An Itemized Audio/Video Production List: Have All Your Angles Covered
Bryant Falk has been a producer and
engineer for over 12 years working with such
clients as The Ricki Lake Show, Coca-Cola,
Sports Illustrated, Valley National Bank,
and MTV’s The Shop. His company Abacus
Audio (www.abacusaudio.com) handles
many aspects of the audio production field
from creative and production to mixing and
final output.
So there I was off to Vegas as a hired
gun to help fix and create audio/video for
a multitude of purposes. I thought I had
everything! My laptop complete with all the
software I could ever need. A cornucopia
of software and a couple of fire wire hard
drives.
So there I was happily spending all
night cutting video projects and recording
voice-overs, when bam – hit me. The old
PC versus Mac conflict. Let me explain.
After downloading the finished videos
I then ran down to the presentation area
where they were all running PC laptops
for their Powerpoint presentations. Turns
out none of the machines had firewire
connections for me to patch into. One thing
I had forgotten was a USB drive to interface
with systems missing the 1394 connector.
After finding a work around, (using the
presenter’s USB drive and transferring from
my laptop), I thought, hey, time to make an
itemized production list, and share it with
you.
(1) Laptop (for me, it’s a Macbook
Pro, so I’ll work from there).
(2) Software (expanded below).
(3) External firewire drives (800
gigabytes to start).
(4) USB drive if you have the
room.
(5) Firewire 400 and 800 cables.
(6) USB cables, (all connectors
and configurations).
(7) USB flash drive (4 gigabytes is
good to start).
(8) DV camera for monitoring
and digitizing.
(9) Microphone for voice-overs.
(10) RCA cables for monitoring
on hotel flat screen.
(11) 1/8th inch to RCA connectors
for monitoring laptop audio.
(12) Headphones.
(13) Light for video camera for
additional shoots.
(14) Tape stock for camera.
(15) Monopod for steadier shots.
Tripod would be good, too.
The software starts with Final Cut
Studio 2 and is supported with Sorenson
Squeeze, Flip for Mac, Adobe Photoshop
and a few others. These allow me to handle
almost any type of movie and still file that
is thrown my way. As a hired gun I feel
it’s my responsibility to have all the angles
covered. Not always easy to do, but it’s a
fun challenge.
This article may not be reprinted in print or internet publications without express permission of StudentFilmmakers.com.
Check out this article in the June 2008 print edition of StudentFilmmakers magazine, page 48.
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