Final Video

Well thank you for following me all of this time!

Here is the documentary

Celebrating 15 Years with the Mary D'Angelo Performing Arts Center



If you are a begining filmmaker I hope this blog gave you some helpful tips for filmmaking.

And the Winner Is...?

Despite some entries getting 0 votes in my poll I decided to add little clips from all of the choices in the poll EXCEPT Pink Martini... good footage for them was hard to find on youtube.

During the documentary I feature a lot of B-roll video footage. If you add it all up I think I used 18 different videos for B-Roll and 1 audio track. Most of the B-Roll clips were short but I used three 20-30 seconds clips to both take up some time but also excite the audience.

Those clips were from

Yamato
Streb
Ballet Folklorico De Mexico

Sorry for my Absence!

Hello Readers

Sorry for my most recent absence. I have been traveling back and forth to Philadelphia for racing season and suffocating from another class project. Rest assured, I am back to the blog!


Photo Compliments of Row2k.com

While I have been gone I have written a few posts to put up so please excuse the sudden post overflow that is going to happen tonight after my class.

5 DAYS UNTIL THE DUE DATE!

Avid versus Final Cut

Time is winding down to the due date, and my group still has a lot of work to do, mainly interviews and editing. For the interviews we have seven scheduled so far, and have potential to schedule a few more, but after Monday, May 10th we are DONE interviewing!

Here is our week of interviews so far:

Monday, May 3: Bruce @ 4

Tuesday, May 4: Michelle: @ 10, Dr. Garvey @ 2:30

Thursday, May 6: Dr. Roessner @ 1-3, Earleen Glaser @ 2-4

Friday, May 7: Annette @ 1

Monday, May 10: Dr. Livingston @ 2

It seems like a lot but hopefully if we can go into the interviews with our questions planned out, we can spend about 30 minutes, and get everything we need.

____________________________________________________________________________________

After we get all of the interviews done we are ready for the editing process! Now we have to determine which editing software we use, Final Cut Pro or Avid Pro.

Most editors are biased to one of the two softwares. Whether or not there are any real differences it appears that editors use one software more than the other and then they tend to prefer it because they know their way around it better. I personally prefer the Avid. This is for the simple reason that I have used the Avid plenty of times, and I haven't nearly broke the surface of FCP and what it has to offer yet. But because I have access to both of these softwares, I am going to look at both of the system's Pros and then make a decision.


Pros of Avid
I have used the Avid many times before.
The Avid editing system is located in the Communication Dept. Office, and I will have unlimited access to it.
I have the instructional manual Avid Editing: a Guide for Intermediate and Beginning Users
We have filmed the majority of our footage on Mini Dv tapes, and the Avid system can copy the tapes easily.
Avid systems tend to be able to handle more before crashing.
Avid has better multicamera ability.
Avid manages captured photos, audio clips and video clips better.


Pros of Final Cut Pro
Has much better graphic capabilities.
Is compatible with Flash Animator and Adobe Photoshop.
It can maintain more audio tracks.
All the cool kids are using Macs!

... except for me!!

Looking at the two lists it is easy for me to choose the Avid over FCP for these reasons:

I am more comfortable using the Avid.
I have unlimited access to the Avid.
Final Cut Pro does not have any game winning advantages that are enough for me to sit down and learn the new software for a 30 minute documentary.

In the future I hope to learn FCP, that way I can work for any editor/producer with no problem but for now I am going to stick with the Avid, and try and learn as much as I can about the system.

While researching which software to use I found a bunch of great links and blogs discussing the differences/pros/cons/etc of the Avid and FCP. If you would like to read more about Avid vs. FCP check out these links/blogs!

http://www.scottsimmons.tv/blog/the-avid-vs-fcp-articles/
http://lafcpug.org/feature_avid_vs_fcp.html
http://www.videosymphony.com/blog/?p=124
http://editingstandards.blogspot.com/

In other news I still have not decided on what additional clips I would like to use during the documentary, but I have added a poll on the sidebar, so you can help me decide! Please vote for your favorite programs, and you will see them in the Documentary!!

B-Roll Footage

So after a few hours of looking through potential B-Roll footage I have decided on a few clips that I would like to use. Unfortunately I did not know about this project before all of the years programs were done, but thanks to Youtube I was able to find some good 20 - 30 second clips to use for transitioning throughout the documentary.

To fill the 30 minute requirement I have decided to use five to nine 20 - 30 second clips of past PAC performances. These clips will both help transition between interview questions and also help keep the documentary fun and exciting. Also since all of these clips are accompanied with great sound, I am going to use them to play quietly in the background of the interviews. This helps a lot because now I do not have to search for music, and the videos, and then the background sound will help the documentary flow.

Here are four of the clips I am planning to use!

If you are the owner of any of these clips and would like them removed from this blog please email me at lniecg72@mercyhurst.edu.

This first one is a clip of Ballet Folklorico de Mexico



The Ballet Folklorico de Mexico was the first sold out show of the PAC after the opening night. It was in 1998 and one of the favorite performances by many of the staff members.


This second clip is from the St. Petersburg State Ice Ballet's production of Sleeping Beauty.

Originally I was intending to use footage from their production of The Nutcracker, but I was not able to find any good footage.



The St. Petersburg State Ice Ballet's Nutcracker was a landmark show to the PAC. For the Nutcracker, an ice rink was literally built on the PAC stage. This ice rink took a lot of work to maintain, but was such a successful and fun show that the PAC staff may secretly try to bring it back to Mercyhurst within the next few years. But please, you did not read that from me!


This next clip is from YAMATO.



Yamato has visited Mercyhurst several times in the past, and has truly become one of the PAC's most entertaining and well received shows in the PAC's history.

For these clips I was intending to first fade to black and then fade in to the clip, and the fact that this clip from YAMATO starts in black with only one drummer visible, fits perfectly into my plan for editing.


This last clip is Juan Carmona, a spanish classical guitarist.



This clip is not a stand out visual clip, but the audio that it has will cover the last 5 minutes of the documentary.


Like I said earlier, I would really like to use five to nine clips, and so far I only have these four, but tomorrow I will be picking at least two more clips.

These clips could be from any of these programs:

Ana Vidovic
Biava String Quarter
Regina Carter
Streb
Pink Martini
Max Raabe
The Metropolitan Opera HD

If I can find clips from each of these artists I will love to use at least two to three for the documentary and the other three to four during for credits.

If you would like to see any of these in the documentary, or clips from any of the other past performances please post a comment to this post!!!

Thanks and I hope to hear from you!