| Newsletter 11, February 1996 |
These assignments usually require the loan of a camcorder to enable the student or group to record the shots, followed by the student editing down the material, adding music and captions, to form the finished programme.
More camcorders have been purchased to cope with the demand for location shooting equipment. These are now available on the loans counters at Beckett Park and Calverley Street.
A new Editing Area has been developed to cater for the increase in student editing exercises.
 | Calverley StreetA new student editing area has been established at Calverley Street. This room can take up to 4 student groups. The audio is heard via headsets to keep the noise level comfortable. The students have a choice of editing equipment assigned to the project they are working on. The facility has 3 two-machine edit pairs and one non-linear editor. |
Similar facilities exist at Beckett Park where the Student-Access area houses 2 two-machine edit pairs. Titles, music (subject to copyright) and a voice-over can be added to the edited material.
These machines are currently in a room adjacent to the Media Loans Counter in James Graham Building. The editing suites will be relocated as part of the new Learning Centre development at Beckett Park. A non-linear edit suite will also be added at this time. The expected opening of the facility is for Autumn Term 1996.
In this configuration, two machines are used to copy the material across from the Camera Tape to the Edit Tape. The machines are controlled by an edit controller which allows very precise selection of the shots so as to take exactly the material you want to copy to the edit recorder.
The Edit Tape is pre-recorded (like having to format a floppy disk). Pre-recorded Edit Tapes can be purchased from Media Services. No extra charge is made for the pre-recording.
These edit recorders can edit in VHS or S-VHS modes.
The sound-track of the edit recorder is split into two, allowing the addition of a voice-over or music (subject to copyright) to the finished edit.
The selected shots are edited in a seamless fashion producing a “cut” at each new scene. Generally, television programmes contain mostly “cuts” between scenes with other effects used mainly in the title sequences or “chapter” breaks in the programme.
As the grammar of television changes, students are wanting to replicate the high broadcast values of programming seen each night on television. A “cuts only” edit pair can never match the grammar of broadcast television. For more creative work, a system capable of producing an “effect” at scene breaks has to be used. These Three-Machine suites are difficult to use and require specialist knowledge.
Over the last few years, developments in video editing have been taking place. It is now possible to edit video and audio material easily by using a computer which stores the scenes on a hard disk. The clips can then be located and ordered in any sequence forming the programme. The clips can be inserted into the sequence at any point during the edit in a non-linear fashion, and so the non-linear edit suites are ideal for creative video editing.
Students often bring their own CDs and cassettes for copying to their video production. This is not generally allowed, as copyright exists in the music being copied. The details below set out the allowable limits for copyright.
Please note that our staff are duty bound to enforce copyright requirements, and will erase any sound-tracks used that do not comply with the guidelines.
On a lighter note, LMU does have a licence to copy “mood music” for use in student video productions. A whole range of music is available for this purpose.
John Lynch