Final Cut Pro basics 'cheat sheet'

As we're doing most of our work so far on Final Cut Pro, we've created 'cheat sheet' PowerPoint presentations outlining all the basics of editing using Final Cut. I did mine using screen shots to illustrate visually how to do each thing and I'm sure I'll be using this presentation to refer back to in future edits. Click here to see the presentation on Google Docs.

Creative Talk Radio

After handing in all our 5-minute radio show segments, when we came to class on Tuesday we were informed that we now had to split into two teams to put them all into one 45 minute radio programme that would be done as if it were being broadcast live - and we got about half an hour to plan it! All the planning, script writing, jingle and music track finding, everything was done, and then we went downstairs to record it live. It was...interesting at times, such as when the music channel messed up live, only playing the first 15 seconds of a music track before cutting to the next and spazzing back and forth for a bit, and a fire alarm going off during recording among other things. It was really fun though, despite the stress and pressure of getting something done in such a short amount of time. I enjoyed it overall. Here's the finished product:

Finished News Edit - Final Cut Pro

For this timed news edit assignment, we were given raw footage and an unedited voice over to put together a news package using Final Cut Pro. Here is the finished result:



You can download it here.


While there was added pressure in finishing this project due to it being timed, I found it easier to use Final Cut Pro and didn't seem to need to spend as much time trying to figure out the small but essential tricks of editing. It did take a long time trawling through all the material marking the segments, trying to find a good opening and ending (which the reporter didn't seem to think of when providing the voice over) and going through which parts were essential and which didn't need to be put in the finished edit, but using keyboard shortcuts such as j, k and l for rewinding, pausing and fast forwarding definitely helped cut that time shorter. I found that I was able to work my way through it steadily and finish it in time, although there were some problems with exporting it on my machine that caused it to take longer than it should have to put it up.

Overall I learned from it, as it seems Final Cut is a program that is learned from practice - the more you delve in and go for it, the easier it gets. Doing the 'cheat sheet' powerpoint presentation about all the aforementioned tricks of FCP definitely helped too, which I'm finishing at the moment and should be putting up in the next few days. It was an interesting assignment and I learned a lot from it, especially since journalism is a field I'd like to explore in the future.

Interview practice exercise + unused interview for radio show

For this exercise we practiced interviewing for our radio shows by interviewing each other and editing it. The subject was 'likes and loves' and we had Simon as the presenter interviewing me. Here is the finished interview:



I also have the unedited version of an interview of my brother-in-law Adam Rosenfeld, director of indie record label Men of Israel Records, that we were going to use for our radio show. However, as I listened back over it, I realised there wasn't anything in it really that would add to the programme, as our show went in a slightly different direction than we thought it would do in the beginning stages. Shame, but we had everything we needed already. The fact that he was in the middle of playing a game of Risk with his 6 year old son while trying to answer the questions over Skype at the same time [!] also made it a bit harder to get good answers from him (not to mention hearing a little voice come in from time to time asking what to do next...)!

You can download the unedited interview here.

Finished! Radio Show, of music and revolutions

We've finally finished our group project, a radio show discussing the reasons why music doesn't seem to be as revolutionary today as it has been in the past. Here is a summary of the finished product:

"In the programme we looked at the journey of musical revolutions and represented different views and opinions in the forms of interviews and vox pops. We included music from different eras and from today, ending it with the suggestion that perhaps there is revolutionary music today and that it is possible for music to become revolutionary once again."

Here is the finished product, you can also download it here.

Things we would have done differently if we could do it again:

1. Introduce the interviewees and Mandy as another presenter, explain their positions and why they are a legitimate source of knowledge in music history

2. Include more of an outro, probably something said by one of the presenters to tie it all together.

3. Leave more time for post-production! Make sure we leave room for circumstances beyond our control and err on the side of finishing early rather than getting it all done at the last minute.

Overall, this was a really fun project, interesting and enjoyable. Everyone on the team was involved more or less equally and contributed in every area. I enjoyed working in a team as it was easier to brainstorm for ideas, we had fun together and all contributed and played a part, and pulled off a project I think we can all learn from and be proud of the finished result.

Radio show progress - minutes, ideas for script

Minutes of radio show progress meeting on December 1st,
again written very enthusiastically (!) by Simon:

Meeting!!

Present: Mandy, Esther and Simon!!!
Date 1/12/09
Location: Gatehouse

Action point: Meet Friday following class to further post production. Possible meet on Monday if needed!!!

Action point: All members of group to bring their recordings/music to aid with Radio show!!

Mandy says do not check with Rich, Simon and Esther disagree … after much deliberation we find out that Mandy is correct.

Order Coles microphone for voice over.

Mandy and Simon post to blog the voxpops and edits already completed.

Esther to write out ideas for the script

In our meeting, we also created a storyboard-esque idea of the time frame and structure of our radio show using post-its, shown here:

This is so we can have a general idea of how to transition from one section into another, the order and the general duration of each to stay within the time limitations.

First, we will start with an introduction by our presenter, Simon.



Some ideas for the script:

[5 seconds of 'Hound Dog' by Elvis Presley, then lowered volume as Simon's voice comes in:]

Hello and welcome to -----! You're listening to Simon Partington and today we will be discussing music - why does it seem to not be as revolutionary today as it has been in the past?

Over the last century, music had the power to change cultures, overthrow society and define entire generations.

[blues/jazz music comes in, approx. 5 seconds then lowers volume as voice comes in]

Beginning with the jazz and blues movement in the '20s and '30s, music became a reflection of what the culture was going through at the time - liberation! Breaking free of the traditional, classical music, jazz music broke all the rules and was wild, fun, carefree. This is during the time that the liberation of women was taking place, the Allies were still high on victory from the 1st World War and the economy was booming. The music of the time galvanised the young, shocked the older and the more traditional and became the turning point of modern music as we know it.

[rock and roll music, approx. 5 seconds then lowers volume as voice comes in]

Then came the 50's - the beginning of rock and roll.

[part of mandy's interviewee's rant about rock and roll]

[talk about the Beatles, 'free love' revolution - All you need is love by the Beatles in background?]

(for the rest, need to hear the interviews and base script around what is already said in them but have a general idea of what to say.)

Deconstructing a News Package

For our project doing a news edit, to prepare we were told to deconstruct a news package to illustrate the conventions of news editing. I found the following was typical in a news package, taken from a 3:15 minute example shown below:



Intro by news reader, about 20 seconds

Video with voice over by reporter, about 20 seconds
(each clip lasts about 2-5 seconds)

Reporter speaking on location, about 20 seconds

Video with voice over by reporter, intro-ing person in interview, about 15 seconds
(each clip lasts about 2-5 seconds)

Interviewer, personal response: about 25 seconds

More video with reporter voice over, introing next expert interview, about 10 seconds
(each clip lasts about 2-5 seconds)

Interview with expert, about 10 seconds

Video/voice over of reporter: about 15 seconds

Interview with expert, about 10 seconds

Video/voice over of reporter, outro: about 15 - 20 seconds (5 seconds for name of reporter, name of news institution, and location.)

Vox popping time!

The term Vox Pops comes from the Latin phrase 'Vox Populi', meaning the voice of the people. A technique often used in broadcasting, news programs, radio shows and podcasts, a vox pop is a sound byte of a person, usually picked at random, giving their opinion on a question asked by the presenter. It is a way of presenting differing opinions on a topic from a diverse range of sources, and is a technique that we will be using for our radio show on Revolutions and Music.

To practice collecting vox pops and getting over the nerve wracking process of approaching complete strangers to ask a question that to them would seem completely random, we were sent out last Tuesday to get vox pops of young people's opinions on poetry. After getting over the initial awkwardness, we started approaching people more easily and were able to get many varying opinions on whether poetry is relevant to young people today. We then uploaded all the vox pops and edited them using Logic Pro, here is the result:

vox pops 1.mp4

We also went out today to collect vox pops for our radio show, asking people on the street in the city centre questions such as favourite genre of music and what their opinion is on why music doesn't seem to be as revolutionary today as it has been in the past. The exercise definitely helped, in that we knew what we were getting into and made us more relaxed and confidant in asking the questions. We also were surprised at how many people really did have opinions and weren't afraid or nervous in sharing them, resulting in a lot of varying answers and viewpoints that we will definitely be using in our show.

Soundscape - A journey through cultures.

My idea for a soundscape was to create a journey through different cultures through sound, resulting in this finished product.

Soundscapes.mp3

You can download it here.

I used GarageBand to make this as that is the audio editing program I own and have used before. Through this project I actually learned a lot of skills that can also be used in Logic, etc, such as using audio control points to fade in and out of tracks and using effects and filters to enhance the sound. Here is a photo of the process:


When I first began this assignment I found it was a lot harder than I thought it would be to collect recordings of sounds of other cultures being stuck in one city in southwest England. Eventually though, using mainly my own recordings of buskers, transportation, etc but also some samples/loops and sound effects from GarageBand, I was able to find some ethnic sounds and music and sounds of transportation to evoke the feeling of going on a journey. There were also some bits where I recorded myself, such as the middle-eastern-sounding singing at 1:40.

Using sounds of western culture for the first 45 seconds, including church bells and a childrens choir that were singing 'Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye' (thought it was fitting) on the street one day, then transitioning through the sounds of transportation (a train, then an airplane taking off) to the sounds of crickets, African drums and singing, and so on, I wanted to create an atmosphere of traveling around the world and experiencing different cultures through sound. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the project and learned a lot through it.

Found film montage exercise - Panorama Ephemera

This exercise was based on American film maker Bruce Connor's work. Bruce Connor was known for making film montages using found footage, and in this exercise we used Final Cut Pro to make our own interpretation of a song he used for one of his montages, America is Waiting by Brian Eno and David Byrne (of American new wave band Talking Heads). We used footage from a film called Panorama Ephemera made by Rick Prelinger.


For some reason, when I uploaded this onto Vimeo the uploaded video contained a lot of footage I never intended to be in it and also cut the music short. The actual quicktime video before I uploaded it didn't have these problems, so I have no idea what could have caused it, but here it is:

Untitled from Esther Ridings on Vimeo.

This exercise was useful but a bit frustrating at times, as there were a lot of problems with FCP that had to be dealt with that also might have been the cause for the issues showing up once I uploaded it. That said, those problems themselves provided knowledge of troubleshooting that might be useful in the future. I was glad for the practice, as I've never used FCP or done any film editing of any sort before, having always focused more on the photography and journalism aspect of media. I've found it interesting to learn though and I'm sure I'll be using more of it in the future.

Interview for radio show + progress and minutes

As part of our radio show exploring the reasons for music not being as revolutionary today as it has been in the past, we've decided to interview some contacts in the music industry to get some professional insight. My interviewee is my brother-in-law, Adam Rosenfeld, who is a recording artist, a music producer and CEO of Men of Israel Records. Here is a sample of questions I'm planning to ask him:

How long have you been in the music business?

What are the reasons you decided to switch to completely digital music release and distribution?

How do you think the advent of the digital age affects music production/consumerism today?

Do you think that the quality of music has changed over the years? If so, how?

In your opinion, what are the possible reasons you think music is not as revolutionary today as it has been in the past?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apart from this, we've all been looking for samples of music and sound bytes to use for the radio show - Mandy is looking up songs from the dance/rave movement, Simon's looking for samples of songs from the rock and roll revolution such as Elvis, the Beatles, etc, and I'm looking for samples of music (punk, etc) that made political statements and were the voice of the generation at that time. An example of this is the anti-war song by Edwin Starr, called War:



During our last team meeting, we took the 'minutes', with Simon noting (very enthusiastically) the action points, ideas, and estimated timeline for our project:

Present: Esther, Mandy and Simon J

Location: Gatehouse Bath Spa Date: 10/11/09

Action point!!!!!! Each group member finds samples of music which they think is suitable for our production

Simon – Elvis music
Esther – Political music – punk, protest

Mandy – Trance/Dance

Mandy says she has found a thing on her blog about punk philosophy

How do you think the advent of a digital age affects music production and consumerism today? – Technical dudes!!! – Esther’s bro, Si’s producers, Mandy’s music guy and lecturer

ACTION POINT!!!! Mandy e-mail lecturer!!! Esther e-mail Bro!!!!!! Si talk to producers!!!!

Is the quality of music to blame for no music revolution? – General public, music students – VOX POP TIME! – 2 weeks time

Favourite genre of music question – good suggestion Esther!

ACTION POINT!!! – Mandy book Mirans and boom mic for Thursday 19^th

ACTION POINT!!! – Book gatehouse for 25^th Nov for post production

ACTION POINT!!! – Simon – Album sales, Mandy – Internet uploads, Esther – Live music

Timeline –

- 19^th November meet in City centre for vox popping

- 20^th November all recordings complete

- 25^th November Gate house – 10:00

- 4^th December Post production complete

Radio Show!...of music and revolutions

The theme of our radio show is:
Why is music not as revolutionary today as it was in the past?

The assignment was for us to split up into teams and write, direct and produce a 5-minute radio show on a subject of our choice. Along with Mandy and Simon, we first had the idea to do a broader theme of how music affects culture, going through the last century of music movements, such as the jazz and blues era, rock and roll, punk and ending with dance/rave music. Through this we wanted to illustrate how music was instrumental in many of the cultural revolutions of the last century and had the power to shift mindsets and paradigms on a massive scale, as well as how, or if music could have the same effect on culture today.

However. We soon realised with Mike's help that the idea, although one that we all were interested in, was more of a series than a 5-minute radio segment and we decided it would be best to narrow down the field. As we were brainstorming we realised that the main idea we were wanting to put across was that music has caused entire culture revolutions in the past - why doesn't it seem to do so on the same scale today?

This is the discussion we want to put forward in our radio show, exploring different possibilities and raising questions as to what's changed. We thought of two main possible reasons that we decided to focus the show on; first, could it be because of technology and the possibility of instant access to any song of any sort of music rather than one genre of music defining a decade and entire generations as it has in the past; or the second, is it because the quality of music has deteriorated to the point where it's simply not as good, becoming too formulaic rather than new, revolutionary sounds packed with meaning?

The way we'll do this is by first establishing how music revolutionised culture in the past by giving examples such as The Beatles and their role in bringing about the hippie/free love revolution. We would then interview people in the music industry world, music students and professors and balance it with vox pops of people on the street to get as many opinions as possible, as well as people who might have lived through and been part of a music revolution in the past. We would ask questions such as:

1. How do you think the advent of the digital age affects music production/consumerism today?

or

2. In your opinion, has the quality of music changed over the years? If so, how?

...and so on. We would also want to use sound bites of interviews that revolutionary music artists have done themselves and samples of songs that had enough influence to change the mindset of an entire generation, contrasting them with songs from today. We would want to end by leaving the question lingering in people's minds: Why isn't music as powerful in causing massive-scale revolutions today as it has proven to be in the past?

Photo Montage - Modern Day Slavery

I decided to do my photo montage along a theme of issues of social justice, especially modern day slavery as this is a subject I feel passionate about. I used excerpts of three songs, "Beloved (Thievery Corporation remix)" by Anoushka Shankar, "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime" by Beck, and "The Earth Will Shake" by the band Thrice. Using the narrative effect of combining images, I used photos of people that I've taken over the last few years of traveling through some of the countries most affected by human trafficking and modern day slavery. I also found some archival photos of slavery, to contrast what we know as slavery to the modern form happening today that most people know nothing about. Links to found photos below.

Untitled from Esther Ridings on Vimeo.

Contrast - human

Animal

Slave family

African Slaves

Handcuffs

Oxen

Slave advert - 1829

Modern Slavery - BBC News

Proposal for soundscape

My proposal for a soundscape is based on the second type of soundscape in Barry Truax's paper, the moving soundscape. It is also influenced by the opening sequence of Orson Welle's film Touch of Evil, where the sounds followed a couple walking through crowded streets, with changing music and sound effects to create the effect of a journey using sound, shown below:



I would like to create a journey through cultures using sounds, contrasting western and eastern cultures - perhaps starting in an urban, western environment using sounds of traffic, buskers, trains, and then a sound of an airplane taking off, transitioning into soundmarks and traditional music such as folk dancing, chanting, singing, etc from cultures all across the globe.

To do this I would use sound bites filmed from my own travels or those of friends, record sound founds such as traffic or footsteps, perhaps use found sound bites on the internet if copyright laws allow and try to find international experiences in the city to record the music and sounds of different cultures.

The point of this would be to signify a journey across the globe, experiencing and creating the illusion of being immersed in different cultures through sound.

3 Russians and the impact they made on the world of film.

Sergio Eisenstein - Master 'Montageur' (<- his word.)

Sergio Mikhailovich Eisenstein, born in Riga, Latvia on January 23rd, 1898, was what many consider to be a pioneer in the type of film editing known as montage.

A montage is essentially a series of images put together in quick succession within film. Eisenstein saw it as a 'linkage' or 'collision' of related images to manipulate the emotions of the audience and create film metaphors.

Eisenstein developed 5 methods of montage that are still widely used in film editing today:

1. Metric. This is a form of montage based on a specific amount of images all edited according to an amount of time allotted for each, despite anything that might be happening within the image. This is the most basic form of montage and is used to elicit the most emotional reactions from an audience.

2. Rhythmic. Still using time-based cutting, the rhythmic montage uses the visual content and change of speed of metric cuts to induce more complex meanings than can be done through metric.

3. Tonal. This uses the emotional meaning of images to elicit certain emotional reactions for the audience to imply a still more complex meaning than either metric or rhythmic.

4. Overtone/Associational. This combines the three aforementioned methods of montage - metric, rhythmic and tonal - to create an abstract and still more complex effect.

5. Intellectual. This method juxtaposes certain images together to imply a metaphor or to add significance. For example, shown below is an excerpt from Eisenstein's film Strike, where a shot of a group of workers being attacked is immediately followed by a shot of a bull being slaughtered, implying that the workers were being treated like cattle.
(for some reason the embed option on youtube isn't working, but you can go to the link here).

Lev Kuleshov - A Differing Montage Theorist

Although Eisenstein is perhaps the most well known leader in Soviet montage theory, it was Lev Kuleshov, born January 1st, 1899 in Tambov, Russia that first used the word 'montage' in relation to film editing. Kuleshov helped establish and taught at the world's first film school, the Moscow Film School, and briefly had Eisenstein as one of his pupils and clearly played a role in Eisenstein developing as a film maker. However, their views of montage film editing differed greatly and created two schools of thought.

According to an article written by Kuleshov in 1917, he wrote his mindset on film editing: "...to make a picture the director must compose the separate filmed fragments, disordered and disjointed, into a single whole and juxtapose these separate fragments into a more advantageous, integral and rhythmical sequence, just as a child constructs a whole word or phrase from separate scattered blocks of letters." He saw montage film editing as a way of joining together the images to create linkage and harmony between them, rather than how Eisenstein used montage as a way of creating conflict and collision.

Kuleshov was known for his experimenting using montage to elicit different interpretations of the same shot, known as the Kuleshov effect. He would take the same image, eg a man's face, but by juxtaposing it with differing images the audience would interpret the emotions of the man according to the shot that linked the two together. For example, when juxtaposed with a shot of a bowl of soup, the emotion became hunger; with a girl, desire; and a coffin, the same exact expression would be interpreted as one of grief.

Dziga Vertov - Cinéma vérité

Dziga Vertov, born January 2nd, 1896, was considered a pioneer in documentary film making and paved the way for a form of documentary known as Cinéma vérité. This term, French for 'cinema of truth', was taken from Vertov's documentary series done in the 1920s, Kino-Pravda (Russian for 'truth of the cinema'). He refers to as a way of getting to a 'hidden truth' by juxtaposing a series of images, usually with provocative stance taken towards its subjects.

A quote from Vertov:

"Our eyes see very little and very badly – so people dreamed up the microscope to let them see invisible phenomena; they invented the telescope…now they have perfected the cinecamera to penetrate more deeply into he visible world, to explore and record visual phenomena so that what is happening now, which will have to be taken account of in the future, is not forgotten.

—Provisional Instructions to Kino-Eye Groups, Dziga Vertov, 1926

Soundscapes

What is a soundscape? This somewhat vague term refers to a composition made to invoke an atmosphere or a mood, drawing together found sounds from nature, mechanical and industrial sounds, music, urban sounds and wildlife sounds from across the world. The finished piece, rather than being a musical track, is meant to be one that creates atmosphere instead and immerses the listener in recreated or imaginary surroundings.

Composers of soundscapes can also use abstract, electronic sounds and speaking, such as poetry or dramatic prose from literature. Listen to an example of composer Barry Truix using such methods here, in his piece titled Song of Songs ("Afternoon").


The man who introduced the concept of soundscapes, Raymond Murray Schafer (pictured above), broke the term down into 3 key elements:

• Keynote sounds: This sound, though not always audible, identifies the key of the piece and is the sound that draws all other sounds together.
• Sound signals: These are the sounds in the foreground that are consciously heard throughout the piece.
  
• Soundmark: Just as a landmark, a soundmark is a sound that is unique and can be used in identifying or recognising a certain place.
  

One example of a soundscape showing soundmarks of specific places is this video by Electric Beats, directed by Ace Norton.

Voice Over Edit

This was my first assignment, to edit a voice over to play perfectly and to make it sound completely natural. Click here to download the finished product, or you can listen to it here.

esther voice over2.mp3

There were a few different programs we could use to do the audio editing, including Logic, Soundtrack Pro and GarageBand. I decided to use GarageBand as I've used it in the past, and found it effective in editing, cutting and pasting audio files.

First of all, we had to listen through the unedited voice over and distinguish which takes were best on parts where the speaker stumbled, stuttered or changed the pace. The first thing I did was listen through, and when I would come to a place where there was a mistake, I would use the Track Editor and zoom tool to find the exact area to delete. I would then select the specific area with the zoom set to extreme close up in order to make the most accurate cuts, without taking out any needed pause or time between sentences.


Here is a photo from the process, done using GarageBand:



After deleting the specific area where there was a mistake, I would then zoom out to find the correct take, and use the the mouse to click and drag the correct sound piece to match up with the one prior, paying attention to pace and natural pause to try to leave room and make it sound as natural as possible. One of the things we had to make sure would not happen would be for there to be a 'double breath', a common mistake in editing audio voice overs. To do this I listened over the edited area afterward, and had to to use the zoom to extreme close up of the sound waves to distinguish exactly which spike in the sound wave indicated the noise of taking in a breath before speaking. While it is natural for a speaker to intake a deep breath before speaking, I had to make sure that I didn't take away from the natural sound of it while making sure that only one intake of breath would be heard so that the place of edit would be unnoticeable and sound as natural as possible.


After finishing editing the voice over, I then downloaded a program called 'The Levelator', a program that automatically adjusts the levels within an uploaded audio file to give a more finished, polished end product.