The “Making of” Behind the Scenes

Post–Production

Capturing and Editing the Video

All of the post-production work on the videos was done in Apple’s Final Cut Studio, which includes Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, Compressor, and DVD Studio Pro. I began using Final Cut Pro when it was first released by Apple; therefore, I am familiar with the application and, in talking with others, people tend to use technology with which they are most accustomed. Beyond that, however, Final Cut Studio is an integrated suite of applications. For example, from the editing interface in Final Cut, I can send the audio track to Soundtrack Pro for audio editing and then bring the edited file right back into Final Cut Pro. This integration speeds up considerably the workflow.

I realize that many reading this may not have access to Final Cut Studio or may be more familiar with other video editing applications. That’s fine. But, if you are using multiple cameras for filming student speeches and interviews, be sure the editing software can easily sync-up the footage from the various cameras and allow you to view the camera angles as individual video tracks. The screen capture below shows a close-up view of the timeline in Final Cut with the three video tracks and six audio tracks.

The Timeline in Final Cut Pro

After completing all of the video recording of the speeches and interviews, the first step was to get the data from the mini-dv tapes into the computer. The was done using the log and capture window in Final Cut Pro. I recommend the use of an external firewire drive for capturing the video and storing the project. This project consumes over 200 gigabytes of storage on the external drive. Additionally, if available, try to use a mini-dv deck during the capture process. This will save wear and tear on the camera.

Editing the Video

As mentioned previously, all the video editing was done in Final Cut Pro. The screen capture below shows the video editing interface in the application. I employed simple jump cuts from one camera to the other. As I listened to the audio of the speech in the timeline, I tried to select natural pauses and transitions to new ideas as places to make cuts.

Video Editing Interface in Final Cut Pro

Editing the Audio

From an audio perspective, I did a great job selecting a poor location for shooting the video. While one might think a library is a quiet place, the ambient noise from lights and air conditioning sounds more like a persistent roar. While in Final Cut Pro, I exported out the audio to Soundtrack Pro to attempt “cleaning up” the noise. I had some success, but I will definitely take the audio component more seriously in selecting a location for our next endeavor. The screen capture below shows the audio waveform in Soundtrack Pro and my attempt to use one of the application’s equalizers to improve the quality of the audio.

Soundtrack Pro Interface

Creating Intros and Lower Thirds

Behind the Scenes of Public Speaking is comprised of seven videos, three speeches and four interviews with the speaker. While each video is part of the larger project, I decided to treat each video separately in terms of an intro and closing credits. Some visitors to the web site may watch only one video, so I thought including information about the project and the participants was important.

I employed another application in Final Cut Studio, Motion, to create the opening intros to the videos. I selected a template in Motion to use for the intros. I went this route for two reasons: (1) it saved a tremendous amount of time; and, (2) I am not a motion graphic professional. The image below shows the interface of Motion.

Creating Intros in Motion

A primary goal of Behind the Scenes of Public Speaking is to assist students taking a college-level public speaking course to understand the process of crafting an oral presentation. To that end, I created lower thirds to use in the videos of the speech of significance, informative and persuasive speeches. When watching these videos, lower thirds appear on the screen identifying the various parts of the speech. The lower thirds were created in Motion, as illustrated in the image below.

Creating Lower Thirds in Motion

Compressing the Movies

The final stage in Final Cut Studio for the movies is audio/video compression. The output for this project was threefold: (1) movies for the web; (2) movies for iTunes University; and, (3) movies to go onto the DVD. To accomplish this task, each sequence was exported from Final Cut to Compressor. In Compressor, I selected the three output formats and the application did the rest. Compressor created .mov files for the web, .m4v files for iTunes, and .m2v and .ac3 files for the DVD. A word of caution: when Compressor is crunching the movies, Final Cut is not available for editing. Second, it takes a long time to compress this much video.

Compressor Interface

Creating the DVD

Once the movies were compressed in the proper format, I was ready to create the interface for the Behind the Scenes of Public Speaking DVD. To accomplish this task, I utilized DVD Studio Pro. Again, I selected a template to use for the project. One element I included on the DVD that is not available elsewhere is a slide show consisting of about 50 still images we took during the production process. The interface for creating the DVD is shown below.

DVD Studio Pro Interface