I think the shotgun mic worked really well for this project. I feel that the lavaliers might have given us slightly better audio, but the shotgun worked fine and was easy to set up (after we replaced the battery…). I made some cuts (since we actually talked for more like 4 or 5 minutes), but I think I hid them well enough with the cuts to other footage. Corinne and I also talked to the camera, instead of to each other (like Jake and I did in my last podcast), since we felt that it would do a better job of engaging the audience in this case.

There was such potential for this podcast, but I just don’t think we had what we needed.  The goal for the video was for it to be a quick tour of the department, which we achieved.  Quality did suffer, however.  It was nearly impossible to keep the camera steady.  We attempted to use a tripod as a counter weight, in order to make the whole thing stay steadier.  It didn’t help much.  Perhaps an XL1 with the shoulder pad would’ve been better, or maybe there’s a cart somewhere that would do the job.  I may have to look into this a bit more.

Anyway, that’s enough rambling about this podcast.  As opposed to being in class tomorrow, I’ll be attempting to help with cleanup in Mapleton, IA, and also attempting to document it.  iPhone with an HD camera and my Canon 50D ought to do the trick.

This one was filmed with a Samsung handheld camera and edited in iMovie on my laptop.  It was nice, easy, simple..the way a podcast should be.  There weren’t a zillion things to go wrong when using the computer to input from a tape since I used a memory card and a card reader instead.

We were honestly considering recording and uploading the entire assignment form my BlackBerry Torch…it would have proved the point that technology is intertwined at our finger tips, but I thought this may have a slightly higher quality.  My partner isn’t a huge fan of being on film, but having an extra hand to run the camera really did help!  Here it goes: