2/4/09

Julien and I recorded sound effects while Hannah and Camille imported what we shot on Monday. We have never had any experience on audio recording, so we set out to gain some experience by first grabbing the equipment for recording. We got a mike and a "sibilance eliminator"; setting up was straight-forward. We went to a room to record the sound effects by vocally producing them. The results were not of great importance, because the aim of the exercise was to get used to how and what to do in order to record audio.

We got back and joined with the rest of the group; Hannah was already in the process of cutting out the bad takes. As the aim of the exercise was to get everyone familiar with Final Cut Pro, I taught my group members how to add text over footage, move the text to a desired position in the frame, utilizing the "snap" feature for the timeline, isolating audio from clip (vice versa), the uses of "insert", "overwrite" and video/audio track management.

I tended to "hog" the computer when it came to editing, but I managed to let some of my teammates test out the things that I had taught them - at least for a while. Towards the end of the lesson, it boiled down to computer hogging again, as other members were conversing. I should have educated them and let them edit most of the footage.

At lunch, Julien and I went back to the multimedia lab to put the exported video into the dropbox. We then opened up FCP to attempt at color correction to make the footage look more professional. When we succeeded in doing so after a couple of minutes, a student asked me how to make the footage look professional. I was reluctant to tell him but showed him very briefly the steps to take to achieve the look. I was showing attitude; I later realized that I was unloading my passive anger on him, which was accumulated when I was "hogging" the computer. (I either hogged it and didn't give anyone the chance to edit, and as a result, other people started talking; or it was necessary for me to edit because other people were conversing. I still am not sure.) If I were not angry, I would still be reluctant to reveal the way to achieve the look. We had succeeded so quickly because I had spent a lot of time figuring things out in the past. Did the person really deserve to know the method without having to go through the steps which I've taken?

Anyway, for any student who is reading this blog (since it's public), here is the way to make your footage look more professional: Click on the "effects" tab and click on the "image control" and "color correction" folder. You'll see the Tint effect and the 3-Way Color Corrector. Apply them into the clip that you are editing, and click "Filters" then "Visual" under the 3-Way Color Corrector filter. You would want to slide the "Blacks" slide a little to the left to make the blacks, or any color that is close to black, darker. This increases the contrast of the shot without ruining the details of the "Mids" and "Whites". As for Tint, you can use it to create mood and atmosphere in a shot. Pick a color and play with the slider to adjust the amount of tint applied over the shot. If you have any problems, ask me.