Everyone knows that acquiring
pristine audio and video is critical to the success of any
project. But what happens when your source material is less
than perfect? That was the subject of May’s San Diego MCA-I
meeting - Fixing it in Post: Improving Mediocre Audio/Video
Source Material.
The meeting started off with
a vendor’s corner featuring Richard Crow talking about the
new online database for feature films, conventions,
television, conferences, commercials, exhibitions, concerts,
tradeshows, corporate videos, documentaries, music videos
called 360 LIVE.
Since sound is 50% of the
picture, the first presenter of the evening was Robert
Mason. Robert is owner of
Doghouse
Productions, a digital recording and post production
company that specializes in words and sounds for film,
video, and multimedia productions. In his usual,
easy-to-comprehend manner, Robert explained the complex
physics of sound to the audience. He went on to describe how
understanding physical properties is critical to making good
decisions when improving audio. As part of Robert's
presentation, he played a short snippet of dialogue that
everyone agreed sounded terrible. Utilizing some of the
fundamentals he had explained earlier, Robert took unusable
dialogue and turned it into something that was workable
while the audience watched!
After Robert finished wowing
the audience with his audio magic, Brian Kim, Creative
Director of
Groovy Like a Movie stepped up to the microphone. Groovy
Like a Movie is a San Diego based video production company
with a mission to inspire people to think, feel, and do.
Brian described a range of video problems and mistakes that
people make. While there are many technical tricks and tools
to improve a bad video source (including deliberately
introducing noise, blur, or manual frame-by-frame
touch-ups), the focus of Brian's talk was on being creative
with your solutions; the most important tools in an editor's
arsenal are their brain and their creativity. Brian finished
his talk by taking a clip of the
Flinstones smoking cigarettes and turning it into
something that could have been the opening to an "Adult
Swim" style show.
Special thanks to
Canon USA and
Video Gear for
providing raffle prizes, and
Empire State Filters
for providing the raffle grand prize. Video Gear Rentals
also generously loaned the PA system for the evening.
