tutorials

How to Create a YouTube Channel

Student Kristi Uffman walks you through the lessons she learned while creating her class project: using social media, such as Facebook and YouTube to engage and empower readers, sources and journalists.

Highlights of the Semester

One of the things I've always enjoyed about being an editor is watching talent develop. Over the course of this semester, I became proud to be editing the work of the students in this APPLES service learning class at UNC's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Showing an incredible amount of initiative and self-motivation, the 10 students in this class overcame obstacles and provided North Carolinians with a valuable public resource for them to understand and engage in an important public policy issue.

Any errors or shortcomings you find on the site are mine. Please let me know about them.

Here are the highlights of what the class did this semester:

Tragedy With Audio Levels and Learning to Adapt

The Tragedy of Audio Levels

The most important lesson I learned this semester is the critical nature of audio levels in a video project. I went to Wilmington to videotape a few interviews at Amigos Internacionales, a nonprofit organization that helps the local Latino community. When there, I naively thought that by adjusting the volume knobs on the camera to the mid-level, which meant that the audio being recorded was also at mid-level. Turns out? When the camera's video screen is showing the incoming audio levels as reaching the top of the audio spectrum? That is actually a bad sign.

Editing Audio With Final Cut Pro

This tutorial is going to provide a basic rundown of how to edit an audio piece using Final Cut Pro. For any reporter who records even a portion of an interview or event, whipping up an audio file quickly is easier than one might think.

When I used a handheld Olympus to record my interview with at-risk student Margaret McCoy for my article, I had to turn somewhere in order to create an accompanying audio piece. A quick and dirty tutorial on the process would have been helpful, so here goes.

Step 1. Setting up Final Cut Pro.
1.    Open FCP.
2.    In the Window menu at the top of the screen, choose Arrange, and then Standard. This will increase the size of the windows and give you more room to work.

Editing Audio With Final Cut Pro

This tutorial is going to provide a basic rundown of how to edit an audio piece using Final Cut Pro. For any reporter who records even a portion of an interview or event, whipping up an audio file quickly is easier than one might think.

When I used a handheld Olympus to record my interview with at-risk student Margaret McCoy for my article, I had to turn somewhere in order to create an accompanying audio piece. A quick and dirty tutorial on the process would have been helpful, so here goes.

Step 1. Setting up Final Cut Pro.
1.    Open FCP.
2.    In the Window menu at the top of the screen, choose Arrange, and then Standard. This will increase the size of the windows and give you more room to work.

Your First Reporting Assignment

Student Lander Atkinson has some words of comfort and wisdom for journalists embarking on their first multimedia reporting assignments.

Introduction to Sound Slides

Student Erin Smith walks you through the lessons she learned while creating her class project: a photo slide show with audio using SoundSlides.

Posting Public Documents Online as PDFs

Student Elisa Greewood walks you through the lessons she learned in her effort to post online North Carolina's winning grant applications and their scores. This is the first time that these documents were posted online.
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