Suggestions For A Video Project
 

I wonder if anyone can give me some advice on a video project.

My son is doing a dance "Capstone" project. He is choreographing a dance routine consisting of a duet of himself (dancing live) with a "ghost" dancer silhouette (who will be projected on a screen behind him). The ghost will be a video of him: he plans to dress in black, videotape himself dancing the ghost's routine, then invert the video so that the ghost is a white silhouette on a black background.

He saw this ghost dancer technique used by a local dance company that he's done stuff with. They told him about the basic way it was done (videotape dancer dressed in black, then invert video). He's asked me to help him do this.

My problem is that I know zip-nada about video or editing video. I have no special software on the Mac, besides the usual iMovie etc. As far as I know, iMovie won't do special effects. So . . .

- Should I buy video software to do this, and if so then what?

- Should I ask the dance company folks if they'd take a video file and handle the inverting, using whatever software they used? I'd be willing to pay them for their help.

As you can tell, I am rather clueless.

You can do just about anything with iMovie and garage for sound.

Go with you iPhone, make 10-15 30 second clips and load the up and start playing. You'll have it down in 1 or 2 hours.

Gotta be someone here who could cut it for you. I might be able to depending on timing. I haven't used iMovie in a long time - not sure if it can invert. FinalCutPro certainly can. If you think you'll be doing more video (or if he will - the better answer), FinalCut could be a worthwhile investment. Pretty easy to use between various forums and tutorials and not that expensive.

iMovie will invert. Use the "Negative" effect.

If you can't figure it out I'll invert it for you and send back.

Thanks! This gets me started. I'm going to talk to him and figure out when we can do a practice shoot. Got to run to Best Buy and get a digital camcorder of some sort. I'm a photo guy, not a video guy . . . hope I don't come back with the camcorder equivalent of a Pinto.

Most compact cameras will do decent video. No need for a dedicated camcorder.

Did you see the short my daughter/son and their friends made?

Shot on iPhones, edited with iMovie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTlPgxK664U

Lol that was really cool.

Another vote for iPhone video.

Check this out: Bentley’s New Ad Is Shot with the iPhone 5s – Seriously!

Funny!

Here is a video my daughter and her friend did, several years ago. Not sure what they shot it with. Dunno why they had it in for dolphins.

Anti-Dolphin PSA - YouTube