Mission: Take the audio from an interview and overlay b-roll on top of it.
This seems easy enough, right? It is a basic concept that we see every time we turn on the television. Yet this mission came with its special challenge, making it turn from a simple task into a nightmare: use Windows MovieMaker. Those are three words I hope I never have to hear again (yet know I will, at least for the remainder of this course).
I decided to interview the chef at my sorority house, Lisa, about cooking. She spoke about what a typical day for her entailed, what her favorite dish to prepare was and what she did to come up with new meal ideas for the girls. After the interview, I filmed her preparing our lunch and captured some reactions of the girls eating her food. Everything was going well and seemed to be pretty natural until...
I started using MovieMaker. I swear I gave it a chance, I really did. I went in with a (mostly) open mind and have fully concluded that this program was written by the devil.
Not only could I not separate the audio and video parts of the clip, but I couldn't use more than one audio track at a time. The quality of the on-board mic was a little rough (especially given that the filming was done in an industrial kitchen) so I thought I would jazz it up by playing some royalty-free elevator music in the background. Ha. As if MovieMaker would let me. I had to splice up the audio files - having the music play at some points and the audio of the interview play at others. This maybe would have been an acceptable option if - that is IF - MovieMaker let me put in audio transitions. Now, I know that it is asking a lot of a program whose video transitions includes a star wipe, but please do me the courtesy of allowing me to fade audio in and out. That's all I want out of you. I don't need you to come up with some crazy audio version of the whirlwind or keyhole video transitions, I just want to be able to have the audio drop a few decibels before it cuts out. This may be achievable by cutting up the clips and making some quieter than others - but still. Would it kill MovieMaker to add that to its repertoire?
Okay, enough venting about MovieMaker (for now).
In the end, the video did not come out too horribly. All of the audio is comprehensible and the clips flow with relative ease. I hope that as time goes on I learn how to cope with MovieMaker's obvious defects, but for now, I just have to make do and secretly wish that one day I come into class and find 15 beautiful iMacs are awaiting me. Dream on, kid.
Here is the final product:
#206 Unidentified Drunken Injuries
12 years ago
Movie Maker, eh, it's clunky for someone experienced. Nobody would dispute that at all.
ReplyDeleteI'd say that in the meantime, while we work on more sophisticated ways to work with this stuff, there are other parts to the process that you can focus on that don't require better technology. Better questions in interviews, better scene setting, more imaginative sourcing and a broader way of thinking about what the news is. As you slowly add the tech tools you'll beef up your knowledge, and we will get you there. But it's the ability to be a reporter and see the story in wider ways that's going to carry you.
My motto is that it's always about the storytelling. Always. And in that arena you're coming along. Sometimes having a tougher tool focuses you on what you need to tell a great story, and so it's good you're not missing the chance here to hone those skills.