Final Cut Update
Final Cut Update
I finally put together a new video about Per Scholas but it is still not ready to be posted on the page. My second Final Cut experience probably lasted even longer than my first, but I did not make a lot of the same mistakes and I used a lot of tricks I’ve learned since the OATS video that made editing easier.
It is clear to me that the only way for me to become more efficient at shooting and editing is to continue to make videos. There are always going to be unexpected situations while doing both.
Issues While Shooting:
At Per Scholas, the chief of staff, Jessica Leavitt, was very knowledgeable and helpful, but she talked really fast and I had a hard to communicating with her how I needed time to shoot sequences and when I needed her to not explain things into the microphone. She led me through the computer refurbishing facility but kept explaining things while I focused on shooting which made it impossible for me to concentrate on the shooting or her explanations. I should have asked to go through the facility myself to get shots and then have an interview.
Next, I think I am going to take a tripod with me next time I know I will have an interview face to face. It was to hard to check audio, hold the camera steady and focus on the interview when I was awkwardly balancing the camera on my hand.
Issues While Editing:
I had an idea of how I wanted the video ordered in my head so I wrote it down and then refused to budge from it. This led the video to be too long and less interesting than it had to be.
Most of it was Jessica explaining each station in the facility with a lot of shots of computer parts and piles of computers. I briefly used Jessica to explain that they have a program where they teach youth and the elderly computer skills and then ended with Jay Mead, an employee who was part of Per Scholas’ technology skills training program.
The process of breaking apart a computer is interesting, as are shots of the insides of computers, but I used too much of Jess’s voice to explain it when I could have probably cut it in half with a voiceover. I also realized that Jay needed to be seen earlier in the video to add a human element to the story.
Final version to be posted soon.
The Fight for White
Next week on Election Day an important vote that most haven’t heard about will be cast. The FCC will be making its final vote on a proposal about the fight over white spaces, which are the unused spectrums between television channels. Advocates want the white spaces to be made available to open up opportunities for widespread broadband internet. About 75 percent of the space goes unused today. Some who already use the space, including The National Association of Broadcasters, National Cable and Telecommunications Association, Dolly Parton, and mega-church pastor, Joel Osteen, claim that opening up these spaces will lead to interference issues which worry the latter two because of their reliance upon wireless microphones, which could be affected.
The FCC’s engineering study that came out two weeks ago has downplayed concerns the spaces would cause any significant interference problems. The proposal is likely to be passed which will help provide thousands of people in rural America high-speed internet. They will need to set up laws about how the spaces can be used.
Major supporters of the opening of white spaces include Google, Intel, Microsoft and Motorola, all seeing more internet as more money. It’s weird how dollar signs in the eyes of some of the nation’s richest match up with something that can help folks across America lagging behind with slow or no internet. Obviously, it is because more eyes on the internet means more advertising and sales, but at least it will also bring good change about.
However this is a complicated proposal that the FCC will probably set up rules for that may limit the usefulness of the white space. We will have to wait and see.
You Could Call it the Digital DivideS.
I recently stumbled across a Digital Divide Network site that directed me to a “How Broadband Changed My Life” contest entries page. The stories vary but several come from rural America and explain how the internet opened up their worlds and minds. What I find poignant about these anecdotes is that they express so purely and clearly the issue of the digital divide in a way I haven’t spent much time thinking about it myself.
As a New Yorker who was checking out AOL teen chat rooms in 1995 when my family got our first computer and dial-up connection to the internet (oh the memories of the unbearably slow, screeching connections and fights with siblings over that treasured phone line) the digital divide to me today immediately makes me think of people from under-privileged areas of NYC surrounded by broadband and wireless connections that they do not have the resources to enjoy themselves. I have a strong sense that to much of the general public the digital divide describes an international problem concerning tribal villages in places like Africa that lack running water, let alone computers and WiFi. No matter what part of the world’s population one thinks of as representative of the divide, the issue does not get as much coverage or research as it warrants.
The internet is so widely used and depended upon by everyone who has access to it that by neglecting those left behind we are only damaging the future of our country, and the world. If the millions of us who are already using the internet for everything continue in this direction, those who do not have access, or even those who have very limited access, will increasingly lag behind in the job market, in acquiring information, and in communicating thus exasperating problems of unemployment, ignorance and disconnection this country already experiences.
The United States has more than 75 million broadband subscribers according to an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report conduced in June 2008. We have more broadband subscribers than any other country involved with the study, but 75 million is not even half of our population of 305 million. According to the OECD the U.S. has 10.1 broadband subscribers per 100 residents. This number places us pathetically half way down the list of 30 countries studied, Denmark is number one at 22.5 per 100 people and Mexico is 30th at 3.1.
Health care, taxes, social issues, the environment and jobs are important to the country, but hopefully the next president can find some time to address the problem of the digital divide because there is a lot of opportunity in the digital and technological fields to create jobs and help our country grow economically and socially.
So as jobs are cut and stores are shut down, the internet will grow even more. As more money pours into the web and less elsewhere, more IT people, cable guys, tech support, etc. will be needed. The South Bronx Job Corps has a number of programs to help young people earn their GED’s and a couple of programs that focus on technology and computer training. I hope to learn more about them and get back to this issue soon.
Per Scholas Performs
A modest looking building on a side street off of East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx plays an impressive role in the efforts to bridge the digital divide. The building is a Per Scholas location that receives donated computers and refurbishes them to distribute at a reduced cost primarily to non-profit organizations but also through an on-site store that sells to the general public.
Per Scholas is a non-profit organization that uses technology to improve the lives of the under privileged. While there are other non-profits with similar goals, Per Scholas is the only organization that functions like a self-contained machine:
- it has a free technological training program to train individuals for IT and other technology based jobs which includes “soft” training skills – like job interviewing and how to dress
- it runs a computer refurbishing facility and recycles all materials that are unused
- distributes the computers to the other non-profits that purchase them for community programs, it sells the finished product in the on-site store
- it runs its own programs called Comp2Kid and Comp2Seniors which helps teach kids and seniors how to use computers and better ready them for the future job market (the kids that is).
I will be posting a video about Per Scholas that shows how the computers are refurbished and explaining how this helps to bridge the digital divide.
Making a Podcast
One quick note to start – my spell check does not recognize internet if it is not capitalized or podcast. I wonder when the dozens of technical words that pop up annually will be added to universal spell checks?
Podcasts are an interesting aspect of multimedia. My first inklings about them were that they were a waste of time. Who wants to listen to one thing when there are videos and interactive sites everywhere that can completely engage more than just one sense? But then I listened to some online radio and podcasts and realized the incredible purpose for podcasts. They are informative, entertaining and thought-provoking…plus you can take them with you where ever you go or cook breakfast and get dressed while you listen to one of millions of podcasts of your own choosing. It is the only multi-media component that doesn’t require you to be at your computer in order to enjoy it. I’m not a podcast devotee yet but I was much happier about the idea of building my own “podcast” once I found out they were something I like.=
I wanted to make sure I had an interesting topic that could be fun to listen to, so I interviewed Tim Westergren over the phone and recorded it. Then I went to a town hall meeting he held at the Apple SoHo store and recorded some of his speech and interviewed a few random people who had gone to hear him
This is where I ran into my first major problem. The memory card I was using in my Edirol R-09 recorder quickly ran out of space. I had no idea how to delete old tracks so I was stuck scribbling notes and missed out on some good audio, including much needed ambient sound for background in the piece. (For any inexperienced Edirol users like myself: To delete old tracks off the Edirol Click the Finder/Menu button, scroll down to select the track you want to delete, then click the Record button to select, then scroll down to #3 Delete, then click the Record button to make the deletion – directions courtesy of Professor Dean Olsher.)
Once I had audio I had to teach myself the fundamentals of Pro Tools LE before I could even begin to think about what my podcast would sound like. The user’s manual is over 900 pages long, which made it essentially useless. Luckily, classmate Mike Weiss came to my rescue and taught me everything he had spent hours laboring over which saved me similar torture.
Pro Tools is intuitive once someone explains to you what all the icons mean and which ones are most useful. I’ll break down my experience the way I did my first Final Cut experience.
My podcast is a mix of Westergren, me doing voiceover, a few seconds of music (to illustrate how Pandora works) and one person I interviewed at the town hall.
I made a mistake by putting all actual sound and my voice in one track, making it harder to differentiate where I needed to place extra ambient sound once I got around to scraping some up.
Next time I know to make one track for actual sound, another for my voice over and another for ambient.
Speaking (typing?) of ambient. Because my recorder ran out and I did not have a chance to go back to the Apple store and collect more I took “silence” from an interview I did while in the store with someone who spaced his words out painfully too often and grouped those silences into one big ambient track. Issues with this are that some strange whoosh noise resurfaces repeatedly throughout the piece. Besides that, it worked well enough for my first pod cast and I am fine with it.
Another problem with my podcast is that it is too long. It is five minutes and I talk for almost the whole first minute of it. My piece required too much set up to stand alone and I did not narrow my focus enough. I went from Tim’s history to how Pandora works to the town hall to the future. I structured it more like a written article than a podcast, which I realize now that I’ve finished. Podcasts need more descriptive words to create an idea of what you are hearing looks like. Come to think of it, I did not even explain what Tim looks like. Don’t worry, you can see his pearly white smile and shaggy hair in the picture from my last post below.
Some good things with my podcast are that I think I did a decent job of balancing sections of my voice with actual sound (except for the first minute) and I really like the music that I spent a lot of time perfectly setting in between my voice over. Also, although there might be a bit too much information, but it is an informative podcast and I’d like to think people would go check out Pandora because of it. I am not promoting Pandora, but it is on the verge of changing the face of radio forever, so I think most people would be interested in learning what it is.
Once I figure out how to convert the podcast to a MP3 format and then post to the web I hope you enjoy!
Using Digital Technology to Bridge a Musical Divide
Everyone loves music, but there are plenty like me that don’t have the time to explore what is new out there. Embarrassingly, my ipod has not been updated in about two years, but I’ve still discovered new stuff that I like, and some old. This is thanks to Pandora.com, a personalized internet radio station.
Here’s how it works for the user:
You type the name of a song or artist that you like into a search bar and within seconds a “radio station” based on that song or artists musical characteristics- tone, rhythm, beat, key, etc. – is created. So, if you type in The Grateful Dead, you’ll get a personalized radio filled with Dead songs, Dylan, Phish, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, and a lot more. If you don’t like a song that was chosen for that particular radio station you simply click on the thumbs down icon and a new song immediately starts playing. Likewise, you can click on a thumbs up icon if you like that song and want to hear more like it. Pandora notes your comments and incorporates them into the future songs chosen. The site is designed beautifully and is quick and simple to use. It is amazing and surprisingly accurate.
Since its launch in 2005, Pandora has reconnected millions of people who ran out of time, and possibly money, to update ipods and search for new artists to music. It has also made it easy for grandparents to listen to the swing music they loved decades ago and discover there is some music that relates today. Pandora’s technology, called the Music Genome Project, has closed a divide between people and music, something more powerful then it sounds.
At Chelsea Civic Center in New York several weeks ago, Tim Westergren, the mastermind behind Pandora, held a town hall meeting for his fans and listeners. No one expected to cry that night but one man brought tears from the crowds eyes. A deaf man sitting in the crowd of about 100 read Tim’s lips through the presentation. At the end, he stood at the podium and gave a testimonial about how Pandora brought music back to his life. He explained that he would create his favorite stations and sit with his hands on the speakers, finally able to experience music the way he wanted to.
Tim has hundreds of stories about listeners describing the powerful role of Pandora in their lives, but says that the deaf man was truly humbling for him. And Tim is already quite a humble man.
I’ve been researching Tim and Pandora and found out a lot of the behind the scene details that make Pandora special. While using the site pop-ups explain that real people are analyzing music to create the most accurate and detailed music recommendation database possible. Tim explained to me the amount of work and people it takes to create what I am now convinced is the true future of radio.
Some interesting statistics:
- There are about 50 part-time music analysts who are also professional musicians. “These are folks that really know their shit,” said Tim. They all passed a difficult music analysis test in order to work for Pandora and now they go through thousands of songs categorizing them based on 400 different musical characteristics. About 20 to 30 minutes are spent on each song.
- There are about 17 million registered listeners and hundreds of millions of radio stations that have been created
- Music comes from everywhere. Tim travels the countries local music scenes looking for new bands to include on Pandora. Pandora has all the most popular music and then music from garages, bars and basements across the country.
- Pandora plays the music of 60,000 artists and 70 percent of them are independent
- Of the 600,000 songs they have almost 85 percent of those songs are played every day.
Over the past year, Tim has been recruiting listeners to help him save Pandora from what could be a doomed future. In February, 2007 the Copyright Royalty Board passed a law raising royalty fees for internet radio to almost three times that of traditional and satellite radio. The fees would kill internet radio and Pandora. Millions of fans have written to their representatives in congress to get a Webcasters Settlement Act passed, which gives Pandora and other webcasters until February of 2009 to work out a feasible solution with Sound Exchange, the company that negotiates royalty fees. The act passed about two weeks ago. No one is going to be happy with the final outcome but Tim has hopes that the opportunity to negotiate directly with Sound Exchange will help him to reach an agreement that is doable and will keep his company alive and millions of fans happy.
Tim Westergren chats with listeners.
Tackling Technophobia – Video
I interviewed Ida Harris at the Older Adults Technology Services Office in Park Slope, Brooklyn. She explained her original fear of computers and how she is competent enough now to play a significant role on OATS’ Senior Planet website.
First Final Cut Experience
I’ve shot, edited and produced my first video on Final Cut and it wasn’t that bad. Even though it was my first time with Final Cut the few skills I have using Avid made it a lot easier to navigate around FC. A very useful webpage with keyboard shortcuts also cut some time for me, although it was for Final Cut Pro and I was using Express so not all the shortcuts worked. It probably took me a total of 10 plus hours to create an amateur 3 minute video.
Two major issues were figuring out how to overlay text on a clip and adjusting audio sound levels so they gradually increased or decreased, the latter was something I never figured out so I didn’t do it. As my professor told me to overlay text on a clip you simply drag the text box onto V3 or V4.
My video is not great for a number of reasons:
- I almost never got my interviewees appropriately focused, leaving little room for Lower 3rd text and a lot of dead space in the shot.
- I barely had any b-roll leaving me desperate to use any action shots I had, all of which were poorly lighted and at strange angles due to the rectangular shape of the room.
- Lighting! The room was lit by natural light coming in through one large window and two desks inside the room made it difficult to seat subjects in decent lighting. So for most of the video Ida and Renee Martinez’s faces are only half lit. It looks bad.
- Sound. I need to find out about how to deal with audio. My audio is too loud and levels shoot up into the red zone often. I didn’t realize this until I was half way through editing. Also, I picked up full left audio but only about a third of right audio. I have no idea what that means.
- It was my first time using Final Cut Express and I was on deadline.
My video is not completely horrible for a number of reasons:
- I tried my best to never have more than 10 seconds of a talking head by interjecting the little b-roll I had.
- I used audio layering at one point to provide a little depth to the sound.
- Ida talked slowly and paused between thoughts a lot so I carefully cut out the breaths and “uhhhs” and placed b-roll over the cut so you can not see the camera movement and her sentences flow more smoothly.
- I used Sir Charles twice in the video to add another character. His thoughts were a little bit more well rounded so I was able to use him to emphasize Ida’s points about what she can now do on a computer and the importance of seniors learning technology.
- I tried to use titles as little and as appropriately as possible.
- I kept it at almost exactly 3 minutes. I still feel this is too long but any longer and the video might be unbearably too boring to watch all the way through.
- Sequence. I got a good 5 shot sequence in which I am proud of. However, I didn’t get close enough to Ida’s face on the close up and my over-the-shoulder shot is very awkward because I just didn’t have enough space to get a better shot.
Making this video and familiarizing myself more with multimedia made me realize that next time I need find stories that lend themselves to multimedia or there is no point in doing a video. Ida’s story would have been more interesting in a print piece because visual is not needed to explain how an elderly woman understands computers, but didn’t two years ago.
This weekend I have to brainstorm to get better ideas for Digital Divide multimedia pieces or to choose a whole new topic.
Including Seniors
Ida Harris was a charming woman. Dressed in a black suit and decorative scarf with full make-up applied and hair nicely placed, she waited anxiously for me on the steps of OATS’ office in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
From the start of the interview Ida groaned that she wanted to get home and couldn’t wait for it to be over, but answered every question thoroughly and I could tell she enjoyed the spotlight.
She works in health administration and didn’t learn how to use computers at first because there were always secretaries for that, she said. When she got to the point when she was scared to touch them and felt intimidated by the thought of it she was eager to take free classes with OATS.
“It was growth,” she said. “And I like growth.”
I chose to interview Ida once Sir Charles let me down because of her role with Senior Planet, a website with resources for seniors. Although she wouldn’t give me her age, Ida was obviously an older woman who was proud that she’d learned the computer and felt much more connected to the world because of it.
Seniors need to be brought into the 21st Century and understand technology instead of fear it because they are members of our society. I started thinking about the way we as a society treat our old people compared to the way tribal societies treat theirs. While of course every culture and society differs in its treatment of the elderly, oftentimes in African tribal cultures, elderly looked after the children and performed some chores that contributed to the community. They were an integral part and not pushed aside, like I feel many of our perfectly functioning elderly are here in the United States.
Preaching about the importance of the old is not my point here. I just want to point out that it is true many older people are disconnected. Like most people who don’t know the abilities of the internet, the elderly are awed by the digital world and the web, and maybe it is society’s job to help them discover what many of us take for granted.
Here is a Pew report about seniors and the internet. The number of wired seniors is slowly increasing but still lags behind younger web users.
