[Melanie Easton]

Thanks so much for the advice!

The competition has requested it be submitted via “a downloadable secure private link to a file sharing service. Must be password protected.” so I figured I’ll Dropbox it to them. (In which case they could also stream it if they wanted to, but I’m assuming they’re planning to download it so they can watch all the entries at once.)

It’s a documentary so there is a lot of movement and shaky camera work in certain sections – would probably be worth it to go for the higher bitrate in that case.

If I post it online for public viewing after the competition ends, I’ll export in a lower bitrate for Vimeo/Youtube purposes.

Thanks again!! 🙂

[Melanie Easton]

Thanks David. It makes sense, I’ve just given it a go but unfortunately it’s doing the exact same thing as the frame hold – there’s a tiny glitch right at the cut point between the video and the still, as if the still had been just slightly jolted half a millimetre to the right. I’ve got 5 layers of clips in total (2 vertical videos side by side, a white background and two still images laid over top as labels) and everything else is staying put – it’s just the one video I try to freeze (or add a still image to) that glitches.

I’ve tried this with different videos and different projects and it keeps doing the same thing. One video on its own will frame hold (or transition to a still image) perfectly fine, but more than one video at once in the same frame and the glitch is back. Urgh.

[Melanie Easton]

Ahhhh, okay – thanks Peter and thanks again Don. I’m not opposed to buying good software but at this stage it’s not something I’d use often enough to justify – I’m not getting paid for any of the stuff I’m working on, and I primarily do music videos at the moment anyway (in large part because the audio is locked in before I even start shooting – I’m a one person operation and recording/editing sound is a bit too much to handle by myself). This was just a charity project I was doing as a favor, so won’t drop the money on it now – but definitely a good program to be aware of if I start editing audio more seriously in future.

Thanks so much for all the fantastic advice and assistance here. I’m learning a lot!

[Melanie Easton]

Hi Don!

Sorry for the extreme delay in reply again. Thanks for the help! That actually makes a surprisingly decent difference in the audio, and is significantly better than the results I got in Audacity, which was just causing too much distortion to the voices and making it worse. I think the one pass version is best – as you said, the two passes kind of just draws attention to how bad the recording is!

This is great though – I just saw on izotope’s website that they have a free trial so I might give this a go. Also would come in handy for a few other videos I’m working on with less than stellar audio, so will play around with it and see if I can get it to work as well for me. Pretty new to audio software though so might be a bit of a learning curve for me.

Thanks again for your help and advice! 🙂

[Melanie Easton]

Thanks Joe, I did actually read the article, was just hoping to be able to find a single piece of gear or something that was already assembled to do the job. I’m in Australia and tracking down specific individual bits of gear to assemble can be a frustrating process. I’m perhaps being a bit lazy about it.

Steve – thanks for the video, that’s a great setup you’ve put together. It helps to see all the different steps/parts used and how you’ve rigged it all up. I’ve never needed an audio setup till now so struggling to work out where to put the bits and pieces, and creative rig assembly isn’t really my strong suit. So thanks!

Also… I think “bracket” was the search term I was missing. Finding a lot of different options now on ebay that I hadn’t seen before.

Thank you!

[Melanie Easton]

Hi Ti Jak,

I’m far from what I’d consider professional, but I have the 70D and use it to shoot music videos. I shoot 25fps for regular speed stuff and 60fps for parts of the video I’m planning to convert to slow motion later.

I haven’t used the 6D or 7D so can’t give you a proper comparison, but I do love the 70D. The picture quality is stunning and the auto-focus is an incredible bonus. (I’m often a crew of one and not the most experienced cinematographer in the world so not having to manually pull focus all the time is a massive help.)

60fps on the 70D is also limited to 720p but I can’t imagine you’d need 1080p, really? Most music videos are viewed online these days anyway, and 720p should be perfectly fine for what you’re doing.

70D is good in low light but depending on what you’re doing, you should probably still have lighting for your videos. It makes a massive difference and lets you keep your ISO lower for better quality. Also – remember that shooting in 60fps will require more light than shooting in a lower frame rate so you’ll need to compensate for that somehow… by upping your ISO or adding extra lighting or whatever. (Shots look significantly darker shooting at 60fps than say 25fps, for example – so I always had to adjust for that. Just a thing to keep in mind.)

Sorry I’m not more articulate about the technical side of things – hope that helps a bit anyway.

[Melanie Easton]

Hi Don,

Sorry for the insane delay – have had some absurd technical dramas these past few weeks (include smashing my laptop screen – aughhh).

Anyway, I’ve attached the audio from one of the clips that I’m working with. I’ve got 7 of these (all a similar length) to deal with. If you want to take a shot at cleaning it up I am most happy for you to, but please don’t expend much time/energy on any of it. Not really worth it – happy to go with the subtitle suggestion in this case!

Note: I tried to attach the file to my message post and it went to the link below so not sure if it shows up as attached to this thread or not, but here it is:

https://f1.creativecow.net/9463/audio-for-charity-video-with-atrocious-background-noise#9464

Thanks!

[Melanie Easton]

Hey Don! Thanks for the offer! The clips aren’t long – maybe 30 seconds to a minute or so at most each. I will try to upload a sample for you in a few hours time (when I get home from work this afternoon) and let you have a go of it. I wouldn’t waste much time on it though – pretty sure it’s unsalvageable. But I’m curious to see what RX can do compared to the limited reduction I got in Audacity.

[Melanie Easton]

Haha – thank you for the sympathy. It is comforting to know that the assignment was impossible and it’s not just my total incompetency with sound editing that’s the problem here. 🙂

I am going the subtitle route for now because I do really want to help these guys out, but will emphasize to them that the only way to get the quality they want is to record it properly in the first place. Hopefully they will understand that. This certainly won’t be going in my showreel, at any rate.

[Melanie Easton]

Thanks Craig! Unfortunately re-recording the interviews isn’t an option in this case, and if I were going to do that, I’d most certainly re-do the visuals as well because they’re not great either. Subtitles are probably the best way to go in this case. But thanks for the great ideas – will come in handy if the charity takes me up on my offer to do the shooting myself next time around. 🙂