MediaStorm’s Ten Tips for Working With Music in Multimedia

Music is an all too frequently overlooked facet of multimedia production. In this ongoing series of tutorials to improve your multimedia, I'll explain 10 techniques that the MediaStorm team utilizes when working with music. First, though, a few definitions commonly used to describe musical attributes. Tempo: the speed of a musical composition, how fast or slow it's played. Timbre: the voice or sound of an instrument. A stringed instrument has a different timbre than a piano or a saxophone. Pitch: the frequency of a sound. Bass notes have a low pitch; the upper octaves of a piano produce a higher pitch. Rhythm: the variation in length between sounds and accents. Rhythm is often tapped onto a surface. 1. Decide whether to use music. If the music you've chosen is not exceptional, don't use it. Viewers need only a single small reason to stop watching your work; poor music is a big one.…

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MediaStorm documents Final Cut workflows for the Canon 5D Mark II and Nikon D300

Since its release, the Canon 5D Mark II has become the de facto video camera for many photojournalists. Despite some technical challenges, like the ability to follow focus and the low-fi built-in microphone, the visual quality is simply stunning. Prosumer video gear just can't touch its filmic look or depth-of-field. For examples, check out the gorgeous work of Jeff Hutchens and Nacho Corbella in the MediaStorm workshop project Hold Out. More recent workshop attendees Deanne Fitzmaurice and Doug Grant also used the 5D to beautiful effect in Family Kocktail. It's not hard to understand why the Canon 5D Mark II, and now the Nikon D300, have become so popular. But to make these files Final Cut Pro compliant there remain a number of technical hurdles. To help with this, MediaStorm has documented our workflow with each of these cameras in two separate PDFs. These documents detail the transcoding process in Compressor, demonstrate…

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MediaStorm’s Multiclip Workflow

One of the benefits of shooting two-camera interviews is the ability to cut between angles without having to use b-roll to cover an edit.

For an example of this technique see On the Road with Danny Wilcox Frazier, an interview with the Driftless photographer.

Final Cut syncs two-camera interviews by creating multiclips. Multiclips act as a sort of wrapper, bundling two or more angles into one clip so that you can seamlessly edit between them.

(NOTE: This workflow assumes that you have asked your subjects to clap their hands at the beginning of the interview as a way to sync your cameras during the editing process.)

The first step in editing a two-camera interview is to make sure both tapes will be in sync when you create the multiclip.

To do this, load the clip from the first camera angle into Final Cut’s Viewer.

Mark an IN point (I) at the first frame of your subject clapping. You may need to scrub
back and forth with the arrow keys to find it. On occasion, the visual may appear to be a frame or two off from the actual clap. Mark IN based on the sound, not the picture.

Repeat this process with your clip from the second camera angle. Mark an IN where you hear the clap here, too.

(more…)

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MediaStorm’s Advice to Multimedia Producers

After my last post, 10 Ways to Improve Your Multimedia Right Now, I thought it might be instructive to take a step back from technical issues and focus instead on some of the underlying ideas that help shape the production process at MediaStorm. The concepts below have been compiled by members of the MediaStorm team over the course of their careers. Most of these ideas will hold true whether you are creating multimedia in Final Cut Pro, iMovie, or Soundslides. Equipment Never update your hardware or software in the middle of a project. After you've completed your project, backup to a separate drive, then update. If Final Cut is behaving oddly, try deleting your preferences by using FCP Rescue or do it manually, using the instructions detailed in this previous blog post.    When building an editing suite, purchase the fastest computer, largest display, most accurate speakers, and the most comfortable chair…

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MediaStorm’s Ten Ways To Improve Your Multimedia Production Right Now

Often, as multimedia producers, we are given work to edit that others have created. Some things simply cannot be changed, like an out-of-focus photograph. But there are some things we can do right now to improve the work no matter how challenging the original assets may be. (Note: This list is not meant to be dogmatic. I've broken all these rules. They're offered as a suggested starting point.) 1. Don't use dissolves between images. As a general principal, these are unnecessary. 2. Avoid excessive pans and other Ken Burns-style effects. Animation on stills is effective only when done sparingly. These techniques should be a surprise like an exclamation point in literature. And as Elmore Leonard teaches, "You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose." So let's just say two still animation effects for every 10 minutes of your project. See Finding the Way Home for an…

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