Post-Production (Chromebook Mini-Documentary)

If you did a good job recording interviews, what people said will provide the majority of content in your news story. Similar to using quotes in a research paper, you will use Sound Bites (sentences and phrases the people you interviewed said) to tell the story.

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Organize Interview Recordings

Before you start editing your news story, make sure your project folder is organized. On your Chromebook, click on the File icon and navigate to your News project folder within your class Google Drive folder.

Within your News folder, create a folder named Interviews. Place copies of each interview recording within this folder. Name each recording with the name of the person you interviewed. Keep the file extension when re-naming a recording.

For example, if the original file name ends with the .webm extension, make sure the new name ends with the extension:
Original name: 2020-11-08.webm
New name: rita-book.webm

If the original file name ends with the .mov extension, make sure the new name ends with the extension:
Original name: 2020-10-29.mov
New name: terry-cloth.mov

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Sound Bites

To edit your news story, make sure you have set-up a WeVideo account using your school email address.

Watch this tutorial video to set-up your editing project, create sound bites, and refine the sound bites.

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Transcript

Once you have edited and refined the sound bites from your interviews, you may start your news story’s script.

Make a copy of the A/V Script Google Docs Template and save it in your Google Drive News project folder.

Watch this tutorial to create a transcript from your edited sound bites.

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Reporter Track

Complete the Script

Once you have started your script by entering the transcript of the sound bites you are planning to use, you need to write what you, as the reporter, will say to tell your story. The reporter’s part of the script is known as the reporter track. Watch this tutorial to complete your script by writing the reporter track and adding descriptions of the video portion of your story.

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Record the Voice-Over Track

Once your script has been approved by the teacher you need to record the reporter track. Most of what you will say in your story will be voice-over. (This means the audience will hear your voice but not see you on the screen.) Only the last sentence of your script (the reporter sign-off) needs to be recorded as a video showing you speaking into the camera. To record the voice-over, use a phone:

If you have an iPhone, use your Voice Memos app.
If your Android phone did not come with an audio recording app, consider installing Smart Recorder. It will show a lot of ads while using it, but it works well.

Open your approved script in your Chromebook and practice reading the voice-over parts out-loud. When you are ready to record, make sure the phone’s microphone is between 3 and 6 inches from your mouth.

If you make a mistake while reading do not stop the recording. Instead, back up to the beginning of the sentence that had the mistake. Countdown (2… 1…) then start reading the sentence again. (The count down will make it easier to edit the recording.)

Once all sentences of your reporter track’s voice over have been read correctly, stop the recording. Send the recording file from your phone as an email attachment to your school email account.

Create a folder in your Google Drive news project folder and name it Reporter. Download your voice-over recording into your new Reporter folder.

Follow the directions in this video tutorial to edit each section of your reporter track into a new audio file. Name each edited file as Reporter-#.mp3 substituting the number it appears in your script for #. For example: reporter-1.mp3

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Record the Stand-Up

Once you have recorded and edited your reporter voice-overs, find a well-lit, quiet place with a plain background.

Have someone use a phone to record a head-and-shoulders landscape video of you reciting the last sentence of your script. Make sure you have memorized what you need to say. It will be similar to this: “From James Logan High School in Union City, California, this is Jim Shoes reporting for Logan TV.” Click here to see an example of a stand-up recording.

Speak a little louder than normal. Hold still when the recording starts and make sure the recording continues for a few seconds after you finish speaking. If you make a mistake, repeat the process until you have a mistake-free recording of your stand-up.

Send the recording from the phone to your school email account and download it into your Google Drive News Project Reporter folder.

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