This week I am up in Brooklyn, New York collecting the content I need for a multimedia project I am working on as part of my MFA program. I have been gravitating towards working in multimedia for a long time now, and this is my first real project. The end result will be about a 3 to 5 minute long movie which will include a time-lapse sequence of images, still images, video and recorded audio.

As you may have guessed I am already a little overwhelmed by all of the various pieces to this puzzle! For stills and time-lapse I am using my DSLR kit. I use the Canon 20D and an assortment of lenses. The downside to this camera is that it has no built in intervalometer, so I have to either hook it up to a laptop ( not too practical in the field ) or trigger the camera manually, using a watch to time things. Newer cameras like the Nikon D200 have built in intervalometers, which you can set to trigger the camera to your liking.

For audio I am working with a Tascam HP-P2 high resolution recorder. This unit allows for balanced XLR stereo input, and records in WAV format to a compact flash card. It’s a bit bulky, but gets the job done. Attached to the Tascam I have a Rhode shotgun mic with a windbreaker.

For video I am using an older model Sony HDR-FX1. This camera records in HD 1080i format onto miniDV tapes. It’s a consumer level camera, but probably a very good “bang for your buck” type outfit.

This morning I shot about a half hour worth of video footage. I will probably end up using all of thirty seconds or so from this shoot for the final video. However, I may wind up using some of the audio separately as well. A few weeks ago I recorded audio with the Tascam and it went quite well, so I may do some more tomorrow after I shoot my early morning time-lapse.

As for Aperture, I am using it quite a bit on this project. All of the still images from the 20D are shot in RAW format and imported into Aperture. These get organized into a single project which has a number of albums separating the images by purpose. I have one album for the time-lapse content, one for regular stills, and a few others for things like potentials for printing.

For the video I need to carefully consider how I export my images. If a still is to be used in the video with some type of movement ( a-la Ken Burns ) it usually needs to be exported slightly larger than standard 1080 HD format. This way you can zoom in a little more through the movement effect.

Fortunately most of my images wont be moving much! So, I can export them all at 1080 format. I use the cropping tool to make them match the 16:9 aspect ratio of my HD project, and I have set up a 1080 format export preset. If you make a 16:9 crop to one of your images, you can then use the lift and stamp tool to apply that same crop to all of your images. This works especially well for time-lapse projects which tend to have a lot of similar images from the same angle. For traditional stills you will usually have to adjust the position of the crop to your own preference for each individual image.

Down-sampling the images is really important for use in Final Cut Pro. If the images are too big, FCP will require a great deal of memory in order to play them back in real time. So, it’s wise to try and down-sample your images to fit the format of 1080HD video. Obviously if you are working in 720p you would want to do the same for this format.

All of the audio and video footage is imported into the Final Cut project. FCP uses a referenced file type design so there is really not a whole lot of file management options. I have been experimenting with Final Cut Server at home, which is sort of Aperture for video projects. It’s really designed for use in a production house type environment, but I think it has potential for the single user as well.

This particular project is going to be displayed in black and white. I thought about doing all of the black and white conversions to the stills in Aperture, but then I realized how powerful Apple’s Color application is. I can bring in my entire sequence, convert to black and white and adjust the grading for the entire project so that it all matches, regardless if it was originally shot with the 20D, or the HD camera. Very cool!

Once I finish editing this project, I will be using iDVD to make a looping DVD. This will be played on a 32 inch HD TV which will be installed on a pedestal in an art gallery at my school. This will be my first installation and I am obviously very excited. It opens in Baltimore on Halloween, so if you are in the area, be sure to stop by, and don’t worry, I will be sure to document the installation with the same HD camera I used to make the project!