Ever watch a music video and wonder how it was made? Well in this post, we’ll look at the process of producing the High Definition feature film of Sammy’s debut college-format show at Appalachian State University last October.
Any film, of course, starts with the raw footage. Rather than tape or film, Sammy used completely digitalized footage stored on memory cards and harddrives. These devices, of course, were captured onto Apple’s Final Cut Express. Here, the real studio magic began.
The show was recorded with three different High Definition camcorders at different angles. The trick therefore, was to sync each angle within a fraction of a second to insure the footage was uniform. What made this process involved was the fact that footage running speeds vary and therefore it may be necessary to adjust clips accordingly.
The audio from the show, as in Hollywood moviemaking, was recorded separately into three channels. One mic in the audience for crowd reactions and room ambiance, one feed of Sammy’s microphone capturing only his voice, and the final channel used was the music itself. The levels, surprisingly, are set differently in the studio than they are live. The trick in this process is to create uniform sound, despite the fact three completely different tracks are used. The whole idea is to create a live, but polished sound.
Finally, the audio is united with the video and the tracks are exported onto the harddrive of a computer, here they are either burned to DVD or further edited in the form of show segments on the internet. Clips from this film project will be uploaded on Sammy’s Youtube later this month. Keep your eyes peeled!
