The remarkable creatures of Australia have fascinated me for most of my life. I was delighted years ago when Dirck Halstead embraced the duck-billed platypus as the principle icon in his crusade for still photographers to diversify their skills and learn the ways of video. The lure of his Platypus Workshop is learning how to use new, more effective tools for story telling in preparation for becoming producers rather than mere photographers.
Personal websites, blogging and podcasting now make the possibility of self-publishing available to anyone. Newspaper photographers simply don't need the structure of a newspaper any more in order to publish their work. The opportunity to produce ones own stories in new ways, however, presents ethical challenges for the photojournalist grounded in familiar journalistic standards and editorial hierarchy. The one-man-band multimedia journalist becomes responsible for adapting old journalistic standards to new forms of telling stories.
What comes to mind is an argument between a parrot and a lyrebird.
The lyrebird is an Australian bird of near mythic musical powers. Among all the birds of the world, there is no more accomplished mimic than the lyrebird. Its song – unique to each lyrebird – is comprised of the many, varied sounds in its environment, which each lyrebird combines and recombines and weaves into a new sensibility. The lyrebird literally gives meaning to what it hears. Its song, in effect, tells the stories of its community.
We all know what a parrot is. The parrot is the reporter in us all. The parrot is the bird that keeps repeating in our ear: "Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy." Reporting is a discipline built upon accuracy. Story telling, on he other hand, is an art form, and the lyrebird is the artist in us. This is the bird that uses its own ear to pick and choose from what it hears in its perception of the story. This is the bird that makes sense of it all for the rest of us.
That’s what audio editing should accomplish. It should make as much sense to the ear as photo editing makes sense to the eye.
There is a fundamental conflict of interest between rote reporting and story telling. There is a dialectic tug of war between the duty to adhere to documentary accuracy and the impulse to interpret. Both birds are necessary in the production of multimedia journalism, but they are not the same, the parrot and the lyrebird. They have different roles. Sometimes that is the difference between accuracy and truth.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Crossng the line . . . wherever that is
I’m comfortable with all but a few decisions I made editing the audio story for the slide show production of “Chalk," but in at least one or two instances I think I crossed a line between journalism and everything else.
Since completing the production, I’ve managed to find very few specific sets of guidelines on the Internet for the ethics of audio editing. Having read everything I can find now makes me wonder what I was thinking with some of these decisions. Evidently, I was thinking more about how to achieve effective story telling in an unfamiliar medium, rather than transferring familiar standards of responsible reporting. The issue isn’t a question of trade offs between the two, but of telling a story in any medium in the right way.
Case #1 – “Chalk is such an easy medium to embrace “
In “Truth in audio” posted on the website Teaching Online Journalism, Mindy McAdams offers the same cardinal rule for audio editing as for written journalism: Never change the meaning of what the person said.
In my interview with the chalk festival chairman I asked what the appeal about chalk was for young and old alike. She started talking about its use by children and went on to explain how the appeal of the chalk festival itself was its primary purpose in having fun. The original segment [click boldface type to listen] lasted 53 seconds, which I cut in half for the production segment. Part of what I cut out was the context of her wonderful, lyrical pronunciation of the word “chalk." However, by dropping out her specific reference to children, I generalized the meaning of her statement to apply chalk’s appeal to everyone, young and old.
Case #2 – Cutting to the bone or beyond?
On the website for The Canadian Journalism Project, Mary McGuire provides more specific applications for audio editing in her article “Ethical guidelines for editing audio.” In her view, it’s okay to cut out most forms of “verbal stalling,” reiterations, and subordinate clauses. It’s okay, according to her, to make edits that help someone sound sharper, tighter and clearer.
In the interview the chairman spent a full minute talking about the event’s growth. I cut the original segment – complete with stalls, reiterations and unfinished sentences – down to less than 15 seconds for the production segment. I left the selected parts in their original order and hopefully preserved their context and meaning, but just where do you draw the line before the cutting becomes excessive?
Case #3 – Shuffling for effect
Not only did I cut down the original segment of the chairman’s reply to my question about the next day’s weather, I shifted parts of her response around her laughter to give a more ironic edge to her reply in the production segment. I have genuine schism over whether this juggling was ethical, because it clearly improved the audio, even though nothing was added. Only the order of the components was changed, but did this change also shift the meaning of what she said, however subtle? If this were a photo, I’d know my ethical limits. You don’t shift pyramids in order to improve the composition of an image. With audio, I’m not so certain about the rules on rearrangements.
Case #4 – A little background music
On the website Pointeronline, Al Tompkins lays down one unequivocal rule in his article “Sliding Sound, Altered Images.” His first edict for audio editing is utterly simple: Do not add. He further cautions against the use of music in journalistic productions if the music was not ambient sound gathered at the same time and place of the story.
I recorded the guitarist playing at the chalk festival, knowing the music might make good a unifying background for the entire production. I added this music track as one more layer of audio for the production, and even had to loop it out to the production length of two and a half minutes, due to its original recording length of only one minute and six seconds. I don’t know what the rules are for the use of ambient sound as imposed background, much less the sort of manipulation involved to make it fit my production needs.
It seems to me that ethical grounding for audio editing is even more important to those of us learning the ropes of audio-driven slide show production than for those learning video production, because we have to start by producing an audio story before adding visuals. Without firm guidelines, the temptation to manipulate audio in the editing process will prove as seductive as the opportunity to “improve” images in Photoshop in our early days of going digital.
I was not surprised to discover that the only audio file I could find posted by the National Press Photographers Association on its website from the 2007 Summit multimedia immersion workshop is the panel discussion on the complex ethical issues emerging from newspaper photojournalism’s transition into multimedia journalism. Nor was the significance lost on me that the one-hour-and-13-minute audio recording was posted in its entirety – unedited.
Since completing the production, I’ve managed to find very few specific sets of guidelines on the Internet for the ethics of audio editing. Having read everything I can find now makes me wonder what I was thinking with some of these decisions. Evidently, I was thinking more about how to achieve effective story telling in an unfamiliar medium, rather than transferring familiar standards of responsible reporting. The issue isn’t a question of trade offs between the two, but of telling a story in any medium in the right way.
Case #1 – “Chalk is such an easy medium to embrace “
In “Truth in audio” posted on the website Teaching Online Journalism, Mindy McAdams offers the same cardinal rule for audio editing as for written journalism: Never change the meaning of what the person said.
In my interview with the chalk festival chairman I asked what the appeal about chalk was for young and old alike. She started talking about its use by children and went on to explain how the appeal of the chalk festival itself was its primary purpose in having fun. The original segment [click boldface type to listen] lasted 53 seconds, which I cut in half for the production segment. Part of what I cut out was the context of her wonderful, lyrical pronunciation of the word “chalk." However, by dropping out her specific reference to children, I generalized the meaning of her statement to apply chalk’s appeal to everyone, young and old.
Case #2 – Cutting to the bone or beyond?
On the website for The Canadian Journalism Project, Mary McGuire provides more specific applications for audio editing in her article “Ethical guidelines for editing audio.” In her view, it’s okay to cut out most forms of “verbal stalling,” reiterations, and subordinate clauses. It’s okay, according to her, to make edits that help someone sound sharper, tighter and clearer.
In the interview the chairman spent a full minute talking about the event’s growth. I cut the original segment – complete with stalls, reiterations and unfinished sentences – down to less than 15 seconds for the production segment. I left the selected parts in their original order and hopefully preserved their context and meaning, but just where do you draw the line before the cutting becomes excessive?
Case #3 – Shuffling for effect
Not only did I cut down the original segment of the chairman’s reply to my question about the next day’s weather, I shifted parts of her response around her laughter to give a more ironic edge to her reply in the production segment. I have genuine schism over whether this juggling was ethical, because it clearly improved the audio, even though nothing was added. Only the order of the components was changed, but did this change also shift the meaning of what she said, however subtle? If this were a photo, I’d know my ethical limits. You don’t shift pyramids in order to improve the composition of an image. With audio, I’m not so certain about the rules on rearrangements.
Case #4 – A little background music
On the website Pointeronline, Al Tompkins lays down one unequivocal rule in his article “Sliding Sound, Altered Images.” His first edict for audio editing is utterly simple: Do not add. He further cautions against the use of music in journalistic productions if the music was not ambient sound gathered at the same time and place of the story.
I recorded the guitarist playing at the chalk festival, knowing the music might make good a unifying background for the entire production. I added this music track as one more layer of audio for the production, and even had to loop it out to the production length of two and a half minutes, due to its original recording length of only one minute and six seconds. I don’t know what the rules are for the use of ambient sound as imposed background, much less the sort of manipulation involved to make it fit my production needs.
It seems to me that ethical grounding for audio editing is even more important to those of us learning the ropes of audio-driven slide show production than for those learning video production, because we have to start by producing an audio story before adding visuals. Without firm guidelines, the temptation to manipulate audio in the editing process will prove as seductive as the opportunity to “improve” images in Photoshop in our early days of going digital.
I was not surprised to discover that the only audio file I could find posted by the National Press Photographers Association on its website from the 2007 Summit multimedia immersion workshop is the panel discussion on the complex ethical issues emerging from newspaper photojournalism’s transition into multimedia journalism. Nor was the significance lost on me that the one-hour-and-13-minute audio recording was posted in its entirety – unedited.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Workflow for editing "Chalk"
Since no one has yet written a playbook for multimedia production, it seemed worthwhile to keep notes on the work flow that evolved in the production of “Chalk.”
By now I've viewed dozens upon dozens of sound/slide shows on the Internet and most of them are forgettable. I didn't even finish viewing a lot of them, brief as they were. Mostly it came down to the difference between an audio-driven slide show and slide shows with sound. The difference depended upon good editing, starting with audio. In fact, that seems to be the primary difference between newspaper work and multimedia work. With the slide show you start by thinking how you can tell the story, and THEN you think about what you are showing.
• Rough cuts – I began my audio editing by organizing the converted files into separate interviews (one per artist and one long interview with the chairman) and supporting files (registration and two different guitar numbers). The basic idea was to break up the long narrative interview with brief interludes from some of the artists. I then opened the chairman interview in Audacity and cut out everything I knew I would not go into the production, leaving silent gaps in between the usable material. I made similar cuts on the artist interviews and supporting files, eliminating some of the less promising interviews.
• Content tags – To the several Audacity files I added Label Tracks, noting the content topic under each audio segment. Once I figured out the editorial value of tagging, I stopped wasting time trying to transcribe audio during the editing process. Instead, I started tagging audio segments as part of the rough-cut process.
• Project file – Once all the audio resource material was prepared, I opened a blank project file and saved it with a working title.
• Assembly of story segments – I started the production by importing the registration segment. Even before beginning to edit the chalkfest material, I had both my opening and ending in mind, as I had for “School of Rock.” Knowing where you’re going to start and where you’re going to wind up makes story editing so much easier! I recorded several people registering for their sidewalk space as the obvious place to begin coverage on the day of the event, but not until the next day's rain did I have my ending. I knew the irony of the rain had to be covered in the follow-up interview, so I planned the interview questions accordingly. Switching from staff photographer to multimedia producer meant learning to think as an editor from the start of coverage to conclusion of the production.
• Story tags – I added a Label Track to the project file to keep track of the story development until the basic storyline was completed. Without the story tags in the development of “School of Rock,” I was constantly having to relisten to segments or refer to handwritten notes to remind myself where I was in the storyline development.
• Additional audio tracks – In the “School of Rock” audio story, I added a parallel track fading additional segments in and out of the main storyline, rolling from one to another. In “Chalk” I wanted more separation between the separate components. For continuity I used music recorded at the festival, which went on a separate Audio Track. Rather than use an identifiable song, I used melody-free music that could serve as background for the entire length of the production, fading down beneath the various speakers and back up between the segments.
• Trim & fine tuning – With “Chalk” it proved more expedient to wait until the basic storyline was assembled before making any serious effort to trim and fine tune individual audio segments. It was the trimming and fine-tuning decisions that proved most problematic in terms of the journalistic protocol involved in audio editing. As with the audio notes edited from the seminar, I had no firm guidelines for what was allowable within journalistic standards. (Perhaps specific instances can be addressed in a future blog entry.)
• Transcription – Unless the success of the production depends on precise coordination of visual content with the audio storyline, it shouldn’t be necessary to fully transcribe the audio before assembling images for a slide show. I felt this was necessary for “Chalk.” The best means I found was adding the transcription to the project story tags in the Label Track. I exported the expanded Label Track to a text file, which included the exact timing of each entry in the audio track, and then transferred the text file into an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet gave me the advantage of calculating time segments. With this precise audio log I could start assembling my images.
• Assembly of images – Editing images for a slide show is quite different than for a photo layout. Instead of developing a visual story in terms of spatial relationships, you are assembling a linear progression complete with transitions. And then there is the sheer volume of images involved in producing a slide show. For “Chalk” I had nearly 300 images to edit. I started by separating the images into categories to correspond with the story segments, each divided by a blackout. I composed the title and credit frames in Photoshop, selecting a suitable typeface. The last step in assembly was to number the individual frames in their order of appearance and place them in one folder.
• Soundslides – The real value in this $40 program is its simplicity: Import the Audacity project saved as an mp3 file and then import the folder of numbered jpegs. The program presents a storyboard of your production that allows you to adjust the order and timing of individual images, as well as the type of transition between the images. For an additional $30 you can go “Pro” and add the spiffy Ken Burns movements, among other features.
• Final production format – Instead, I opted to buy the additional Video Plugin ($20) that allows you to Export a Soundslides production in the Quicktime format. Ironically, the video plugin can’t capture any of the additional Ken Burns movements you pay for in the Pro version of Soundslides, but the advantage of converting to one self-contained file in a widely popular format outweighed that limitation. [UPDATE: Since producing "Chalk" I actually read the entire manual for Soundslides. Not only does Exporting to the Soundslides publish_to_web preserve the integrity of your production (including the Pro features), the total files amount to less than half the size of the one Quicktime file and typically runs much more smoothly online.]
By now I've viewed dozens upon dozens of sound/slide shows on the Internet and most of them are forgettable. I didn't even finish viewing a lot of them, brief as they were. Mostly it came down to the difference between an audio-driven slide show and slide shows with sound. The difference depended upon good editing, starting with audio. In fact, that seems to be the primary difference between newspaper work and multimedia work. With the slide show you start by thinking how you can tell the story, and THEN you think about what you are showing.
• Rough cuts – I began my audio editing by organizing the converted files into separate interviews (one per artist and one long interview with the chairman) and supporting files (registration and two different guitar numbers). The basic idea was to break up the long narrative interview with brief interludes from some of the artists. I then opened the chairman interview in Audacity and cut out everything I knew I would not go into the production, leaving silent gaps in between the usable material. I made similar cuts on the artist interviews and supporting files, eliminating some of the less promising interviews.
• Content tags – To the several Audacity files I added Label Tracks, noting the content topic under each audio segment. Once I figured out the editorial value of tagging, I stopped wasting time trying to transcribe audio during the editing process. Instead, I started tagging audio segments as part of the rough-cut process.
• Project file – Once all the audio resource material was prepared, I opened a blank project file and saved it with a working title.
• Assembly of story segments – I started the production by importing the registration segment. Even before beginning to edit the chalkfest material, I had both my opening and ending in mind, as I had for “School of Rock.” Knowing where you’re going to start and where you’re going to wind up makes story editing so much easier! I recorded several people registering for their sidewalk space as the obvious place to begin coverage on the day of the event, but not until the next day's rain did I have my ending. I knew the irony of the rain had to be covered in the follow-up interview, so I planned the interview questions accordingly. Switching from staff photographer to multimedia producer meant learning to think as an editor from the start of coverage to conclusion of the production.
• Story tags – I added a Label Track to the project file to keep track of the story development until the basic storyline was completed. Without the story tags in the development of “School of Rock,” I was constantly having to relisten to segments or refer to handwritten notes to remind myself where I was in the storyline development.
• Additional audio tracks – In the “School of Rock” audio story, I added a parallel track fading additional segments in and out of the main storyline, rolling from one to another. In “Chalk” I wanted more separation between the separate components. For continuity I used music recorded at the festival, which went on a separate Audio Track. Rather than use an identifiable song, I used melody-free music that could serve as background for the entire length of the production, fading down beneath the various speakers and back up between the segments.
• Trim & fine tuning – With “Chalk” it proved more expedient to wait until the basic storyline was assembled before making any serious effort to trim and fine tune individual audio segments. It was the trimming and fine-tuning decisions that proved most problematic in terms of the journalistic protocol involved in audio editing. As with the audio notes edited from the seminar, I had no firm guidelines for what was allowable within journalistic standards. (Perhaps specific instances can be addressed in a future blog entry.)
• Transcription – Unless the success of the production depends on precise coordination of visual content with the audio storyline, it shouldn’t be necessary to fully transcribe the audio before assembling images for a slide show. I felt this was necessary for “Chalk.” The best means I found was adding the transcription to the project story tags in the Label Track. I exported the expanded Label Track to a text file, which included the exact timing of each entry in the audio track, and then transferred the text file into an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet gave me the advantage of calculating time segments. With this precise audio log I could start assembling my images.
• Assembly of images – Editing images for a slide show is quite different than for a photo layout. Instead of developing a visual story in terms of spatial relationships, you are assembling a linear progression complete with transitions. And then there is the sheer volume of images involved in producing a slide show. For “Chalk” I had nearly 300 images to edit. I started by separating the images into categories to correspond with the story segments, each divided by a blackout. I composed the title and credit frames in Photoshop, selecting a suitable typeface. The last step in assembly was to number the individual frames in their order of appearance and place them in one folder.
• Soundslides – The real value in this $40 program is its simplicity: Import the Audacity project saved as an mp3 file and then import the folder of numbered jpegs. The program presents a storyboard of your production that allows you to adjust the order and timing of individual images, as well as the type of transition between the images. For an additional $30 you can go “Pro” and add the spiffy Ken Burns movements, among other features.
• Final production format – Instead, I opted to buy the additional Video Plugin ($20) that allows you to Export a Soundslides production in the Quicktime format. Ironically, the video plugin can’t capture any of the additional Ken Burns movements you pay for in the Pro version of Soundslides, but the advantage of converting to one self-contained file in a widely popular format outweighed that limitation. [UPDATE: Since producing "Chalk" I actually read the entire manual for Soundslides. Not only does Exporting to the Soundslides publish_to_web preserve the integrity of your production (including the Pro features), the total files amount to less than half the size of the one Quicktime file and typically runs much more smoothly online.]
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Chalk up my first audio-driven slide show
Imagine several city blocks of people – young and old – spending most of a day drawing something on a sidewalk square just for the sheer fun of it. No competition, no prizes, just the opportunity to take colored chalk and draw whatever they wanted.
My newspaper covered the annual Forest Grove sidewalk chalk art event for most of its previous 16 years, so when the time came around again, I got the inevitable photo assignment. Since we ran a front page centerpiece last year from the chalkfest, I knew there was little chance of getting similar page one display this year. No extra space was set aside in the coming issue for a photo package, so I knew our coverage this year would amount to one or two photos somewhere inside the ‘A’ section.
But what a visual feast for a photographer! Just add audio and I could have my first real slide show production, right?
I left the 35mm equipment at the office and used only the point-and-shoot Fuji. That alone enabled me to blend in with the casual spectators throughout the morning, rather than looking like a one-man walking media event. Normally I’d shoot an assignment only up to the point of knowing I had “something” worth publishing. That morning among the several hundred busy chalk artists, I got so involved in shooting that I was actually startled when the camera simply stopped recording images. For the first time in my career I had maxed out a one-gig card. Working with the little camera was so effortless and unobtrusive, it was like taking visual notes, instead of looking for one "best" photo.
Audio was a different matter.
My first inclination was to build the entire slide show production on a string of brief sidewalk interviews portraying the variety of artists, and maybe toss in a few spectator comments. However, after fumbling my way through the first few interviews, I had to back off for a cup of coffee and second thoughts.
The audio equipment wasn’t the problem. The Swiffer ‘handheld’ mic worked fine. I was getting good audio technically, despite the general murmur of the sidewalk crowd and the background music (local musicians set up on Main Street to play while the artists worked). The problem was my own awkwardness. On any typical photo assignment, I’d endeavor to establish a working rapport quickly with my subject to help the person forget about the camera. Small talk, a joke, pertinent questions – whatever it took to put the person at ease. I couldn’t seem to do that in the interview mode, and the uneasiness carried over to the interviewees.
By the end of my shoot, I had about eight or nine so-so interviews and a firm conviction that these interviews alone wouldn’t make a very good slide show. The interviews needed something more than a string of images to tie the production together. I stepped back into the street and recorded a guitarist picking through a delicate sprinkling of notes. This could provide musical continuity for the production. Still, the whole thing seemed disjointed and incomplete.
What was needed was a narrator to explain the event, and who better than the event chairman? I found her at the end of the day tired but willing to talk about her event. Instead, I scheduled an appointment for a sit-down interview the following week so she would be fresh. I went to that appointment prepared with an outline of questions and the resolve to relax and turn the interview into a conversation. The recorded interview lasted about 18 minutes, but both the preparation and the new mindset helped put me at ease enough to provide the narrative storyline for a two-and-a-half minute slide show – "Chalk."
Meanwhile, my newspaper wound up publishing one three-column-wide photo in black and white on page A5.
My newspaper covered the annual Forest Grove sidewalk chalk art event for most of its previous 16 years, so when the time came around again, I got the inevitable photo assignment. Since we ran a front page centerpiece last year from the chalkfest, I knew there was little chance of getting similar page one display this year. No extra space was set aside in the coming issue for a photo package, so I knew our coverage this year would amount to one or two photos somewhere inside the ‘A’ section.
But what a visual feast for a photographer! Just add audio and I could have my first real slide show production, right?
I left the 35mm equipment at the office and used only the point-and-shoot Fuji. That alone enabled me to blend in with the casual spectators throughout the morning, rather than looking like a one-man walking media event. Normally I’d shoot an assignment only up to the point of knowing I had “something” worth publishing. That morning among the several hundred busy chalk artists, I got so involved in shooting that I was actually startled when the camera simply stopped recording images. For the first time in my career I had maxed out a one-gig card. Working with the little camera was so effortless and unobtrusive, it was like taking visual notes, instead of looking for one "best" photo.
Audio was a different matter.
My first inclination was to build the entire slide show production on a string of brief sidewalk interviews portraying the variety of artists, and maybe toss in a few spectator comments. However, after fumbling my way through the first few interviews, I had to back off for a cup of coffee and second thoughts.
The audio equipment wasn’t the problem. The Swiffer ‘handheld’ mic worked fine. I was getting good audio technically, despite the general murmur of the sidewalk crowd and the background music (local musicians set up on Main Street to play while the artists worked). The problem was my own awkwardness. On any typical photo assignment, I’d endeavor to establish a working rapport quickly with my subject to help the person forget about the camera. Small talk, a joke, pertinent questions – whatever it took to put the person at ease. I couldn’t seem to do that in the interview mode, and the uneasiness carried over to the interviewees.
By the end of my shoot, I had about eight or nine so-so interviews and a firm conviction that these interviews alone wouldn’t make a very good slide show. The interviews needed something more than a string of images to tie the production together. I stepped back into the street and recorded a guitarist picking through a delicate sprinkling of notes. This could provide musical continuity for the production. Still, the whole thing seemed disjointed and incomplete.
What was needed was a narrator to explain the event, and who better than the event chairman? I found her at the end of the day tired but willing to talk about her event. Instead, I scheduled an appointment for a sit-down interview the following week so she would be fresh. I went to that appointment prepared with an outline of questions and the resolve to relax and turn the interview into a conversation. The recorded interview lasted about 18 minutes, but both the preparation and the new mindset helped put me at ease enough to provide the narrative storyline for a two-and-a-half minute slide show – "Chalk."
Meanwhile, my newspaper wound up publishing one three-column-wide photo in black and white on page A5.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Of shotguns & Swiffers
There is no substitute for a good shotgun mic. That said, I could neither afford a really good shotgun mic, nor did I want to pack around the equivalent of a walking stick. It contradicted the whole notion of minimalist gear.
My first thought was to find the smallest shotgun mic on the market. What I found was the Japanese TECT UEM-88, touted as the "world's smallest ultra-powerful shotgun mic system." Attributes of this "high quality miniature electret condenser microphone" included a 50dB acoustic gain and a 200-15 KHz frequency response, all powered by one standard AAA battery. The whole thing measured nine inches long. Unfortunately, it retailed at well over $100 on the Internet, and I could find no reviews on this bit of audio hardware to justify that sort of investment. Like anyone else on a budget I checked Ebay and found one available at the opening bid of 99 cents with no reserve limit. Imagine my astonishment several days later to discover that no one else placed a bid! I got the amazing micro shotgun mic for less than $12, including shipping, but that was the good news.
To make a long blind alley short, the little shotgun mic simply couldn't produce quality audio recording. The range-tuning device was difficult to operate and imprecise, at best, and any audio I could record came through a curtain of white noise.
In lieu of using a good shotgun mic, the only alternative was to get a microphone as close to the audio source as convenient. I had to find a way to extend the reach of the little microphone I was using with the Olympus recorder – something better than holding the mic out at arm's length.
Okay, I share house cleaning duties with my wife. She vacuums. I dust. I found myself extending the Swiffer duster handle to reach places a shorter-than-average man can't normally reach, and the solution came to me.
I removed the duster pad, trimmed off the long pad prongs and scraped off the "Swiffer" label (I mean, why invite wisecracks in the field, right?).
The two pieces came apart to fit nicely in my camera bag. Reassembled, with the lavaliere clamped to the end of the primary handle (reinforced with a rubber band), I could extend the reach of the little mic to more than four feet. Using the modified Swiffer handle alone gave me the equivalent of a handheld mic that could be folded and tucked into the front pocket of my pants when not in use, the extender stashed in a hip pocket.
Once I had weathered the derisive laughter of reporters at the newspaper office over such a humble improvisation, I felt compelled to try out the new audio accessories on my first attempt at a full-blown audio-driven slide show production: the 17th Annual Sidewalk Chalk Art Festival.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
School of Rock revisited – weaving a tapestry of audio
Having completed the project of editing the multimedia seminar recordings, I felt ready to attempt producing my first audio story. This meant either finding a new subject to record or trying to salvage an audio story from the material recorded at the rock and roll workshop. Family matters had prevented me from recording the concert at the end of the two-week workshop, so I knew I was missing the logical story ending. Upon listening again, however, I decided the material had possibilities, both for story and for exploring Audacity beyond Cut, Paste and variations on “Repair.”
Even though I had only captured half of the reporter’s interview with the two directors, I recognized that their easy banter provided material for the story’s narration. Finding the opening for the audio story was easy. One director recounted how he came up with the idea for a workshop on rock and roll for young would-be musicians, then casually mentioned the idea to the city parks and recreation department. I broke up the interview with cuts from the workshop, using the Envelope Tool on a second track to fade up audio of kids wailing on drums and piano, beneath the voice of the first director and down again under the voice of the second director talking about how they worked so well with each other. From there, I segued into one of the directors laughing over the absurdity their committing to a public rock concert at the end of such a brief workshop.
That set the premise for the whole story. One of the directors described the structure of a workshop day and the value of the program. Beneath his voice I ran the steady beat of his drilling a class on rhythm. The rest was filled in with various components of the workshop, including one director’s frustration over an apparent lack of progress with his young rockers in light of having to be ready for their concert the following week.
The whole point of the story was the iffy prospect of that concert, but I didn’t actually have any concert audio – and thus, no ending for my story.
It took three weeks of emailing, phoning and face-to-face pleading just to get a copy of the recorded concert, simply due to the nature of top quality high school teachers at the outset of another school year: They’re very busy!
One of their students finally came through with a CD of the 20-minute concert. I wound up using the greeting to the concert crowd, then cutting down a song by one of the workshop bands to just under 23 seconds. That alone was a great learning experience, trying to blend together various brief cuts from the song “We Got the Beat,” and still keep the beat intact.
I punctuated the entire piece with one of the directors speculating over the next year’s workshop.
The completed audio story ran about 30 seconds over my three-minute target length, but as a story, it seemed to hold together very well. [To listen to the MP3 file, click on the boldfaced title: "Hillsboro School of Rock"]
In the course of the hours and hours spent editing this story, I learned quite a lot – mostly about practical work flow and the eccentricities of Audacity. I learned not to waste time trying to transcribe in order to remember tracts of audio, but to save (Export) usable segments and sound bites as small, separate files – all well tagged for subject and length. I learned to end each editing session by Exporting a copy of the project as an uncompressed file to backup Audacity’s .aup files. I learned that moving Audacity project files off the desktop and into folders often produced an intractable “Error opening file” message when I tried to open them later. I learned to use the Envelope Tool only on secondary tracks and never on the primary track. For whatever reason, when the Envelope was applied to the primary track, it could not be undone. Any subsequent attempt to Cut a selection in the primary track would collapse the entire track. I also learned to make an Audacity project-in-progress more stable by Exporting and Importing segments rather than Cutting and Pasting.
Perhaps I was finally ready to move on to my first audio-driven slide show production.
Even though I had only captured half of the reporter’s interview with the two directors, I recognized that their easy banter provided material for the story’s narration. Finding the opening for the audio story was easy. One director recounted how he came up with the idea for a workshop on rock and roll for young would-be musicians, then casually mentioned the idea to the city parks and recreation department. I broke up the interview with cuts from the workshop, using the Envelope Tool on a second track to fade up audio of kids wailing on drums and piano, beneath the voice of the first director and down again under the voice of the second director talking about how they worked so well with each other. From there, I segued into one of the directors laughing over the absurdity their committing to a public rock concert at the end of such a brief workshop.
That set the premise for the whole story. One of the directors described the structure of a workshop day and the value of the program. Beneath his voice I ran the steady beat of his drilling a class on rhythm. The rest was filled in with various components of the workshop, including one director’s frustration over an apparent lack of progress with his young rockers in light of having to be ready for their concert the following week.
The whole point of the story was the iffy prospect of that concert, but I didn’t actually have any concert audio – and thus, no ending for my story.
It took three weeks of emailing, phoning and face-to-face pleading just to get a copy of the recorded concert, simply due to the nature of top quality high school teachers at the outset of another school year: They’re very busy!
One of their students finally came through with a CD of the 20-minute concert. I wound up using the greeting to the concert crowd, then cutting down a song by one of the workshop bands to just under 23 seconds. That alone was a great learning experience, trying to blend together various brief cuts from the song “We Got the Beat,” and still keep the beat intact.
I punctuated the entire piece with one of the directors speculating over the next year’s workshop.
The completed audio story ran about 30 seconds over my three-minute target length, but as a story, it seemed to hold together very well. [To listen to the MP3 file, click on the boldfaced title: "Hillsboro School of Rock"]
In the course of the hours and hours spent editing this story, I learned quite a lot – mostly about practical work flow and the eccentricities of Audacity. I learned not to waste time trying to transcribe in order to remember tracts of audio, but to save (Export) usable segments and sound bites as small, separate files – all well tagged for subject and length. I learned to end each editing session by Exporting a copy of the project as an uncompressed file to backup Audacity’s .aup files. I learned that moving Audacity project files off the desktop and into folders often produced an intractable “Error opening file” message when I tried to open them later. I learned to use the Envelope Tool only on secondary tracks and never on the primary track. For whatever reason, when the Envelope was applied to the primary track, it could not be undone. Any subsequent attempt to Cut a selection in the primary track would collapse the entire track. I also learned to make an Audacity project-in-progress more stable by Exporting and Importing segments rather than Cutting and Pasting.
Perhaps I was finally ready to move on to my first audio-driven slide show production.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Audio editing – cut for content, paste for continuity
The multimedia seminar presentations recorded back in June yielded eight packages of audio notes between two to three minutes each – the results of hours and hours of edit time spent listening and cutting and occasionally shuffling parts around for continuity.
I learned how to listen not only for content, but for the connective remarks that gave context to each sound bite. I also learned about the discipline needed to keep cutting and cutting in order to achieve the two- to three-minute standard advocated at the seminar. The cutting process turned out to be the easier aspect of editing. The harder task came with trying to assemble the bits of audio into a coherent, finished piece with an opening, a development and a conclusion – the basic components of any good essay or story.
The set of audio notes I wound up with varied considerably in technical quality, mostly due to my ineptitude at recording.
One object lesson rose quickly above the rest: There is no point in gathering audio of poor technical quality, no matter how good the content.
To listen to the audio notes, click on the boldfaced titles.
• Rich Beckman on the future of newspapers – University of North Carolina professor of multimedia journalism talks about who our future (young) readers are and how we aren’t likely to attract them in our present condition.
• Dirck Halstead on the future of newspapers – founder and editor of digitaljournalist.com makes a case for the imminent death of newsprint and the life hereafter available to those newspapers.
• Tom Kennedy on the future of newspapers – managing editor for online journalism at the Washington Post discusses how newspapers can and must prepare for the future.
• Seth Gitner on getting started in multimedia – chief organizer of the NPPA Multimedia Summit and multimedia editor for The Roanoke Times outlines how individuals can help get their newspaper started in multimedia journalism.
• Rich Beckman on the new tools of journalism – details the importance of learning how to use the various tools available to journalists online.
• Jim Seida on audio gathering techniques – multimedia producer for MSNBC covers some of the basics in audio skill building [ironically, my worst audio technically].
• Rich Beckman on the role of the multimedia producer – lists the duties of the newspaper multimedia producer.
• Dirck Halstead on becoming a multimedia producer – advocates photojournalists becoming video producers at their newspapers, whether large or small.
I learned how to listen not only for content, but for the connective remarks that gave context to each sound bite. I also learned about the discipline needed to keep cutting and cutting in order to achieve the two- to three-minute standard advocated at the seminar. The cutting process turned out to be the easier aspect of editing. The harder task came with trying to assemble the bits of audio into a coherent, finished piece with an opening, a development and a conclusion – the basic components of any good essay or story.
The set of audio notes I wound up with varied considerably in technical quality, mostly due to my ineptitude at recording.
One object lesson rose quickly above the rest: There is no point in gathering audio of poor technical quality, no matter how good the content.
To listen to the audio notes, click on the boldfaced titles.
• Rich Beckman on the future of newspapers – University of North Carolina professor of multimedia journalism talks about who our future (young) readers are and how we aren’t likely to attract them in our present condition.
• Dirck Halstead on the future of newspapers – founder and editor of digitaljournalist.com makes a case for the imminent death of newsprint and the life hereafter available to those newspapers.
• Tom Kennedy on the future of newspapers – managing editor for online journalism at the Washington Post discusses how newspapers can and must prepare for the future.
• Seth Gitner on getting started in multimedia – chief organizer of the NPPA Multimedia Summit and multimedia editor for The Roanoke Times outlines how individuals can help get their newspaper started in multimedia journalism.
• Rich Beckman on the new tools of journalism – details the importance of learning how to use the various tools available to journalists online.
• Jim Seida on audio gathering techniques – multimedia producer for MSNBC covers some of the basics in audio skill building [ironically, my worst audio technically].
• Rich Beckman on the role of the multimedia producer – lists the duties of the newspaper multimedia producer.
• Dirck Halstead on becoming a multimedia producer – advocates photojournalists becoming video producers at their newspapers, whether large or small.
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