SYTYCD Mashup Edit

I was given a brief to edit a mashup of judge comments for So You Think You Can Dance 2010. A little like the edits that Casetteboy produces:

I love Casetteboy’s stuff and was so excited to see him in the BBC talking about winning The Virtual Revolution.

After a mammoth digitising session I was able to move on to subclipping the judges comments.

Whilst subclipping, I used what the various judges said to name each clip. This meant that I could print out the bin and piece together sentences like a giant word jigsaw puzzle.

With a little help from Post-It notes, I was able to clearly see each sentence.

To give the edit a twist, I then replaced the actual footage with key words that each judge said.

It was an interesting way of working as it meant I could practice my title tool and keyframing.

The mashup edit will be available on Monday for everyone to watch.

I hope you enjoy!

As ever, these are my own opinions and views and not those of my employer.

SYTYCD Interviews

It’s been almost a week since my last post and I apologise for that. With a weekend shoot, a birthday and an illness to contend with, my blog unfortunately took a back seat.

Shame on me!

Where was I up to….

Ah yes, the shoot with Tommy and Lizzie from SYTYCD went really well and ran smoothly; in and out in 20 minutes.

Both Tommy and Lizzie were lovely and really helpful. They had clearly been filmed a lot in recent weeks, as they didn’t have to be told twice about putting a question in the answer.

I did have to ask Tommy to repeat one question, as I realised I hadn’t framed the DG logo out correctly. He was fine to do that and it meant I didn’t have to spend hours blurring it out in post production.

I shot it on Z1 and used dedo for catching the interesting brickwork in the background. The actual room was well lit with natural light because it had large windows.

I sat the two interviewees facing slightly away from the windows so they were softly lit.

Once the interviews were done, I went back to the office and edited the footage together using AVID. By the end of the day the interviews were ready to be viewed online.

Easy!

It was an interesting difference to the day I was about to have, filming for Dragons’ Den Online using a DSR 450 camera.

Ahh back to the big boys! How I’ve missed those cameras…

Editing, Shoots and Council Tax

Editing for any website, at times, can be a difficult thing. You have to manage a polished sequence with half the resources (if not less) of a linear team and much, much less time.

This week was a good example of this and for those of you that read my other Blog entries, you’ll know the fun it brought.

A video to accompany the adventure is now available*

*Please read in an advertising VO style for this to have full impact.

Next Shoot… looks like I shall be interviewing two contestants from SYTYCD if the contract with the location all goes according to plan.

At the moment they want a deposit up front and we don’t usually work that way round.

The two people I am interviewing only have an hour to film with and there’s no point in dragging them across London for such a short time. Also they are rehearsing all so it’ll just needlessly tire them out.

Hopefully it will get sorted tomorrow and I shall be able to get these interviews. Otherwise I may have to wait until next week.

The Risk Assessment was signed off today for the shoot which is good.

Meanwhile I am going to collect the kit tomorrow so I can check through it before I head to location and it’s back to the editing station so I can complete the judge comment mash-up.

And in unrelated and boring news, I also have to pay my council tax first thing tomorrow morning woohoo!

SYTYCD Recap… have that!

Victory is mine!

Today I finally completed the 60 Second Recap, got it signed off and finally published. Who said that persistance and pestering piss people off? They get the job done and that’s the important thing!

Also, the collection of words give great alliteration.

OK, so now for a bit of geek. Please scroll down to the next piece of text in bold if you don’t fancy the following…

I think the Firewire connection has been damaged somehow on the J-30 at work.

It means I have to be a little crafty and wire the Digi deck to the DVCam deck with a Composite Video A/V Lead so that I can connect the DVCam deck to my laptop and use this to digitise.

Great news regarding a short term fix for digitising.

Bad news because it means I don’t get the correct timecode and have consequently found it quite difficult when syncing the multicamera footage for the Learn to Dance tutorials.

It usually means I have to find a piece of obvious audio wave that is visually noticable, so that I can use as a point to mark. Then, because I use AVID, I can go to Bin > Group Clips > choose inpoints to sync the camera angles.

It’s fidley but not the worst thing that could happen.

Ok, geeky moment over.

I’m now on to organising a shoot for Friday afternoon with Lizzie and Tommy from this years SYTYCD. I’m interviewing them about their experiences during the series and will hopefully be eiditing this on Friday afternoon ready to publish ASAP.

Although the ASAP may have to be AS(as I can do it) as I’m back up to Manchester this weekend for other filming on Saturday.

Have you figured out what it is yet? I promise I’ll let you know in due course.

There may even be pictures!

Answers on a postcard… or alternatively you can tweet me your suggestions.

60 Second Recap… Screeeeeech!

The 60 Second Recap that I produce for So You Think You Can Dance came to a sudden stop today after the TX tape wasn’t available for me to use… sorry for everyone who expects to see it on a Monday but it shall be published tomorrow.

The day began like any other Monday I have encountered the past 6 weeks.

7:45am
Get to the office so I can digitise any tapes. Also write up Voice Over script for the 60 Second Recap.

9:00am
Leave the office to travel to Clear Cut Sound Studio near Soho Square… get off the tube at Tottenham Court Road and walk a little up the road. Although this morning I ended up taking the wrong turn and ending up a few streets over to where I was supposed to me.

Thinking about it, I should have known about the day I was about to have when this happened

10:00am = 11:00am
Record the Voice Over with Danny Nutt (the artist) and Malcom (the sound engineer). Once it has all been recorded we wait for the CD to burn.

 At this time in a morning I am sure I bore (or scare) the life out of Malcom, talking about whatever random things pop in to my head after such a hectic morning.

11:00am
Run back to the office to find post production people had arrived in (woohoo). Tapes were no where to be seen (uh-oh).

It’s at this point when the day seems to trail off in to a collection of, getting a tape, not getting a tape, not finding the correct tape, not having any tapes, checking my Twitter account (obviously), back to finding the tape, there’s nothing on this tape, no tape, forget the tape, go home.

I shall return tomorrow morning to continue the fight with the TX tape and the attack of the Time Management.

I hear from myths and legends (also known as email) the tape is ready for me to pick up first thing.

We’ll just see about that!

Mwah-hahahahahaha