During Welcome Week, we sent our first year students out with Canon HV30 video cameras and radio microphones to interview each other as an ice-breaking exercise. Today, they used that footage as a demonstration of how to digitise footage from the camera, make a simple cut in Premiere Elements, compress the output file and upload the resulting clip of a minute or so to the centreforjournalism site.

I’m not sure which is the most satisfying part of the exercise: the fact that their collective grasp of the technology is so far very impressive; or the fact that those interviews so beautifully demonstrate every classic error in the interview techniques book, giving Richard and I plenty to get our teeth into in the next session. 

The results are now visible in the showcase section (currently available only to registered users of the site). Early applause to Kelsey, for adding Astons (terrible choice of typography, mind you), to Jaak for some nice dip-to-white transitions, and to Rebekah for (almost) managing to re-synch her sound after a puzzling audio capture error.