T351 Week 13 - Spring 2008

Agenda:

• Reality Check
• Final Project
• Multimedia Exercise
• Scripting documentaries and other non-fiction pieces
• Engineering & Troubleshooting

Reality Check:

• In order to receive a grade for the Pre-Production components of your Final Project, you must turn in your materials by 5 pm today. The grade you receive for this will reflect the amount of care and detail shown in your Program Proposal, Treatment, Script, and any other materials.
• No Lab this week: You have the time to devote to shooting your Final Projects
• We will have lab next week (week 14), when you should be putting the finishing touches on your Final Projects. I'll also cover outputting for DVDs- and the Multimedia Exercise for anyone having troubles with it.
• We'll look at your FInal Projects during week 15 lab time.
• The Final Exam is scheduled (by the registrar) for 10:15-12:15 Friday May 2th. I'm sorry, but I'm not able to facilitate individual requests for earlier final exam times.
• Multimedia Movie- due by Monday, April 21 at the latest. (details)

Even if you've turned in a program proposal & treatment, turn another one in with your Final Project packet. This way everything is in one package.

Talent release forms can be found on the T351 website.

On scripting documentaries

A few students have asked if they need to write treatments and scripts for documentaries. The answer is a resounding YES. Documentary is a broadly used term covering a range of programs such as Nova, Nature, American Experience, or programs seen on Discovery or the History Channel. While some are exploratory, most resemble essays in their structure.

In my opinion, the exploratory approach is most suitable for projects that evolve over time- projects that perhaps span years. I saw one where some people tried to recreate the early settlers experience. They started out making plans, gathering supplies, and then building a boat. They took the boat up (or down) a river where they found a suitable homesite, build a cabin, and then proceded to live off the land. The entire documentary spanned several years.

In order to get public or private funding, it helps to have a good idea of the subject matter, the significance of your particular exploration of the topic, what specifically the project will explore or uncover, the cost, and the distribution. There are many grants out there, from the Indiana Arts Commission to the National Endowment of the Arts.

Starting out: My suggestion to producing documentaries is to approach them initially like you would with a written essay. Research your content. What has been written or published about it already? Who are the experts? What do you want to say, prove, show, or illustrate? Who is your audience? What you want the viewers to do or think after watching your piece is the objective.

Whether you are creating something informational, something to sell an idea, or something to make people think a certain way (propaganda), you have to embed the nuggets of information. I call this my "ingredient list."

As you research, outline, and refine your project, you learn more about the subject and build and modify your ingredient list.

You will finally end up with a series of points or facts that are put together in a logical manner. Threading these points into a compelling story before shooting is perhaps one of the most challenging part of writing documentaries. You need to visualize the flow from the fade up from black at the beginning to how you treat the credits at the end. A solid beginning and clear conclusion are essential. (If you have these the stuff in the middle has a way of working itself out.)

Let's take an idea of making a promo for a band called the Tone-a-Matiks. For starters you have to really think about your audience and the objective. Is it an entertaining feature to be inserted into a news magazine show, or is it a feature used to sell the band to night-club owners and booking agents? Maybe it's a little of both but you need to be crytsal clear about this as it will effect the content.

Let's assume we'll make a marketing and promotinal video. We need to then create the "ingredient list" - which is the essential facts and elements to include in the video. They might be:

• Description of the genre (alt rock with jazz influence, etc.)
• The band loves playing dance music
• The band was just signed by a label
• The band can do cover tunes- but like to work in their own originals
• A new CD is underway
• They tour in the midwest now but would like to expand to the east coast
• testimonials from fans
• testimonials from night club owners
• performance footage
• footage of people dancing
• Quickie profiles of band members (if compelling. These are usually overdone.)

Once you have your ingredient list you can start threading it into a treatment.

• Open with a quick live clip, and people dancing. An animated graphic of the band's name comes on screen.
• This is followed by a montage of people saying how much they love to listen and dance to the Tone-a-Matiks.
• After a little bit more of performance footage we go to a music critic describing the band's sound and genre.
• We could then go back to the performance and hear a couple of testimonials from nightclub owners on how the band really pack's them in.
• A couple of quick soundbites from the band descrfibe how much fun they have playing and that they can do covers but love playing originals.
• etc.

Anyway, it's important to really think through this early on, then refine and refine, eventually writing a script. The more you think about who needs to say what, the more efficient you can be during the production stage.

I have an example of a treatment for a documentary on my home page (see Treatment - Actual treatment and pitch for Elkinsville.)

[Look at examples of good packets]

What can you do with your final projects?

• Submit to Across Indiana
• Aired on CATS, WTIU or iusTV
• Entered in local and national competitions. (Locally we have the Ideas Festival and the Multivisions Showcase.)
• Get a job

What makes a first-rate video?

• Every shot and sound is there for a reason. (Advance the story or build the character)
• The message and storyline is clear
• All of the audio and visual elements are top notch.
• There is no fixing it in the edit. What you shoot is what you have to work with. Do it thoroughly and right the first time. Make sure your audio is clean, your video is well lit, and framed. Make sure every single edit is motivated and that your video has a consistent look and feel.
• You have everything it takes to make a great video.

Importing & Exporting for other Applications

In many communication projects, video is only one part of a media production plan. It may be used concurrently with print, web, CD-ROM or other media.

If you're an editor, sooner or later you'll be asked to import or export media files from or for other types of applications.

Outputting media varies depending on the use or scenario.

Typical scenarios include:

• Outputting still images for print or Web applications
• Outputting audio files for CD, cassette or Web
• Audio normalizing
• Audio sweetening
• Animation & Special effects
• Exporting videos for Web, videoconferencing, laserdisk, CD-ROM or DVD

Quick question: Someone gives you a CD with a ready to use graphic. How will you get it into your project?

Question #2: Someone gives you an audio CD with a cut for you to use. What needs to happen before you can use it in your project?

Importing graphics: What’s the best way to get still images into Avid or FCP? (“File - > import” works great for many graphic file formats, but others, such as EPS or CMYK-based graphics need to be converted to the right pixel dimensions and aspect ratio first. Photoshop is the best tool for doing this.

Whatr pixel dimensions would you use for making a 4:3 DV graphic in Photoshop?

What pixel dimensions for a 16:9 graphic?

Exporting & re-importing: Often the media files are exported from FCP or the Avid, then re-imported back into the editing system. For example:

Imagine you want to grab a still from your video, add an effect, and then build a list of bulleted text items over the still image. What is an efficient way of doing this?

 

Probably to export a still frame, which can be brough into Photoshop. There you can add a filter and build a series of images, which can then be imported back into your editing applciation.

Exporting a still frame is easy. Position the time indicator over the clip or sequence. Then select “File -> export”. The standard quicktime export tool gives you access to a variety of different formats and codecs. I suggest you use the PICT format on the Mac and the TIFF format on a PC. These are both uncompressed, lossles file formats.

Audio

For editing, you should always start off with uncompressed audio, or PCM audio files. PCM stands for Pulse Code Modulation, a fancy term for uncompressed digital audio. If your audio is compressed (like an MP3 or AC-3), you should convert it into a PCM file at the proper sampling rate and bit depth (DV is 48 kHz @ 16 bts)

PCM Audio formats:

• AIFF (standard Mac-compatitble PCM audio format)
• SDII (Old, but still supported Mac-compatitble PCM audio format)
• Wave (standard PC-compatitble PCM audio format)

Audio Exporting:

AIFFs can be easily exported. This creates an audio fie.

Audio tracks could be sent to an audio workstation for normailzing or sweetening with ProTools.

Audio normalizing - Imagine you have audio that's well recorded but just too soft. You've cranked the gain up in FCP or Avid and it's still too soft. What can you do? Bring it into an audio program and normlize the tracks. Normalizing let's you bring the audio file's highest peak up to 0, which will increase the overall amplitute (loudness) of the track. However it will also bring extraneous noise (background hums, etc.) up as well.

Audio sweetening - FCP and Avid are great video editing applications but are not optimized for audio. Sweetening audio is the process of adding sounds and manipultaing the signal in complex ways that our video applciation is simply not suited for. For example sweetening allows audio engineers to add effects, make a surround sound mix, add foley sounds .

Even simple audio edits are better off caried out in an audio editor. Consider the time base of video. We have a frame approximately every 30 seconds. When we cut from one image to another it can only happen at intervals of 1/30 of a second.

If we cut audio along with our frame of video we run into problems. The reason is that audio is a waveform oscillating back and forth down to the frequency of our sampling rate (typically 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz).Ideally we need to cut the audio when it's at the 0 crossing. That is when it's at the 0 point as is crosses over from positive to negative or vice versa. Otherwise, if we cut the audio in the middle of a peak, we will get a pop. So if we cut the audio along with the video (on an steady interval of 1/30 a second), we are likely to get a pop, as chances are slim that the audio will happen to be at the 0 crossing.

Audio editing applications let you cut audio on the 0 crossings.

Importing & Exporting movies

Oftne you'll need to output a movie for a DVD, the web, or some other application.

Most codecs supported by Quicktime can be exported through the standard Quicktime export function. Competitive architectures (Windows, Real) might not be supported. In order to create these you sometimes need to use a third party application, such as Cleaner or Flip4Mac.

These 3rd party transcoding products work in a variety of ways and cost anywhere from $29 (Flip4Mac basic WMV to Quicktime) to $895.

The higher end versions of these can carry out batch encoding. This allows you to process entire folders full of movies, doing tasks such as re-sizing, adding watermarks, and cropping.

MPEG-2 files can be encoded through Apple's MPEG encoder from within FCP, providing you've purchased DVDSP.

Animation and compositing software like Adobe After Effects is frequently used to make animations and special effects.

To export footage for After Effects (or other animation/compositing software):

First determine if the media is going to the same computer, or somewhere else. If you are working on the same computer you can use “export by reference”.

Export by reference: If the animation software is on the same computer as the Avid, FCP, or M100, exporting by reference is the most efficient way to create a movie file to bring into another application.

It doesn’t create a new movie file, but simply creates a small file with pointers to the existing clips along with all of the edit information.

Exporting Movies & OMF files

If you need to send the media to another computer, then you need to create either a standalone movie that can be transported to the other computer or an OMF file.

OMF files can contain multi-track audio and video media, time code information and level and transition information. This makes them stand alone, as compared to exporting by reference files.

AVID and FCP can use the OMF Open Media Framework to transfer files between OMF friendly applications. Note that audio filters applied within FCP will not output. You would first need to render the file.

In brief you need to:

• Export the clips (either by reference or as a quicktime movie)
• Manipulate them in the software of choice
• Create a quicktime movie to import back into your editing application
• Import it the new movie into your editing app.

Field dominance

When you bring in video clips or a movie into After Effects, or any other animation or compositing program, it will want to know what the field dominance is. Field dominance is either upper or lower field first. It’s important that it's set correctly. If set incorrectly, your imported clips or movies will shimmer and vibrate, as the fields will be out of order.

DV is always lower field first. 640 x 480 pixel codecs such as Media100 MJPEG clips are often upper field first, but it varies. Always check with the editing software to see what it is.

Chromakeying

While FCP does a fine job of chromakeying, certain 3rd party companies have a reputation for doing a great job.

Boris FX, Primatte, Ultimatte etc operate as plug-ins for non-linear editors. They can be expensive- more than $1,000 for a CD!

Color Controls

 

Plug-ins

Plug-ins are 3rd party software modules that function within a host application. For instance Boris Continuum offers a wide assortment of effects for both After Effects and FCP. Once you purchase the plug-in package and install it, you'll find the Boris Effects accessable through the standard video and audio effects menus within the host application.

 

Vocabulary (Know these terms)

• AIFF (aif) An uncompressed digital audio file used on the Mac platform
• Batch capture
• Exporting by reference
• Normalize
• Off-Line & On-Line
• OMF
• PCM (Pulse Code Modulation. A fancy)
• SDII - An uncompressed digital audio file developed by digidesign & used on the Mac platform
• Sweetening (not sugar!)
• WAV - An uncompressed digital audio file used on the PC platform

Engineering & Troubleshooting ------------------------------------

What is the lifespan of video gear?

The hard drive your latest labor of love is on and everything you have in your kit will break and is eventually destined for the junkyard. It’s a fact. – It’s a matter of when. When do you think it’ll break? When it’s sitting on the shelf? Probably out on a shoot. When you’re shooting b-roll or interviewing the Mayor?

Jim’s Double Backup / Plan B (for important shoots have two of everything) I bring extra microphones, bulbs & cameras etc.

Troubleshooting

Every camera operator and field engineer must know how to troubleshoot

Audio is the most common problem but video can be vexing.

Major Audio Troubleshooting Principle: Swap connectors & the problem moves. This would mean the problem is toward the source. If you swap cables and the problem doesn’t move- it means the trouble is towards the destination. This technique can help you pinpoint problems.

Virtual Problem Scenarios – These are actual problems you may encounter.

How many steps will it take you to find:

Bad Audio

• No sound from lav
• No sound from shotgun
• Really soft audio from mic
• No sound from mic

PS: Audio hum- don’t run power cords near or parallel to audio cables. If you must, cross wires at 90 degrees.

Bad Video

• Image is dark in the viewfinder
• Viewfinder looks out of focus
• Shooting inside and the picture is too dark.
• Shooting outside and it’s too light
• Shots seem to go out of focus

Back focus adjustment

Termination: Even if you have a $1,000 monitor connected to your $15,000 camera, your video can look terrible if it is not properly terminated. Video signals need to be terminated or fed into something with 75 ohms of resistance. If not the picture will suffer. “T” barrels or “Y” connectors for video exist as do “loop through” inputs on video recorders and monitors. Using them will lead to problems unless the signal is properly terminated.

If a device has only one input then you can assume it will be properly terminated internally into 75 ohms.

If a device has a loop through input and a termination switch, you must switch it to “75 ohms on” if there is nothing else connected.

If there is another device connected, or daisy-chained, then you must switch the termination switch to off or open. At the end of the chain, the termination will be set to 75 ohms.

 

 

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