Students to Learn Video Editing Basics through Camtasia Presentation

Deciding on a lesson plan for the Teaching Multimedia course final project was simple.  Aside from equipment, what more does a broadcasting teacher who really doesn’t teach broadcasting need?  Lesson plans!  Lesson plans on the basics, to be exact, so, even though I would love to have worked with photography as my focus, I went with a lesson plan on teaching students how to edit video for a video story. 

The lesson planning portion went pretty quickly.  The biggest challenge was finding the best example video stories to show students.  After much searching of all the major newspapers’ YouTube channels, I settled on three examples that would show the range of what video stories could cover: a serious topic, a lighthearted topic, and a sports story. 

Editing Video to Tell a Story from Stephen Milligan on Vimeo.

During my search, I also came across a video story on multimedia producer Colin Mulvany’s Mastering Multimedia blog that was paired with a written narrative of his experience creating the video.  I also discovered his blog post “How best to approach a video story,” all of which I decided to incorporate into the lesson.

Next, I created the supporting documents (Video Comparison Chart, Video Story Brainstorming and Planning Form, 3-2-1 Form, and Video Story Scoring Guide) I would need to teach the lesson—a video story comparison chart, a video story brainstorming and planning form, a scoring guide, and a 3-2-1 form.

Now, on to the greatest task—the Camtasia presentation to accompany the lesson.  I downloaded the trial version of the program with no difficulty and viewed all of the recommended tutorials to familiarize myself with the process of creating the presentation.  After much procrastination, I sat down and made out a list of the major steps in the video editing process I wanted to cover: importing files, previewing clips, determining the set-in and set-out points, adding clips to the timeline, editing clips, adding transitions, adding lower thirds, adding B-roll, adding royalty-free music, and adding titles and credits.  I also made a couple of brief test runs with the program to make sure I was able to start and stop the recording and to be certain the microphone was working.

Then I plunged in.

I recorded one whole presentation straight through but wasn’t happy with it.  Then after many false starts, which quickly met with the delete key, I realized it might be best to just keep recording, even if it meant repeating a section, knowing I could edit it out later—ultimately accepting the fact that the presentation as a whole might not be perfect, but I liked the idea of maintaining a conversational tone instead of being too formal.

Editing the final recorded presentation was very similar to editing video using Adobe Premiere Elements 14, which we had learned previously in this course.  I inserted a title in front of the recorded portion of the presentation, selecting a theme from the preset themes available in Camtasia.  I also stuck with this theme when adding titles for each new topic introduced in the presentation.  I tried the pan and zoom function, but it didn’t seem to zoom in very closely, and when I realized the original recording was already at 86 percent, I opted to leave the entire presentation at full screen and highlight certain areas by making the rest of the screen blurred a bit, again using tools available in the program. 

I was disappointed to see that with the trial version, a watermark would be placed across the final presentation, and I almost fell off my chair when I saw the $299 purchase price for full access to the program to remove the watermark.  Alas, that’s not in the budget this year, so the version above is indeed watermarked.

I could see Camtasia being useful in the future, though, particularly when showing students layout and design concepts for the yearbook or how to use Photoshop or how to edit a podcast, so I’d better start saving or begging!

Assignment Prepares Broadcasting Teacher to Teach Broadcasting

One would assume a broadcasting teacher would know how to produce a video story.  Not this one!  Almost the entire school year has passed with Broadcast Journalism I on my schedule, but we’ve encountered endless delays in ordering equipment.  In the meantime, I’ve learned very little about video production (and that through my friend Louise, a former broadcasting teacher at a nearby school)—until now.

With no real video camera equipment (see paragraph above), I had to use my trusty Nikon D3100 camera and figure out how to take video with it.  It was perfectly serviceable for a brief video story since it can film in segments up to ten minutes in length.

Sisters in Crime: Palmetto Chapter from Stephen Milligan on Vimeo.

Capturing audio was another matter.  The Nikon’s microphone captures sound, but when I played a few test videos, the sound was rather faint and tinny, so I went to Best Buy one and purchased a small, relatively inexpensive Sony clip-on microphone that would plug directly into the camera just to be on the safe side.  It appears to have done the job, but I wish the cable had been a bit longer to provide some more wiggle room (literally and figuratively).   

Setting up the video shoot taught me the wisdom of keeping multiple options open.  I reached out to a contact person for each of my two ideas, and one didn’t get back to me after almost a week had passed, by which time I had already committed to the other because of the time factor involved.

Upon arriving to set up for the event, I realized I would be filming a meeting, which does not necessarily make for exciting B-roll, but again, time was a factor, and the organization’s leaders had expressed interest in using the final video story on their website, so I felt I should make the best of it.

The filming location wasn’t ideal, but I had no control over it—the organization holds monthly meetings at Grecian Gardens in West Columbia.  The restaurant had just opened, so the clatter of china being stacked can be heard in the background, and the Greek music started up midway through my first interview.  Luckily, the group has a standing reservation in a private room, so at least we were away from the bustle of the main dining room.  This room was rather small, but the expected number of members didn’t show up, so I had room to maneuver but still less that I would have liked, particularly with the tripod.  Despite these obstacles, along with the hardship of watching plates of Greek salad, spanakopita, and baklava passing by while I was working, I persevered.

I conducted the interviews first, and only after everything was said and done (literally and figuratively) did I remember I should have positioned the two interview subjects on opposite sides of the frame for visual variety. 

I have realized through this experience that filming is very different from photography.  Many times I had to resist the urge to turn the camera to get a vertical shot, and I had to take more care with framing the shots because distracting or unwanted elements couldn’t be cropped out as they can be with photos.

The editing stage was pretty straightforward, thanks to the previous training on Audacity—Adobe Premier Elements 14 is similar to the audio-editing program in many respects.  At first, I didn’t see the need for the set-in and set-out points, but they are used to pare down the clip before placing it on the timeline (as opposed to placing the entire clip and then cutting), and fine editing can be done on the timeline as needed.

Now I’m totally prepared to dig in and teach broadcasting this fall.  Wishful thinking!  But I now know more than I did three weeks ago, and I have a better idea of how to start and where to start.  Action!

The Choice of a New Generation

The reading this week in the Social Role of the Mass Media class has primarily focused on cybermedia from the journalist’s point of view: ethics, legalities, mobile reporting, effective use of social media, verification, and so on.

But who’s consuming all of this cybermedia?  Of course, we know from weeks past it’s all of those Millennials, a fact highlighted in this piece from the Associated Press.

Independence Examiner (April 13, 1945).  Harry S. Truman Presidential Museum & 
Library.  Independence, Missouri.  Photographed by Stephen Milligan (June 28, 2014).

To maintain credibility, transparency, and all of those other honest, forthright characteristics of a good journalism teacher, I must admit I didn’t some across this story after hours of in-depth research for this class.  No, while I was trying to grade my way out from under a pile of papers in time for this week’s third marking period report card deadline, this article appeared in my e-mail inbox from none other than John, the lawyer who doesn’t watch local news but instead gets his news from Google and phone alerts—he of student bus driving fame (see my Week 6 blog post).

The story even uses Tom Rosenstiel as a source—he of Blur and The Elements of Journalism fame (see just about every week of this class).

The piece details the results of a survey showing most Millennials get their news online, mostly from cybermedia like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and YouTube.  The results also show this method of consumption is trickling up into older generations. And news consumers are using up to three or four cybermedia sites for their news.

Still, though, some of those who gather their news from social media have a use for newspapers and television, but they are growing tired of those talking heads spouting off opinions—bad news for those purveyors of journalism of affirmation.

Possibly another nail in affirmation journalism’s coffin: Well over half those who get their news via cybermedia say they subscribe to multiple viewpoints in their feeds.  If only everyone could or would be this open minded!

We can’t have our cybercake and eat it, too, though—most of those surveyed admit to receiving their news through passive consumption instead of actively seeking it out, attending to the stories that pop up in those feeds.  In teaching a new generation of students news literacy, journalism educators can stress the value of active consumption.

A little bit of icing on that cybercake is that even when respondents encountered news randomly on social media, some conducted further research into the topic of their own volition.  Healthy skepticism!  What better way to educate oneself and make an informed judgment?

And a big dollop of whipped cream on that cake: News consumption and cybermedia engagement are increasing in all age groups studied.  Surely this will lead to a more informed, engaged populace

Perhaps there is hope for this new generation—and for the generations ahead of it.