VIDEO WORK...

I finish one blog and start another one almost immediately. It’s because it’s early, video class is over for the evening, and I don’t plan on doing anything productive until tomorrow. I have been assembling the list of media people and DJs to get advance copies of the Deathgrass CD, and contacting them one by one; that’s about it for work tonight.

There will be plenty to do tomorrow. “Alice” the computer’s part that will let her DVD-recordable drive finally work has apparently arrived at the post office; I have the lead guitar part for Scott Garriott’s “Clown in Paradise” to record, once I can dump the “base” track to CD; I have, I think, four news stories to do for the paper; and I have the puppet show video to work on.

Learned in video class how to mix footage from two cameras—it’s not supposed to be possible in the software we’re using, but instructor Wil Duncan showed me how—and I have an assignment: the junior high school’s after-hours “Y-Stars” troupe is putting on a play tomorrow at the Arts Center, and I’ve been directed to film it. They’re doing C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (pretty ambitious for a bunch of middle-schoolers). I’ll be filming it with two cameras, both operated by me: one will be set up “static,” just to record from a fixed vantage point, and the other will be center stage (actually, center audience), with me able to zoom, &c. Basically what Charlie did with the puppet show.

The center-stage camera will also be handling the sound. No soundboard—I’ll be depending on the natural acoustics of the 1925-vintage dance floor at the Arts Center, which is one of those purposefully-designed pre-electricity acoustic shells. I’ll use Audacity to tweak the sound afterward as needed.

The Y-Stars have a sound track, so I can add that along with titles and credits at the beginning and end, and still photos of the cast in costume, and make it look as professional as possible. (Those add-on features in Final Cut are very similar to the ones I’ve used in Windows Movie Maker, so it shouldn’t be too hard.) I warned the director it may not “go viral” on YouTube, but we probably can make it “go head cold.”

The editing tricks are the same ones I need to use on the puppet show video, so the two will be learning experiences for each other. And as I’m doing all this work on the Arts Center’s Macs, I can be figuring out how to do it on a PC, because PCs are what I’ve got at home.

I don’t need a “firewire” card for “Alice” to run a video camera (that’s good—I really didn’t want to be investing in any more computer parts). The Arts Center’s new HD camcorder uses a USB cable instead—and hey, I’ve got USB. And my little $40 Chinese video camera uses USB, too. I don’t know if my big old Fisher camcorder can “port” to the Chinese camera (I don’t even know if the Fisher one works yet), but maybe it does. If so, I’ve got two cameras to work with at home, too.

I’ve decided “StuartLittle” the “portable” computer (everything except the monitor fits in a plastic storage crate) is definitely going to be the Studio Machine as soon as the weather warms up enough to work in the garage studio. “Stuart” has a big, high-resolution monitor, wireless Internet, and a second hard drive that’s just barely used—and since the new case for the DVD-recordable drive is external (USB, again), both “Stuart” and “Alice” can use it. We are in the video business, I think. “Stuart” could use additional RAM—a pair of really high-capacity chips; I’ll have to wait for the stuff to go on sale. Or for me to have a real job again.

Joe