Mini Documentary Post Production (Chromebook Version)

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.

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 project folder within your class Google Drive folder.

Within your project 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

[menu]

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.

[menu]

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.

[menu]

Reporter Track

Write the Reporter Track

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.

Once you have written the reporter track, get your script approved by the teacher.

Record the Reporter Track

Once your script has been approved, you need to record the reporter track. Most of what you record will be a voice-over: your voice will be heard but you will not be seen. The last part of the reporter track will be a video of you speaking the reporter sign-off.

Voice-Over

To record the voice-over portions of your reporter track, use a phone and a voice recording app. (A phone will most likely give you better sound than if you record with your Chromebook.)

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.

You need to record in a very quiet space. If your recordings have any extraneous sound you will need to re-record. Open your approved script on your Chromebook. Hold the phone’s microphone 3 to 6 inches from your mouth. Do a test recording to make sure the sound is clear. If the test recording sounds good, start a new recording. Start reading the reporter track sentences in your script’s audio column. If you make a mistake, do not stop the recording. Just return to the start of the sentence where you made the mistake and start reading again. Once you have read all reporter track sentences correctly, stop recording. Playback the recording to make sure the sound quality is good.

Once you have a good audio recording of your entire reporter track send it as an email attachment to your school email account. On your Chromebook open the email message and download the recording into your Google Drive project folder.

Watch the tutorial video below to learn how to use twistedwave.com/online to edit audio on your Chromebook. Please note that you should create one file for each section of your reporter track. (A section includes all of the reporter sentences that appear back-to-back in the script.) Individual reporter section files will make it easier when adding the recordings to your WeVideo project.