It is the oddest thing to me that people will be willing to spend several thousand dollars for a high quality HD video camera and not even consider their audio needs. A video is not just about the picture, it’s also about the sound. People will endure poor video but they will not endure poor audio.  Remember the surprising smash hit “The Blair Witch Project.”

Television and Movie houses spend millions of dollars a year just to produce the right sound for their presentation. The Academy Awards honors Oscars to sound editing and sound mixing because audio is essential to quality video. The professionals know that in order to keep the audience around for the length of the program, it not only needs visually impressive shots, it also needs audio that puts the audience in the picture.

For the low budget videographer, church, or organization that is just starting to produce video, you must consider how you will capture your audio.  You have several options, but I want to suggest that you consider hand-held, shotgun/boom, or wireless lav mics for you audio needs. 

The hand-held microphones are the least expensive and provide quality sound.  They generally require that you be tethered to your camera or field audio mixer, but also come as wireless.   Many television news reporters have this type of setup.  The advantage is that you can purchase a mid quality hand held with cables at most any electronic store.  They are easy to acquire and use.  They are plug and play and simple to use for the audio novice.  The downside is that the microphone will most likely be in the shot because it needs to be close to the talent.

Shotgun mics are long microphones designed to acquire audio from a few feet away.  They allow the talent to speak and not have a microphone stuck in their face.  They are generally omni directional and will pickup sound 360 degrees.  The way around this is to purchase a shotgun mic that is directional and you can get better focus on the talent.

The best option, in my opinion, for the majority of audio needs, is wireless lav microphones.  The small lav microphone can be hidden under clothing, along your hair line, etc., so that it virtually disappears.  You have much more control over the audio and will generally get a nice feed from your talent.  You can use multiple microphones if you have multiple persons speaking and mix each feed individually.  They tend to be the higher priced of the three, but you can find good deals online or at your local audio/video store.

Videography is not just about pictures.  You must have good audio to keep your audience interested.  It is the combination of the picture and the audio that makes for a captivating and emotionally driven piece.  So, when you look to purchase equipment, make sure you consider your audio needs as well.

Growing up in Georgia, my dad made sure that I was a brain washed to be a true CHEVY man. He has a 1949 pickup that he bought when he was a teenager. All he has ever owned are Chevrolet’s. I don’t know why he has had such an affinity for the Chevrolet, but Fords were always portrayed as lemon’s. In our household Ford meant Fix Or Repair Daily. Is one really better than the other? I don’t know. All I know is that I now drive a Hyundai.

The debate over PC and Mac is pretty much the same as the debate over Chevy and Ford. Both platforms have applications that will do the job you want. Some variations exist in methodology, but they both work. Traditionally, the argument has been PC for office/home use and MAC for video/audio/graphic use. I don’t know if those divisions are all that valid anymore, the important thing to note is that technology never replaces creativity. And since they both have

I personally use both platforms. My PC is used to do all of my graphics and web work. I have a Sony Viao that I purchased a couple years ago for the purpose of video editing. I now use it exclusively for graphic work in Photoshop or web work with Dreamweaver. My MAC is used for all of my video production and post-production work.

In my opinion, with both platforms using the Intel chip, the real deciding factor rest more on applications and budget than platform. For video editing and post-production I prefer to use Final Cut. I like the fact that I can get all the applications I need in one bundle for such a great price. It is a growing in the television/film industry and taking alot of market share from AVID. Which means that it will be around for along time and it should get attention for updates and revisions to keep up with the direction television and film are moving.

There are several significant factors that seem to make this discussion fairly volatile and heated. We will engage in some of these issues to help you make a better decision when it comes to purchasing your hardware. The purchase of a computer for video production is going to be a significant cost, so it is wise to learn all you can before making that purchase.

In worship services all over the country, projectors are displaying the text of the song on large screens for the audience to view.  Most of these presentations use animated backgrounds to enhance the display.  There are several places that I would recommend you look when getting ready to acquire these animated backgrounds.

Digital Juice produces high quality backgrounds that have been packed in what they call Jumpbacks. They have over 50 different bundles to choose from each containing a wide array of backgrounds. They are packaged according to themes and are a high quality. They retail for $99, but are frequently on sale for much less. They are a great resource for your graphic needs.

Another quality source for animated backgrounds is Digital Hotcakes. They have an entire worship series of animated backgrounds. They are high quality products for about $49 per package. The one thing that Digital Hotcakes provides that is exciting is access to free backgrounds. The offer free downloads from their current inventory and they offer a free demo DVD containing several backgrounds.

In a few weeks we will be having a series of tutorials that will teach you how to use Apple’s Motion 3 program to create you own custom backgrounds. Motion is a high power application that is very user friendly. Keep looking for these tutorials coming soon.

A common mistake that many beginners make when starting the video editing process, is setting their capture catch to the wrong drive. I have encountered many newbies who have a massive hard drive and feel that they should put everything on their system drive. This is a mistake.

If you set your capture drive to be the same as your system drive, you take a tremendous risk with you media and project data. System drives have a tendency to crash or fail and if all your media resides on that same drive, you loose hours, days or months worth of work. NOT a good strategy.

This is why Apple suggest you set you Final Cut Express or Final Cut Pro capture scratch to a seperate drive. This can be achieved by setting a partition on your “massive drive” and putting the system files on one partition and let the other be used exclusively for media projects. A better solution is to have a second drive installed in your tower or an external drive connected via firewire.

To change your capture scratch in Final Cut Express and/or Final Cut Pro. Open the application and click Final Cut Express or Final Cut Pro, depending on the application you are using. Then click System Settings. A window with the Scratch Disk tab selected will appear.

System Settings - Final Cut Pro

Click the Set button at the top of the screen and select the drive you want to serve as your capture scratch. Make sure the Video Capture, Video Render, and Audio Render boxes are checked. Once you have have made the change, click OK and Final Cut will reset your capture scratch to the new drive.

Welcome to the new website of Media317.  We have made an attempt to make our site more valuable to our visitors.  You will find more information about what services we offer as well as tips and tutorials that should help you be a better video producer.  We want to help you and your organization make better productions.  If there are any tips, tutorials or discussions you would like for us present here at Media317, please feel free to let us know.