In the United States, copyrighting is automatic. That means if you create something, it is automatically copyrighted. Automatically. Pretty cool eh?

I just copyrighting a drawing of a flying dragon on a napkin.

Well, it doesn’t quite work that way, but you get the picture.

As you might guess, this method is a little bit slippery when it comes to accounting for it. Let’s say someone steals something from your movie – all you’ve got is the default copyright claim that comes automatic when you created the film in the first place. It’s kind of like the default insurance that comes with your rental car.

What most people don’t realize is that it is extremely easy to copyright your film with the US Government. Then, you’ve got the upgraded copyright stuff. You’ve got the deluxe package, and you’re rollin’.

Copyrighting Online

I’m going to be pretty up front here – the US Government has a web application to copyright works online, but it isn’t going to be a smooth experience. It is most likely going to through up Javascript errors about sessions and then send you to a blank page. Just keep going back to the site, and you’ll be fine. It just takes a little bit of patience.

The site is called the Electronic Copyright Office (ECO), and you can find it at www.copyright.gov/eco.

You navigate the site by following their instructions. On the first page, you’ll be confronted by a choice of what you want to copyright:

We’re obviously going for “Motion Picture / Audio Visual Work”. Click it, and you get an explanation:

Select Motion Picture/Audiovisual if you are registering a feature film, documentary film, animated film, television show, video, videogame, or other audiovisual work. An audiovisual work is a work that consists of a series of related images that are intended to be shown by the use of a machine or device, together with accompanying sounds, if any.

From there, follow the instructions down the list, and provide all the necessary information. If you get stuck, click on a link somewhere – the ECO site has tons of great and very clear documentation that will help you for your particular situation.

Once you are done, you pay a fee to register your copyright, which is only $35. Not bad when you consider the benefits of copyrighting officially with the government.

Once you send it in, the government reviews it. If they have any problems with it they will contact you. If not, you will receive notice that your copyright has gone through.

For more information, there is no better site than just copyright.gov. They have a treasure trove on information on how to handle your copyright, including instructions on how to preregister a copyright before a work is fully completed.

What is Hiss?

Not to be confused with hum, hiss is a persistant noise on a recording that sounds like … well … hiss. Turn the sound up loud enough and you will almost always here some on your recording. A low levels, it isn’t much of a problem.

The problem is when you have hiss on a recording that is distracting – say from a bad microphone or from turning up low dialogue. You could also be trying to restore an old recording that has hiss on it. Wherever it comes from, however, it’s annoying and needs to be destroyed.

The Basic Method of Getting Rid of Hiss

Hiss removal involves a few similar steps no matter what software you are using. First of all, you need to find a sample of hiss just by itself. That way the audio program knows what the hiss actually sounds like isolated – before that, it could get hiss confused with other parts of your recording. After setting some parameters, your tool of choice will try to remove that hiss from the recording without damaging any other areas.

To illustrate, I am going to take a look at removing hiss from two programs: Audacity and iZotope RX.

Removing Hiss with Audacity

If you are not familiar, Audacity is a great (and free) audio tool for Mac and PC. You can get it here. To get started, open it up, and import a piece of audio.

After importing your track, look closely for a small chunk of audio where there is only noise. After you’ve found it, select that portion of audio.

Select Noise Removal… out of the drop down list of effects from the Effects menu. This will give you a little dialog box that presents a handy two step guide. The first, is to get a noise profile. Since we’ve selected our noise profile area, we can just click the “Get Noise Profile” button.

Once you have the noise profile, deselect the noise profile area, and get back to the two step panel. You can adjust the noise reduction amount, preview it, and hit okay. Play back your audio, and the hiss is now minimized or gone.

As we mention in our limitations section, your audio may be affected depending on the Noise Reduction level you’ve chosen. If you are getting audio that sounds like it was recorded underwater, it is time to go back and rethink your parameters.

Removing Hiss with iZotope RX

iZotope RX is a fantastic program that is well worth the fact that it is not free. You can get it at BHPhoto.com.

What does iZotope RX have that free solutions don’t have? Well first of all, it can do a lot more than take out hiss, but we are sticking to hiss in this article. One of my favorite features of iZotope RX is its Spectrogram information. It can be viewed right on top of the more conventional wave pattern:

This view allows you to see – in much greater detail – disturbances or irregularity in audio. For instance, hum can be observed as a single line shooting horizontally through a recording. Hiss appears as “noise” you can see in the background of the audio.

Removal works in a similar fashion to Audacity. Find a portion of the audio where just the hiss is present, click the Denoiser button and click Train. This will “train” the program in the audio noise profile of the recording.

As in Audacity, you have a Noise Reduction level and a Smoothing option. However, you also have a choice of several algorithms that might give different results. Some take longer to process, but it is worth it to see which one might fit your situation the best.

When using an advanced program like iZotope RX, it is a good idea to look through their documentation. In the case of iZotope RX, the documentation happens to be extremely helpful and thorough.

Limitations

Of course, there are limitations. Like we mentioned in our previous post, audio is like a bowl of soup. You are going to take out some things you want to leave in. Since every piece of audio is very different, you’ll need to do some experimenting with parameters to see what level of removal leaves your audio suitably in tact.

Basically, it allows you to add captions to your videos, and add them as a different language captions. This works out great for videos that have an international interest, because you can easily make a video multi-lingual, if you have the ability or people to translate it.

How are Captions Generated?

Captions in YouTube (and in most video environments) never touch the video at all. They are simply text files of information that the player reads and displays. The file contains the in and out timecode where a caption should be, and the caption text. Very simple, and very lightweight – you never need to touch your video, and the files and tiny since they are basically text files.

The problem is, it can be a real pain to get caption files timed right if you are trying to manually work with timecode and put that into the text file. I’ve tried, and it can be a real mess.

Enter Overstream

Overstream is a really great tool that I came across that makes it very easy to create caption files for YouTube. It’s free, and it’s very easy to use.

To start, go to overstream.net and create an account. Once you’ve logged in, we’re ready to go.

Creating an Overstream Session

Once of the many great features of Overstream is the ability to import a video to start captioning straight from the YouTube URL. Click on “Create Overstream” to create a fresh session, and then you can enter a URL in the dialogue box that automatically pops up.

After your video has been entered into the program, you can start captioning.

Captioning in Overstream

This is what the Overstream interface looks like:

In the video player area, you have a video scrubber. The black area scrubs through the video, and the white markers are for zooming on a specific section.

Find the place where you want to start your first caption, and click add on the bottom right. Type in the caption, and it’ll appear in the caption list with the in and out points, as well as over the video.

If you need to make a caption go for longer than the default time, move the black triangle cursor to the desired endpoint and click the caption out button.

You can overlap captions, and even drag them around on the timeline. It really is a great, intuitive tool that makes captioning easy and actually fun.

Caption Size

Overstream isn’t specifically built for captioning YouTube videos (although that’s what we’re using it for today for this tutorial), so the captions it renders in real time don’t look like the ones that YouTube renders. YouTube will render the text smaller, so you don’t need to be so cautious about having captions close to the edge on Overstream’s viewer. They’ll have plenty of room on YouTube.

Exporting for YouTube

Once you are all finished, click Tools on the bottom right hand side. This will allow you to export an SRT caption file, which you can upload to YouTube.

After clicking Export Current Subtitles as SRT, you’ll get a file download.

Adding the Captions to Your YouTube Video

After you’ve got your SRT, take it to YouTube. Go to your video’s page and click Captions and Subtitles on the Edit Video bar.

There you can upload your SRT file and designate a language for it.

Once its been uploaded, your video will get a cool “CC” icon next to it that looks like the “HD” icon, and you and your visitors will be able to turn on captioning and choose a language in the YouTube player. Awesome!

Now.

Direct Actors for Improv

Home Film School Student has a conversation with an actress about being directed in a scene where she ab-libbed quite a bit (and they wanted her too). The content of this video is valuable if you encourage actors to improv during a scene (this may be more helpful for them, actually), but my favorite parts of this video are meta. Such as the dude asking “are we ready to go” at the beginning, and this “bored camera guy” shot.

I’m trippin! Check out the videos here.

The Beeping! The Beeping!

For the first little while I worked with Final Cut Pro I had no clue why some audio would beep on the timeline and need to be rendered while others did not. Turns out it could be a few reasons, and Genius DV has laid them out in a handy little post.

For your health.

IndyMogul Really Wants You To Make a Slider

Zach from Backyard Effects and IndyMogul will stop at nothing to get you to make his $20 slider. Nothing.

Nothing.

Partner with YouTube Instructions from a YouTube Video

Did I just blow your mind? Maybe this video will. From FilmmakerIQ.

DiY is basically going to apply. Basically.

Young Man Reading a Newspaper While Yawning Tracking Shots with Smooth Jazz

It’s a common and difficult problem, so we are going to do a series of articles on how to deal with different types of audio problems and with what programs. But before we get fancy, we have do get down to some basics.

Enhance!

I like to sit down and enjoy an episode of a procedural crime drama like “CSI: Miami” or “CSI: Someplace” every once in a while, but I have to laugh when they deal with anything audio or visual. The common use of technology that doesn’t exist is the “enhance!” feature where a blurry security camera is somehow enhanced to allow us to read a license plate off the back of a car. It’s fun, but it’s stupid, because you can’t do that in real life. It’s just technically impossible to create data where there is none.

The same goes for their treatment of audio. Usually, a garbled piece of audio is brought into their A/V department and it comes out pristine, so they can get the one piece of evidence they need. Usually this can be done with Horatio standing over the technician’s shoulder.

Like the video part, the audio treatment is completely fabricated, but it plays into a common misconception about audio in general: that you can “remove” something from it or “enhance” a part of it easily.

Can you do those things? Yes, but it is much more difficult than TV has led everyone to believe.

Audio Soup

Think of your audio track like a big pot of soup. There are spices, carrots, peas, chicken, and a bunch of other stuff all mixed together. It’s delicious, but has a flavor problem. It would be much better if we took the carrots out. Okay, no big deal. You can see the carrots – they’re orange. You get a spoon and start picking them out.

So you start taking the carrots out, and you soon find out it’s not as easy as you thought. You keep removing parts of the soup you didn’t intend to, like some broth. But after a while, you manage to get them all out. You took some of the soup with it, but that’s going to be okay.

Now, for your next assignment, you have to take the oregano out.

What is “Fixable”?

Audio is like the soup – all mixed together and messy. You can’t just “remove” something easily and without consequences, but if you know exactly what you need to get, you can take it out with some work if you don’t mind losing a little bit of other audio in the process.

What makes something a carrot? It has to be something that is uniform throughout the audio, like a hum or a hiss. Something that can be easily identified and is always there. The carrots are still in the soup, they are just identifiable.

Obviously, it’s impossible to remove the oregano because it’s too much a part of the soup. If you really wanted to take it out, you’d damage the soup heavily, and you’d have a hard time figuring out what is oregano and what isn’t. There would probably be some left in there when you’re done too.

The oregano elements in audio are things like a cough or a car in the distance during dialogue. It’s too embedded in the sound to be completely removed.

Next: Removing the Carrots

Soon, we’ll be posting round 2 of talkin’ about audio, with a list of tools to remove carrot-like audio problems, and some methods. Stay tuned!

That wasn’t the case before, and still isn’t the case in many production environments. You see, more often than not, we modern editors are doing something without even noticing: we’re combining offline and online editing. Essentially, it used to be that you captured much smaller, lower quality versions of files, and edited those. That was offline. Then, you’d send your edit to another department (or do it yourself) and they would do the online editing, meaning they would put in the full quality files from the source tapes, color correct, etc.

Now, you probably capture at full HD and edit at full HD because our computers can handle it. It’s simpler, and for a smaller operation, it makes sense.

But even though we’re editing in different ways, the fundamentals under the hood are still the same.

Numbers Under the Hood

For this example, I’m going to use Final Cut Pro.

Let’s say you have a 45 minute tape of HD footage, and you capture it into FCP, end to end. Now, that tape is file on your hard drive, sitting in a folder. Go to your project assets folder, and you can check it out and even play it from the finder.

However, go into Final Cut, and you can chop it up, move it around, color correct it, and mess with the audio. After all that, you can go back and still find your 45 minute file, just sitting there, not touched.

The reason for this is Final Cut is a non-destructive editor. It’s not actually touching your captured files at all, it’s just referencing them and creating data about the different editing decisions you’ve made. A cut on this tape at this time, placed on the timeline here, with this filter and this data. That’s all it needs to know, really, and then it plays it back.

When you get down to it, editing is all about numbers: timecode and other data referencing tapes. Those tapes just happen to be sitting in digital form on your hard drive. That’s why your Final Cut Pro project file is always so small. It’s just data – the files are elsewhere.

Could I Get That In a List?

It makes sense then, that since you can export a video file from Final Cut (where it pulls together all that data and mixes the video together into a file), you can export a version of just the data. This is called an Edit Decision List, or EDL.

EDLs are a list of every editing decision for an entire project, in sequence. Theoretically, if you lose your entire project, if you have the EDL, you can rebuild the edit. Pretty crazy.

Now, like many things on the computer, there are many types of formats that all vary slightly (thanks, computers), but most EDLs share the same basic data from the classic CMX EDL format:

Event Number:  Just a sequential number. Primary key, for my database people.

Source ID: ID for the video or media source. Some programs place limits on this in terms of length.

Edit Mode: Is this decision on video track 1 (V1) or audio track 1 (A1) or both (VA1) or maybe another combo? That goes here, and the format in which it is denoted varies.

Transition Type: C for Cut, D for Dissolve. You get the idea, and you also get the frame numbers in there for dissolves. These also vary and are not standardized.

Source in/Source Out: Timecode of where you are taking the video from the original source.

Record in/Record Out: Timecode of where the video you took appears on the tape or timeline.

For example, here is a CMX-format EDL for a very short, basic video with straight cuts:

You can also get a much more complicated version:

As you can see, in Final Cut, there are a lot of EDL options to choose from. Which ones you use (and which ones you use on any program) depends on the needs of the project. The person who needs the EDL will usually be able to tell you what kind of settings they need on the export. What you need to know is that EDLs exist, and in many cases are essential to the production workflow.

I’d recommend signing up for a premium (paid) account, but the basic account is free, and so are the clients.

With a technology like Evernote, use cases are far-ranging and diverse, but today we’re going to take a look at some uses specifically for DiY Filmmakers.

With Evernote, you can …

Scout Locations

With Evernote’s mobile app for the iPhone, you can take a picture of a location and Evernote will automatically geo-tag it. Create a location scouting Notebook to store all those images, and you’ll automatically have a catalog of images and lat/long for potential locations.

Organize Releases and Other Documents

A great Evernote feature is the ability to scan right into it. This is a great way to keep production documents in the cloud in case a folder full of releases go missing or catches on fire.

Keep Equipment Checklists

I find paper checklists cumbersome and ineffective because they can’t be easily re-used. Using Evernote’s checkboxes feature, you can create different checklists for equipment and even scenes and broll that need to be shot that day. In the chaos of a shoot, having an easily accessible checklist on your phone can be a lifesaver.

Track Daily Shooting Notes

Taking notes during a shoot is something that is both essential and extremely annoying. It’s very seldom that anyone has any time to jot down anything about a script change or a note that will become important next week in the editing room. Using Evernote’s audio note feature, you can quickly record audio notes throughout the day and refer to them later on your desktop or during editing.

Distribute Daily Sides

Sides are the pages of the script that will be shot on any given day. Distributing them can be a hassle, but using Evernote’s sharing feature, you can just copy/paste the pertinent pages of the script into a new note and share with the cast and crew via the web. It may not completely replace physical sides, but it helps.

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There you have it. If you aren’t incorporating Evernote into your workflow, I say dooo it!

I ran into a problem this week. I wanted to burn a quickie DVD of a Quicktime file. DVD Studio Pro = overkill for this, so I reached for iDVD. iDVD is quick and dirty, and it gets the job done.

However, I ran into a road block when I wanted to put in some chapter markers, because I needed some chapter markers. You can’t do that in iDVD, so the search for a solution began.

My first try was opening up iMovie to see if it could do anything to help me out. My thinking was “hey, iMovie and iDVD both have “i” in front of them, maybe the work together on this. After 15 seconds, I was out. Don’t try it. It’s scary.

After a few searches on the Googles, I came across Metadata Hootenanny, a free program for Mac OS X (sorry Windows and Linux peeps). Anyways, Metadata Hootenanny allows you to control the metadata for Quicktime files. It allows you to do all sorts of cool stuff, but the feature I was interested in was creating chapter markers.

Turns out it’s easy like easy cake.

The interface looks a bit like iTunes. You can open movie files, and edit the meta info right there if you’d like.

But, we want to edit the chapter info. For that, click the little book icon on the bottom:

That takes you to a window where you can scroll through the video (on a separate screen) and click the big plus button to add new chapters. Triple click on the default chapter names to create new ones.

It’s as simple as that. Afterwards, save the file, and you are ready to go.

What’s really cool about this is when you drag the movie file into iDVD, it automatically recognizes the chapter markers and even makes the links page for the chapters themselves.

And we didn’t even have to touch the unholy iMovie! Bonus!

Operating a boom mic on a set is an interesting job. In Hollywood, there are people who just operate boom mics. It’s their job. They literally spend all day boomin’ it up, and they’re good. Real good.

On the independent/DiY level, you are very lucky if you come across someone who is proficient in boom pole operation. You should probably give them an edible arrangement and be best friends with them if you find one. Never let them go. Never.

For the most part, though, you will be going through a familiar scene: trying to train someone to use a boom pole quickly so they do a decent job. Could be for one scene or a whole day. Could be because you forgot, our the edible arrangements made your first boom pole guy sick. It doesn’t matter. You need audio, and your brother’s girlfriend isn’t doing anything for the next 30 minutes.

So, we’ve rounded up a few tips to make sure you communicate, and you’ll have some decent audio flying your way.

Photo Credit

Pointer #1: Point the tip of the boom mic at the sound source

This one is important, because it’s not instantly intuitive. It’s always good to explain to your boom operator that the slits on the side of the boom cancel out noise, and the real audio capturing takes place at the tip of the mic.

This immediately removes some common problems of boom operators pointing mics at shoes and tea pots when they should be pointing the mic at the mouth of the person talking. The concept is simple – point the boom at the sound source like an arrow.

Pointer #2: Ask for / watch the frame line

Nothing stops a shot dead in its tracks faster than a wandering boom mic, unless you are in this scene:

Make sure you communicate to your operator that before every shot, they need make sure they know (roughly) where the frame line is, so they don’t cross it. One of the best ways is to show them the shot, so they know where their boundaries are.

Easy – no more wandering booms, and no more tears. This is especially important, because it’s embarrassing for a first time operator to single handedly ruin a take.

Pointer #3: Keep Steady and Stretch Between Takes

A boom pole / mic combination might not seem that heavy at first, but holding it at length can take its toll on anyone. Communicating to your operator that they need to keep steady during shots – but not between shots – will encourage them to limber up keep their endurance up for the duration of the shoot.

Photo Credit

Pointer #4: Try other options besides over top

The classic boom operator position is the boom high above the head, but sometimes a scene is much better served from a different position. Communicate to your boom operator that whatever position gets the mic the closest to the source and outside of the frame line is the best option, and up above is not the only way to do it.

Pointer #5: Some movement is okay, but keep it consistent

Inexperienced boom operators have the tendency to hold a mic absolutely still in the same position for an entire scene, even with moving action. Communicate to your boom operator that if there is movement, they should follow the sound source. However, let them know that for consistency, boom movements should happen with the sound, and not while it’s stationary.

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That’s it! Just 5 quick points, and you’ll have a solid boom operator on your hands! We’ll have more in this series coming down the road, so stay tuned!

To make things easier, we’ve gone ahead and scoured the net for the best Sony HVR-A1U reviews and tutorials. Check ‘em out!

Warning: We could not find any decent tutorials on the Sony HVR-A1U online, only test shoots and hilariously bad related videos. We’ve embedded them for your enjoyment. We’re going to make an HVR-A1U tutorial video soon. You can see my descent into madness as the post continues.

Resources, Tutorials, and Reviews

HVR-A1U Manual (pdf) – Full owner’s manual

HVR-A1U Brochure (pdf) – Summary of some of the key features

HVR-A1U Error Codes – For diagnosing problems

Sony’s HVR-A1U Page – Specs and pictures

Sundance Media Group – Great review and tutorial, talking about specific features with examples and menu images

Videomaker – Quick review from Videomaker Magazine

Studio Daily – Review of a pre-release version of the A1U from Studio Daily

DV Format – Another great/review tutorial of features with images

CNET User Reviews – Some reviews by users of the HVR-A1U on CNet

Digital Content Producer – Review with some great technical info

TV Technology – Another Review

Kino-Eye – Great review with a link to a Z1U/A1U image quality comparison gallery

HVR-A1U Footage Tests

This test footage of an English Bulldog is the clear winner

Low Light Test:

Depth of Field Test:

Test Footage:

Misc Tests

KIA Test Shoot

More Test Footage

Even More Test Footage. This time, a cat.

The test footage to end all test footage

Test Footage of a Pigeon

Someone burning nachos (still test footage of the A1U for some reason)

Film Look Test

Tutorials and Misc

This man is unwrapping the HVR-A1U that he bought used. I REPEAT. HE IS MAKING AN UNBOXING VIDEO, FOR A USED PRODUCT. EVERYTHING IS WRAPPED IN BUBBLE WRAP AND PACKING TAPE. MY HEAD IS GOING TO EXPLODE.

This is the Z1U, but I had to include this. It’s too stupid.

This man is doing his best to make it hard for you to hear/understand him

A Completely Useless Tutorial by a Moron

Mom Describes Shorts (or what not to shoot as test footage with your Merlin steadicam)

The Winner of The Stupidest HVR-A1U Video Goes To

Before you watch this, I will warn you that this defies all of humanity’s combined gathered intelligence over all time. It is so stupid, so useless, and has absolutely no reason to exist. It is 1:16 seconds of manic, shaky footage of the Sony HVR-A1U, with some abrasive rap in the background. Now that I think about it though, the rap goes with it perfectly. The creator of this video probably put a lot of thought into the song choice for this masterpiece. He ultimately chose this diddy, in which the vocalist tells us he “hate[s] bitches, but [he] loves pussy”. Behold.