Lab 17: Fundamentals of Digital Video Post-Production

Description: Post-production represents the editing phase of the project. Editing is where all the pieces are put together to make the final video. Whether you have shot hours of footage or just a few minutes, it's likely that you will use only a small percentage of your footage to stitch together the final video. To put your selected footage together, you are going to need to use a video editor.

Before the existence of computers, editing video required the use of multiple playback VCRS and one recording VCR. Tapes that contained the shot video were queued to the desired pieces of footage on the playback VCRS and then recorded piece by piece to the record VCR. This was a painstaking task that required a tremendous amount of organization to determine the order of all the pieces across many tapes.

Think of this process as similar to organizing your hand written notes and typing a paper on a typewriter. Any mistakes made while typing could mean retyping the page, or any desired major change would mean retyping many pages. In video, any footage that is recorded out of order or incorrectly can mean starting over from the point of the error.

Well, today we have word processors for typing and editing papers that allow flexibility and no need to re-type. The same is true for video editing with the word processor equivalent know as a "non-linear editor."

Non-linear editors allow video footage to be put onto the computer or "digitized," and then ordered and re-ordered in any fashion along a timeline. Also, graphics such as titles and photos can be added, and music and voice-over can be edited into the video on additional audio tracks. With this flexibility, more complex storytelling in video is possible and a more quality product will be produced.

Reading: Multimedia Projects in the Classroom, pp. 21-48
Integrating Technology for Meaningful Learning, pp. 295 - 304
Applications/Equipment Used: Macintosh OS, iMovie, Firewire DV camera
Skills: Process of importing, editing, and exporting video on a computer.
Lessons: iMovie Tutorial

Lab Procedure:

1. A number of "clips" of video from the supplied source videotape are imported onto the computer.
2. These clips are edited into a "sequence" that contains at least six clips total.
3. A title will be placed in the front of the sequence over the first one or two clips. A title will be placed at the end of the sequence over black.
4. A selected "transition" between two clips must be made in one place in the sequence.
5. The movie must be exported as a Quicktime movie in the "Web" format. Save the Quicktime movie appropriately named (jones_lab18.mov) with your last name and the lab number.
6. Send your Quicktime movie to my AC230 Digital Dropbox. The subject line of the sent file should give your name and the lab number (Frank Jones Lab 18).