For my photo story, I am recounting, in French with English subtitles, a story of an epiphany I had while learning French a long time ago. This story goes well with my course about the French language, that is being taught in English.
I learned how to edit film the old-fashioned way at Ryerson University in 1997. I had filmed a silent B&W 8 MM movie, and used a viewfinder, and would edit by literally cutting out frames I didn’t want and then scotch taping together two clips after one had been taken out. For younger colleagues, you probably can’t even imagine this process, physical pieces of film hanging at the side with the editor at a viewfinder literally cutting and taping.
During the same education program, I learned where editing was going by learning Adobe Premier and Avid. A few years later I would use iMovie on my Mac. Today’s iMovie is nothing like that version that I used, and kept when newer versions came out until something overrode it and I couldn’t keep it any longer in a later OS. Maybe I’m a luddite, but I really miss having a linear timeline, where I could drop in layers of audio, stills, or video files, and be able to trim them in and out by dragging the length of the clip through time. I’ve spent the last couple of days looking for such software based on Yurkiw and Bates’ recommendations of media selection. I just downloaded an open source editor called Natron. At first my Mac wouldn’t let me open it because it’s not official and from the app store. Finally I overrode it, but it isn’t the simple timeline format I was seeking.
Basically, I have all my audio and video files in place. I’ve considered using iMovie and Explain Everything!, but grew frustrated at their limitations. iMovie doesn’t seem to let me build my movie from audio outward, that is, starting with my recording and then adding images. The audio clip gets cut to whatever length of images are there. E.E. won’t let me use pre-recorded audio, as far as I can tell.
It’s a bit crazy to think that, now, about a month from getting a Master’s degree in Education Technology, that I still find computers extremely frustrating at times. When under time pressure, with an idea of an end result but not knowing how to get there, computers can still cause a lot of consternation.