use this effect on "Cribs" and a bunch of other shows they do. It looks like one shot of the same thing but chopped 3 or 4 times and they usually have the chops on beat with some song. How do you do that and not make the chops (stutter) look out of place? I recently saw this at the end of a Jay-Z video ("Dirt off your Shoulder") at the end when he is getting into the black car they chopped the shot up to look like it was ticking or stuttering. I don't know the right terminology for this type of edit but it does have the look like the video is stuttering or the tape got jammed in the deck...but in cool looking way!

 

[Roy42]

Re: Stutter Edits....how to?

I don't know if there's some sort of fancy "proffesional" way of getting that effect for MTV, but when you think about it, all they're doing is just repeating a few frames a couple of times. I did something similar for an old practice music video thing in iMovie a while back, and all I had to do was find the length of one of the "beats" to the music I was trying to match (in this case it was just a few frames long), then I copied and pasted the segement of the footage I wanted to repeat a couple of times to that length, and it just worked. You play it back, and it looks all "jumpy." I'm positive you can accomplish the same effect easily in Final Cut Pro. Unless I'm mistaking the effect you're describing for something else, it's actually pretty simple.

 

[Jay_Blanchard]

Re: Stutter Edits....how to?

Probably easier to do in AfterEffects, but it will work in FCP too. There are a few different versions of what you're talking about--

1) The "Flickering" effect, where the image flickers on and off. Simply set alternating keyframes for 100% and 0% opacity.

2) The "Stutter" effect is, as Roy mentioned, is just a repetition of frames or a jumping forward/backward (ramping)of frames. One really simple way to do this is just zoom in on your timeline & wiggle the marker a bit & record to tape (some of the early uses of this effect did this exact thing).

There are several more refined options including staggering several layers by a frame each in AE or FCP, holding keyframes, etc.

Most folks do something a bit more complicated, involving combining elements of both the "flicker" and "stutter" effects, plus adding some Wiggler on position keyframes or a shutter plug-in like Aurorix Earthquake or something.

Of course, your best bet would just be to go over to the AfterEffects forum & have Kai do it for you