In the end however I came to the conclusion that we started Media Gatherers to share our learning as we ventured into multimedia story-telling.

Admittedly I was intent on gathering something from this day, definitely pictures, maybe audio – although, for obvious reason’s there was more important things to be getting on with!

I wanted to use this piece as an experiment in playing with the storyboard, taking the ‘rules’ of a story and turning them upside down.

I don’t want to give too much away, I would prefer you watch the piece and make your conclusion. I think it work’s in some crazy, hectic way – I don’t know why I like it…oh yeah, maybe because it was one of the best day’s of my life.

As usual, all thought’s appreciated – however feedback on the style of the editing and content would be greatly received.

Click to watch ‘C’ by Matt Kirwan

After deciding that my future was to be in Multimedia, I began what has become a constant reviewing of the editing software programs on the market.

There never will be a perfect piece of software for your editing needs, from subjective interface nuances right through to your chosen computer, every multimedia producer’s choice of software will differ.

Hopefully this post will help you glean some information about the importance of testing, reviewing, practising and ultimately using the software package that most suits your workflow, production values and style.

Before you go hunting and trialing software you may find it will be easier to classify yourself into one of the following ‘edit’ types:

1. I can forgo intricate adjustments, I don’t use video – speed is my priority.
2. I have a little more time on my productions, I will mostly use a combination of audio, photography and video.
3. My multimedia pieces are more ‘long term’, I will use all media types, I want as much control as possible during my edit.

If you find yourself in category 1. – SoundSlides will most likely be your editor of choice, it’s simple interface coupled with the ability to combine imagery and a single audio track make this the software to use when speed is paramount.
SoundSlides allows you to grab a folder of images and lay them down alongside a single sound file, this single track approach is quick and easy however for audio of any note, separate audio editing ability such as Audacity will be vital – allowing you to tweak your audio captures and save into a single continuous sound file.

This single track/single folder approach has some negative points – you are required to know the exact order of your images appearing in the timeline and of course have your audio edit complete before accessing them in Soundslides, don’t be put off by this – if speed is your priority and you do not require the use of video there is no better or cheaper option than a SoundSlides / Audacity combination.

If you add the requirement of video into your multimedia mix the software options open up and along with it the ability to make extra adjustments to your final piece.
This ‘middle’ bracket of category 2. is a fine mixture of speed, editing abilities and learning curve required to master the software, the following applications fall into this category:

• Pro Show Gold by Photodex is a commercial application that his highly regarded for multimedia productions. Like most software in this category Pro Show Gold is only available for Windows users.
• Windows Movie Maker – free with Microsoft Windows Operating Systems, the downside of this software is it’s requirement of the proprietary .wmv codec.
• iMovie – Apple’s free movie editing application is bundled with OSX, a great piece of software with more features than the Microsoft equivalent.

All of the above applications offer pretty much all you would need for creating stunning multimedia productions – you can edit video, audio and images. You can use basic (and cheesy) transitions and various title effects can be achieved for introductions, credits etc…

Pro Show Gold is a serious contender over it’s free competitors, if you are a Windows user there is no question that Pro Show Gold is a better option than Movie Maker, eve if you have to pay for it.

It’s safe to say that most multimedia producers can quite happily sit in this category, but there is more out there – even more control, but at what expense?

There is what I consider a two tier approach to category 3. users – the software options below offer two versions of their software, each piece squarely aimed respectively at ‘home’ and ‘pro’ users.

With better software comes increased options, increased production and sadly, increased cost. Below I have listed the final application choices:

Pro Features, minimal cost (approximately £100):

• Adobe Premiere Elements a commercial application that is pretty much at the top of it’s game, sadly it seems Mac users have been abandoned and is only available for Windows users.
• Pinnacle Studio by AVID – considered the finest video software company, AVID bring their features to the ‘home’ user in the form of Pinnacle. Sadly only available for Windows users.
• Final Cut Express – this dedicated Mac user software is the Apple owners best option – it brings pro features like it’s Windows counterparts (above) at a similar price point.

All of the above applications offer everything a multimedia producer would ever need at a realistic price point, if your a Mac user you don’t have much choice with just Final Cut Express, but as a user and lover of this software myself – I can say you won’t be disappointed.
Windows users more choice (as usual!) so definitely try before you buy, from a personal stand point and having used AVID Pro in the past, I would most likely go the Pinnacle route.

This brings me onto the ‘big boys’ – the more expensive siblings of the above software. All of the below are used by the world’s biggest production companies from TV studios to Hollywood blockbusters, if you want the best and money is no question, here are your choices:

Pro features, maximum cost (approximately £800):

• AVID Media Composer – available for both Mac and PC.
• Adobe Premier – available for both Mac and PC.
• Final Cut Studio – available for Mac only.

There’s not much to be said about the top end editing software, even if you can afford to buy any of the above software most multimedia producers will simply not require the extra features that you pay for over their cheaper counterparts.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, your software choices come down to your needs and your budget – you can produce jaw dropping multimedia pieces from free software – ultimately it’s not what software you use, it’s the stories, the content and the quality of your work that will speak volumes – your software choice is just a tool.

Tell us about your editing software choice and why you use it in the comments below.

Click below to watch…

Watch “The Art of Chocolate” by Matt Kirwan on Media Gatherers.

This multimedia piece shows images from a number of repatriations through the town and hears from residents and veterans who either live in Wootton Bassett or who travel, some for many miles, each and every time one occurs.

Click the link below to view…

http://www.mediagatherers.com/projects/wootton-bassett/

However, if your audio is captured and laid down in segments – the appearance of ambient noise from a previous silent slide/image can be very distracting.
So, let’s get rid of it.

As an example i’m using this short clip of my most recent subject – a multimedia portrait of little Zoe.

Take a couple of seconds to listen to the original clip:

Play: My Name Is Zoe – Before

Here is Audacity’s graphical representation of that short clip:

It’s worth noting here the ‘bumpy’ start to the clip – this you will notice is the ambient hiss that we want to remove.

Select the ‘Selection Tool’:

Click and drag a selection of the ambient noise you want to remove:

Then under ‘Effect’ on the top menu select ‘Noise Removal’:

In the pop up dialogue box click click ‘Get Noise Profile’ – this stores the short selection you selected earlier as a temporary sound profile, the box will disappear and you will be returned to your audio clip:

So now we have a sample of our unwanted noise we can apply the profiled filter to the full audio clip.

Select All of the audio clip by pressing CTRL + A (Windows) or CMD + A (Mac) or you can go to ‘Edit’ > ‘Select…’ > ‘Select All’ from the top menu.

Now go back to the Noise removal tool – ‘Effect’ > ‘Noise Removal’ from the top menu – you can now use the previously profiled sound selection and remove similar sounds from ALL of the clip by pressing ‘Remove Noise’.

The slider bar allows you to apply varying degrees of noise filter – I would recommend going lightly on this, if you remove too much noise you can easily distort the voice, which isn’t very good.

You can also preview the clip and adjust the slider – meaning you can test the sound before applying (handy if you are editing a large sound file).

For comparison below are two images – the first is the unedited audio clip and below is the edited clip with noise removed – you can clearly see the ‘bumpy’ start has been completely flattened (silent) and overall the clip has taken on a smoother appearance.

Before

After

You can also listen to the edited clip:

Play: My Name Is Zoe – After

Also for reference I have attached a clip with far too much noise removal applied – note the ambient noise has been replaced with a ‘robotic’ sound and the voice is very distorted – how not to do it:

Play: My Name Is Zoe – After – too much noise filter

As you can see this very powerful but simple tool allows you to tweak your audio for a more polished feel – definitely one too remember.

Article recap:

• Select a small selection of the amibient you want to remove
• Apply as a noise profile
• Select ALL of the clip that you want the profile applied to
• Run the Noise Removal Tool
• Remembering to carefully adjust the slider for maximum effect and minimal distortion.

With multimedia, another opportunity is now open to us to cover social change in a way that brings direct contact with the individuals involved in this change. With narrative audio used from those people in the images a more personal link to that change is created.

It enables a story to be ‘humanised’ more, bringing, I believe, the viewer closer to, and offering a more intimate connection with the subject…

With the news today that the Steelmaker Corus has announced that it will end production at its Teesside Cast Products factory, putting 1,700 people out of work I returned to a multimedia piece I produced during a demonstration a couple of months ago in Redcar,  Cleveland.

The demonstration through the streets of Redcar was trying to raise awareness and begin a fight for the survival of the factory following rumours of closure.

A fight that unfortunately, appears to have been lost.

Next time your are producing a multimedia piece try and think about what you are photographing and how, one day, it might become a record of a moment in history, whether on a large or a lesser scale, and the responsibility that should bring with it to do a subject justice.

Hit the link below to watch…

http://www.mediagatherers.com/projects/save-our-steel/

The latest blog post brought so many thoughts and questions to mind about what we do, where we are at and what the future may hold…

Is photojournalism stuck in the past?

An individual photograph can and does have the power to change things – I just don’t think one picture is as powerful as the multi-array of story-telling platforms in the world today and a ’set’ or gallery of pictures is no where near as powerful as the same set with audio.

Let’s all face it and that includes you NGO’s – the stories and causes that you so passionately support, deserve more than ‘big name’ white photojournalists flitting in and out of the country as the mood takes them…

…do your cause justice – we are living in the 21st century, a digital world where ‘joe public’ expects more than static images, however powerful.

Please drop by the DuckRabbit blog post Just another set of limbs chopped Africans.

Click to watch Apache by Ian Forsyth.

http://ianforsyth.blogspot.com/2009/11/sit-here-and-rest-awhile_08.html

In it’s true sense Multimedia consists of three elements – still images, audio and video. The series intends to break down each of these individual elements hopefully highlighting the importance of understanding each process separately in order to produce an effective and powerful piece.

PART 2: The Audio

In the last post I covered the basic building blocks of putting together a photo essay from a photographic point of view, in this follow-up piece I’m going to look at capturing Audio.

Now I’m not a Radio 4 journalist or a qualified sound engineer so this is based on what I have learnt, picked up and become aware of during my experiences with capturing audio and some of things that I am now more aware of.

Take from it what you will, learn from your own mistakes but don’t underestimate just how important capturing good audio is and how, once dropped in with images it can raise the quality of a finished piece.

The first thing I learnt about audio is that just when you think you have enough audio for your purpose the chances are that you don’t! Make sure that you have enough because once you have done an edit and run it along side the images I found in the beginning that I never had enough and in your need to complete the piece it is easy to try and ‘make the audio fit’, this results in a less polished piece and can actually reduce the impact.

Let your audio breath – don’t always rush into filling the spaces between pauses in an interview, more on interviews later, but if there is a natural pause during the interview then let it be. It will be more believable and natural if they are left in.

Record the ambient – or as they say in radio speak the ‘actuality’, sixty seconds of actuality may prove beneficial later, especially when you need to include a break in your audio edit or in the interview or as a means to move to another part of the story. Thinking in terms of video, a good video cameraman will always shoot some ‘cutaways’, images that can be dropped into a piece and used on occasions to cover an edit. I see actuality as serving a similar purpose.

Ambient versus narrative? Does the piece need only ambient audio or does it need a narrative overlay, in other words someone speaking over the images? This could be in the form of a voice over, although a word of caution here because unless it is done right by someone who can speak well it won’t work – Think about David Attenborough talking about dolphins or gorillas or something then replace him with Chubby Brown – ain’t gonna work!!

A combination of the two may be needed, what I think is strongest is what is called ‘Character Driven Audio’ – A story that has some ambient (actuality) but is primarily led by a narrative from the main character in the piece. If this is what you want to achieve of course, if your doing a story about a farmer for example then this could work, if your story is on a place or an activity then it may not be the way to go.

When you record your audio consider…
1 – What is the essence of the Story?
2 – Does the audio provide the information that the viewer needs to know?
3 – What will the viewers learn from the story?

A word of caution on audio – in multimedia it forms a key part of the story, don’t treat it is an afterthought or an add on, it plays just an important a part as the images. Work hard to get it right and practice.

Ensure the microphone is held close enough to the person your interviewing – this ensures good, ‘rich’, audio quality from your subject and less chance of unwanted ambient sound being picked up – we’re talking about a couple of inches from their mouth. Remember to look at THEM not the sound recorder.

Know your equipment – the strangeness of having a microphone shoved in their face will be reduced if you listen to what they say and look them in the eyes. It will help build that rapour and reduce any discomfort they might feel initially.

Remember that anything you say will also be recorded, ask them to repeat your question in their answer. For example, Q: How long have you lived here? A:2 Years. Instead try, Q: How long have you lived here? A: I have lived here for 3 years. This second answer can stand alone if required. Also, when interviewing try and avoid the ‘Umms’ and ‘Arrs’ and ‘okay’s’ that you would normally use during conversation. It does seem strange and a little ignorant at first to do this but your audio will be better.

Even say to the subject before the interview that your not going to respond as it will mess up the audio, I sometimes tell them that I don’t want my voice on the piece and that it is more important to hear what they have to say.

Interview or pictures first? – No default answer here, whatever works on the day. Sometimes photo ideas will come from the interview, sometimes questions will arise from the pictures. A combination of both will usually work.

Audio is difficult to do well, when combined with stills there are other considerations but when done well it can  go towards a strong and powerful piece.

Give it a go and get some audio.