Video debate production – Xacti's, iMovie09, audio restoration with SoundSoap

The Arts E-Squad (me, Nikesh and Douglas) recently recorded a debate on historiography. The final edit is now online.

We used 3 cameras (3 Sanyo Xacti's). One camera was tripod mounted and pointed at the panel. The other 2 cameras were hand-held and took footage of the audience and close-ups of the panel. Sound was recorded onto an MP3 recorder.

The video footage was quite good. However, the room (H042) has loud air conditioning, and is also next to an area where students gather and are noisy. I had to clean up the audio, using the Sound Soap tool. This has eliminated the air-con noise, and allowed me to increase the volume, but has a slightly "underwater" effect.

The video and audio was edited using the new Apple iMovie09. At the start there is a nice animated title, and a jingle from the iLife 09 stock audio. I added "cutaway" shots (now easy in iMovie) using the footage from the two hand-held cameras. I was able to sync close-ups of panellists with the main footage, as well as a shot of a student asking a question. I also sprinkled shots of the audience liberally throughout. Image stabilisation was applied to the hand-held footage - very effective.

Robert O'Toole : 13 Feb 2009 10:03 |  Comments (3) |  Report a problem