Editing the Newscast
As an online producer, you will be responsible for taking the video from the KUJH-TV newscast and posting that video with a text story. Everyday, an online producer must take a Web Tape to the control for the recording of the newscast. You will import the newscast using this tape.
Click on the Final Cut Pro icon in the dock.
Final Cut Pro should open a new file. If a new file does not open, click File -> New Project. If you need to open an existing file to edit your work click File -> Open and browse to your file.
…OR…
To begin importing, or capturing, your video, make sure that the cables are connected from the walls to the Sony DV converter box (If you need to capture from tape, see Capturing the newscast from tape). Next, make sure the converter box is turned on and the “analog in” button is illuminated.
Now make sure that Final Cut is ready to capture your video. Initialize Log and Capture in Final Cut by pressing apple (command) plus 8 (or File –> Log and Capture). Click on the “Capture Settings” tab and select “Non-controllable device” under Device Control and “DV NTSC 32 kHz” under Capture Input. It will look like this:
Remember, you always want to import extra video at the beginning and the end of each newscast or news update. Start capturing early and stop capturing only when you are sure you have enough footage. You will be able to edit the extra video out later, but you can never magically add video if you don’t import enough.
You will want to import one segment at a time. To import, or capture, your first segment click Now in the Log and Capture window. (A new window should pop up with your video playing in the box. This means Final Cut is importing your video.) Once all of the first segment is imported press the esc key on your keyboard. You will then want to repeat this step for as many segments as necessary to capture the newscast or news break. Once all segments are captured, close the Log and Capture window.
Your imported video clip(s) should now be in the Browser window.
You will want to name your imported clip with the segment (or story) name it contains (The segments are laid out on the rundown of the KUJH newscast). Click twice on the clip in the browser window to change the name. (Note - clicking twice is not the same as a fast double click. Click once to highlight the clip, then wait a second and click one more time to edit the clip name. A fast double click will not let you edit the clip name.)
Now, create a new sequence for each story. To do this, right click (control-click on a one-button mouse) in the gray space of the browser window and choose New Sequence. Name each sequence with the story slug for each story. Create all of the story sequences before editing any of the segments into individual story clips.
To begin editing a segment, click and drag your first clip into the timeline. You will notice three colored bars pop up into the timeline. The top blue bar is your video and the lower two green bars are your audio. When deleting part of your video clip you will also be deleting the audio, because for now you don’t want video without audio or vice versa. But don’t worry, Final Cut Pro automatically groups your video clips with your audio clips.
.If you have imported your clips properly, you should have an excess of video at the beginning and the end of your clip. Now you can clean-up your clips using the playhead in the timeline. You will want to find the exact frame that you want your clip to start on. You can do this by clicking and dragging the triangular playhead to the approximate starting frame, and then using the left and right arrow keys on the keyboard to find the exact starting frame.
Once you’ve found the exact frame you want to start on press B on your keyboard (or click on the blade tool in the tools palette).
Move your mouse cursor over the clip where your playhead is located. The cursor should snap to the playhead. (If your cursor does not snap, click View -> Snapping) Once the cursor snaps to the playhead click the mouse. Your video clip has been sliced into two pieces. Now repeat this process to find the end of your story.
You now need to go back to the arrow tool in the tools palette. Do this by pressing A on your keyboard (or by clicking on the arrow tool in the tools palette).
With the arrow tool selected click to highlight the portion of the video clip that contains your story. Once this portion of your video clip is selected, press the apple (command) plus X keys to cut this story.
Now double-click the story sequence for this story in the browser window. It should open a new tab on the timeline. Click on this tab and press apple (command) plus V to paste the clip into the timeline.
If there is any excess at the beginning or end of the clip after you paste it into the timeline, repeat steps 11-14. With the arrow tool selected click to highlight the portion of the video clip that you want to delete. Once the excess portion of your video clip is selected, hit the delete key.
When you finish editing the video portion of your newscast clip, then you need to edit the audio.
To change the audio you need to click on the audio editing button in the lower left hand corner of Final Cut Pro.
Clicking the audio editing button will bring up pink lines within your two green audio bars. When you roll your cursor over the pink line it will change into a two-sided arrow. You can click and drag the pink bar up and down to change the audio level.
You need to know where your audio levels should be within your project. You should not judge your audio levels within your project by the volume on the television monitor. The television monitor volume levels are not accurate representations of the audio levels within your project. You need to use the audio levels window in Final Cut Pro. The audio levels window is next to your tools palette window and has a color gradient from red at the top to yellow in the middle and green at the bottom.
Low levels of audio will peak in the green. High levels of audio will peak in the red. You want the majority of your audio levels to peak right at the end of the green next to -12. If there is a very loud noise in your video, such as a car door slamming, it is OK for that noise to peak higher than -12.
Go ahead and play your video clip and watch the audio levels window. If your audio is peaking above -12 you will need to drag the pink lines in your green audio bars down. When you drag the pink lines there will be a number next to the line. Do not worry about what those numbers mean, you will just use them for reference.
Just experiment with dragging both audio lines up or down depending on whether you need to raise of lower the audio. The numbers next to both pink lines should be the same for both. When you are finished editing the volume levels be sure to
The newscast tape will have Chyrons, also known as “supers”. Those Chyrons are designed for television. They are hard to see on the small QuickTime movies. You will have to add Web Chyrons for every Chyron used on TV.
You must use Firefox to open this file!!! It is also saved in the “Online Producer” folder on the desktop of the Online Producer’s G5. Right click on the link below. Save the link to the desktop. It should be saved as alw_WebChyron.psd
Download the J415 Chyron to the desktopOnce you’ve saved the .psd, open it in Photoshop.
Notice that all of the layers are locked except for Name and Title. These are the only layers you will edit. Since you are just using the same Chyron text from the newscast chyrons, the top layer of text from the newscast Chyron goes in the Name and the bottom layer goes in the Title.
Click on the Name layer in the Layers palette.
Click on the Type tool in the Tools palette.
Now you can highlight and change the text in the Name layer.
When you finish editing the name text, click on the Title layer in the Layers palette.
Make sure that you again click on the Type tool in the Tools palette. When switching between layers, it is possible for your tools to switch as well.
Now you can highlight and change the text in the Title layer.
When you have the text tool selected, and are editing text, you can’t Save for Web. If you are in the Name layer simply click on the Title layer to enable the Save for Web option. If you arein the Title layer simply click on the Name layer.
When you finish editing the title text, click File -> Save for Web.
Make sure you choose PNG-8 in the preset box, and make sure the transparency box is checked.
Click Save
Name the file with the text from the Title layer and the present day’s date. For example if the title is Strong Hall and the date is July 14, 2006, then the file should be name Strong-Hall071406. Save it to the desktop.
Now you need to import your chyron into Final Cut Pro.
With the clip open that you want to add the Chyron to, click File -> Import -> Files.
Browse to your saved Chyron and click Choose.
Your Chyron should now appear in the Browser window of Final Cut.
Click and drag your chyron down to the timeline. You should position your chyron in the video slot directly above your video clip that you want the chyron to go over. Your web chyron should start in the exact same spot the television chyron started and end in the exact same spot that the television chyron ended.
Once you have completely finished editing your video project in Final Cut, be sure to close out of the Log and Capture screen to begin the video exporting process. Make sure your video clip is all the way to the left of the timeline. If there are any black frames before your video starts, those will be exported with your video. Click and drag your video clips to the left of the timeline. Then hit Home on the keyboard to bring the playhead to the start of your clip.
Once you’ve got all your chyrons in the proper place for your clip, you need to render the video project. Click Sequence -> Render All -> Both Rendering may take a couple minutes.
Go to File -> Export -> Using Quicktime Conversion.
Click the Options button
Under VIDEO, click on Settings and set the following:
Compression type: H.264 compression
Frame Rate: 15
Key Frames: AUTOMATIC
Compressor Quality: MEDIUM
Data rate: Automatic
All other settings stay the same.Click OK.
Click on Size…Select Custom Size from the drop down… and set it to 240 x 180.
Click OK.
Under SOUND, click on Settings and set the following:
Compressor: AAC
Channels: Mono
Rate: 32.000 khz
Quality: Normal
Target Bit Rate: 32Click OK.
Your settings window should look like the screenshot below.
Click OK. Save your video to the folder on the Desktop for the day you are working with the same name as the slug for the applicable story. (For example, if the slug of the story is Gas leak cleanup, then the QuickTime movie file should be named gas-leak-cleanup.mov)
Click Save. The exporting process will take a couple of minutes.
Once you’ve exported one of you clips as a QuickTime movie, you will immediately want to export the same clip as a QuickTime podcast. Check out the Video Podcasts tutorial.