Hi Atte,

A friend of mine has invited me to compose for some videos he's planning
on making. We haven't started yet, but I thought it might be good to be
a bit ahead, especially since I haven't done this before and I know next
to nothing about video...

The noise making apps will be running ontop of jack. Google suggest I
should look into xjadeo with the -i switch. Is that it? Anything
(formats, codecs, framerates, interlaces other-stuff-I-dont-get) that I
should ask for or try to avoid?
    
My experience so far was not about a full-fledged multichannel 5.1 soundtrack but with a sonification of a silent film (http://vimeo.com/7317445 and a brief 'experience report' here: http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/linux-audio-user/2009-September/062989.html)
After getting used to it using xjadeo which simply synced with ardour, rosegarden and any Jack-transport-enabled app was a charm.
do you enjoy being whipped repeatedly by leather 9-tailed whips spiked
with stainless steel blades?
But keep in mind that the 'video-hell' is not just linux: my colleagues use a very expensive final-cut and they're still always having touble with framerates, aspec ratios, codecs, etc. etc.

Much also depends, I think, on the kind of film (short movie, full film, documentary) and what kind of work you have to do (music only, all soundtrack etc.)

Kind regards,
Lorenzo.