Fitting multimedia into the workday
My multimedia goal now usually is to get home in time for
dinner.
I’m only partially kidding.
My first year created some long, hard hours of learning. I knew I was straining patience when I would
begin receiving text messages from my wife, about 9 p.m. The learning was worth it, and this year my
goal is to integrate multimedia into my regular workday. That means getting home for dinner on time.
I did that with two pieces that week.
The first involved a new medical residency in Wichita, the
first of its kind in the nation, geared toward training doctors for the
challenges of practicing medicine in developing nations.
When I went to interview the doctors who were building this
program, I took a video camera and recorded them. The story didn’t really fit video. I ended up with a bunch of
talking heads. The doctors did have
some incredible pictures they’d brought back with them from their travels,
however.
I took the audio track off the video, exported it as an MP3,
edited it in Audacity and used it with the photos for a slide show.
That did take some time.
But I finished the story and composed the multimedia while my editor was
working the text. I did have to stop
once, and pick up my high school son from track practice, but I was able to
come back and finish it, no problem.
A couple of days later, I was scheduled to work a Saturday
shift. Saturday being a slow news day,
editors usually try to find a quick-turnaround feature of an event happening
that day.
This day, I was assigned to cover the annual festival of the
statewide honors
bands and choirs. These are the
kinds of assignments as a young journalist, I would dread. But after 30 years
in journalism and playing dad to several kids, I love these kinds of
stories. Not only have I been to my
share of events, I like this idea. It’s
the musical equivalent of all-state in basketball.
I thought it might make a good video. The challenge with all video, but especially
music, is to capture good audio.
Because this was an acoustic concert, there was no sound system to plug
into. The camera mic picked up audience
noise, and this is the cold season, so plenty of coughing and wheezing in the
background.
I experimented with something I’d wanted to try for some
time now, but hadn’t had the courage – or the time – to figure out: recording audio separately.
I took out my Edirol-09
mp3 recorder. I turned on the
“automatic gain control” (AGC), because I would be shooting video and couldn’t
ride the levels manually. This way, the
sound would adjust itself. I set it on
the stage in front of the band and went about shooting video.
I’d worried about the time in learning how to synch the
audio with the video. I’d read about
it, and even learned that’s the reason for the clapboard you see
sometimes associated with old movies.
I did it this way:
Back at the editing station, I downloaded the mp3 from the
Edirol. I edited the song I wanted using Audacity and imported it to the time
line of Final Cut Pro, which is the video editing software we use. I then pulled in the video clip of the same
song to the timeline.
I watched the conductor’s visual cues. When he brought his hands down to signal the
band to play, I stopped it (with the space bar). I then lined up my audio track to that point. I played both the terrible sound from the
camera with the imported track to make sure they were playing together. Then I muted the audio track from the camera
to make sure it looked and sounded right.
I cut in some close-ups and b-roll.
The
result is this video.
It won’t win any awards, but really most of what we do on a
daily basis is to inform, to entertain, to illustrate. My target audience on this video was to get
the attention of the parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters of the
students who made the honors band. And
I liked picking the kids from the smallest schools in Kansas, Classes 1A-4A.
It didn’t take me forever. I made it home for supper. I even
made it home in time to make dinner. My
own high schooler appreciated that.