Assignment Overview

This assignment will take a significant amount of time to complete, so please plan ahead and don’t wait until the last minute.

The goal of this assignment is for students to experiment with interviewing via Zoom and to learn how to create closed captions and subtitles so people who require them to understand your videos will be able to understand them.

The assignment is informed by the following Course Objectives:

Objective 1: Storytelling
Students will understand the principles and practices of effective storytelling and be able to create media objects that effectively apply storytelling principles and techniques for desired rhetorical, aesthetic, and communication goals.

Objective 4: Risk-taking
Students will know what it feels like to step out of their comfort zones and take risks with their approaches to and understanding of the course activities and other course objectives.

Objective 5: Reflection
Students will develop their understanding of the important role of reflection during the reading and communication process.

Assignment Specifics

In this assignment, students will practice creating closed captions and subtitles so they can complete them successfully when creating their final projects. First, some definitions and notes:

• Sample Interview: Since we are working remotely and are not able to conduct interviews in person, we need to experiment with interviewing via Zoom. From these experiments, we will determine the best approach to completing the interviews.
• Closed Captions: Closed captions appear when the viewer chooses to have them appear. They are not on the screen all the time. We will be using these when uploading our videos to YouTube. YouTube has an excellent system that dynamically creates the captions, though you must edit them to ensure accuracy.
• Subtitles (or Open Captions): Subtitles—also known as Open Captions—appear on the screen all the time. We will be using them when creating videos for Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. They must be created in the video editing software. To ensure consistency across all our videos, every student will use Adobe Premiere to complete them.

Step One: Creating the Sample Interview Video (updated 10/1/2020)

Create a 0:30-1:00 video in which you interview one person. Prior students have found partnering with someone in class makes this go much easier. Ask the person to talk about their favorite movie, band, or tv show and why it is their favorite.

Create the video by recording them with Zoom. The setup for this is fairly complicated, actually, so please follow the steps exactly as written. Due to how Zoom allows users to record videos, it will be optimal for us to save directly to our computer (or external hard drive) rather than to the Cloud. (A 1TB external hard drive was strongly suggested on the syllabus.) This is because Zoom does not record only pinned videos when saving to the cloud but does when saving locally to your computer or external hard drive. I have no idea why this is, but having just the pinned narrator recorded will help immensely later on. When we go through this process for the actual interviews, I will have a checklist you will be required to submit.

Vital and Important Requirements

To ensure you have the most effective video and audio recordings as possible, please be sure of the following:

• Both you and the narrator must wear headphones or earbuds. This will ensure there is little or no feedback in the audio recording.
• Both you and the narrator much choose a space that is free from distraction and background noise.
• The narrator must choose a space that is well-lit and has good front lighting. Avoid backlighting. Do not have a window behind the narrator.
• Position the narrator at the center of the frame, will eyes on the rule of thirds upper horizontal line.
• Position the narrator’s camera so it allows the narrator to look straight on and not down or other angle. No up the nostrils shots.

For lighting and camera position tips, see “Light Your Face” and “Raise Your Camera” at How to Look Your Best on a Video Call.

Setting Up the Recording in the Desktop App

1. Download and install the Zoom Desktop app. You must have the Desktop app so you can set up the settings we need.
2. Log into the Desktop app using your SJU username and password.
3. Click on your icon in the top right hand corner and then click Settings.
   
4. In the left navigation bar, choose Video. If you are using an external camera and not your built-in camera, select it from the pull-down menu.
   
   Make sure the following are selected:
   1. Enable HD
   2. 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio
   3. Mirror my video
5. Still in the Video settings, click on the Advanced button.
   
   Make sure the following are selected:
   1. Enable de-noise
   2. Enable hardware acceleration for receiving video
6. In the left navigation bar, choose Recording and then hover over the location to choose a place to save the recording. Choose where you want the recording to be saved and write down somewhere where that is so you don’t forget. The video files will be very large, so you may need an external hard drive to save the video.
   
   Make sure the following are selected:
   1. Optimize for third party video editor (this prepares the video for editing)
   2. Record separate audio file for each participant (this results is better audio quality)
7. UNCHECK the “Add a timestamp to the recording” option.
8. There is no Save option, so just close it down and you should be all set.

Setting Up the Recording in the Zoom

1. Once you and your narrator are joined in Zoom, make sure you are in Gallery view. This will place you side-by-side.
2. Hover over the narrator’s video and click the three dot icon to the right of the Mute button. Select Pin Video from the menu. This will ensure that the narrator’s video is always the primary video and it will be the only one that is recorded. We only need the narrator’s video for our project.
   
3. In order to preserve anonymity, ask your narrator to remove their name by clicking on the three dots and choosing Rename. The narrator may need to press the spacebar a few times in order to make the name blank..
4. In the bottom menu bar, click the Record icon and then select either Record on this Computer. Your video will be saved to the location you set Step 4 setting your recording settings above.
   1. Record on this Computer: This option saves a Zoom folder to your computer that contains three files: the video (.mp4), the audio (.m4a), and a .m3u file which is a playlist file that you shouldn’t delete but won’t need.
5. You can now begin your interview.
6. When done, stop the recording and go to the location on your computer where you saved the videos.
   1. Depending on how long your video is, it make take a little while for the video to appear in the appropriate folder.
   2. You might also see a file named “click to convert video.zoom” or something like that. Click on it and the .mp4, .m4a, and .m3u files will appear.

h/t to Johnny Elwin, How to Record a Zoom Meeting in High Quality for Video Editing

Creating the Closed Captions

1. Upload and publish the video to a YouTube account. You can make your video “unlisted” so it can’t be found via searches, but it still must be public so I can see it.
2. When you upload, make sure to select English as the language. This is important for creating subtitles.
3. Once your video is uploaded and published, wait around 30 minutes, then while still logged in, go to your video. Click on the blue Edit Video button to the bottom right of the video:
   
4. In the left sidebar, click on Subtitles:
   
5. You will be brought to a screen that has a small table with just a few headings. The far right heading is “Subtitles.” (Note that even though they are calling these “subtitles,” they are really closed captions.) Your video should have two options, the top being English (Automatic). To the right you will see DUPLICATE AND EDIT in all caps. Click on it.
   
6. You will be brought to a window where you will see on the left the full transcript of your video. On the right will be the video and below it will be the timeline of the video with subtitles applied.
   
7. The transcript will need editing, thought much of it will hopefully be correct. You can start editing the transcript immediately. The edits will automatically generate in the timeline below. When editing, correct each of the following:
   1. Capitalization
   2. Punctuation
   3. Spelling
8. Watch the video and make sure the closed captions are appearing in the right place. If not, adjust accordingly.
9. If you run out of time you can Save a Draft so you can come back to it later. When done, click Publish.
10. You have now added subtitles to your video!! Congrats!

Creating the Subtitles

All students must use Premiere Pro to create the subtitles. This is because we want to ensure that all videos have the same exact subtitles. As you will no doubt notice in the Mental Health, Belonging, and Attacked videos, the subtitles are not consistent throughout (though they were substantially better in Attacked). We’re going to improve upon that this semester. If you don’t have Premiere on your computer, it is on all the desktop computers in Bronstein and the laptops that can be rented from the gear room. Or, if you do not have Premiere Pro, Adobe is offering Student access to their entire suite for $19.99/month (make sure you click on the Students & Teachers tab). Please plan ahead.

We will be completing two versions of the video: one widescreen (for Twitter and Facebook) and one square (for Instagram). (We may also make a vertical version, bt we’ll talk about that.)

Import the video you made into Premiere and then complete the following.

Creating the Widescreen Video

Follow the below tutorial to create subtitles. When adding your subtitles, plan ahead for the square video. That is, don’t make them very wide. Eyeball where you think the square format will be and make them that wide. Use the following settings:

• Font Color: White
• Font: Arial Bold
• Font Size: 50 20
• Position: Bottom Center
• Edge Color: None

Be sure to export your video as an .mp4 file. If you’re not sure how to export, please watch this video created by a former B:Social Fellow:

Creating the Square Video

After you have exported your widescreen version, go back to your subtitled video and adjust it so it is square, by following the below tutorial:

One your video is square, verify that all the subtitles can still be seen. Make sure they are not hugging the edge of the screen.

Once you are okay with it, export it as a .mp4 file. Name it “yourlastname-square.mp4.”

Upload both the widescreen and square videos to the same YouTube account you used for the Closed Captions video. Set the video to Unlisted so it isn’t available by searches.

Submission Info

You will receive an invitation to a GoogleDrive folder called “Subtitles and Captions.” Once you have, please complete the following:

• upload one document in which you
  1. Include a links to each of your three videos (label each)
  2. Discuss the quality of the aesthetics of your interview recording, making sure to highlight at least, the lighting, audio and narrator positioning.
  3. Discuss what changes would need to be made to fix an aesthetics issues. (Don’t write, “doing the interviews in person” because that’s not an option.)
  4. Discuss what it was like creating the closed captions and subtitles.
  5. Include up to 5 questions you have based on doing these tests.
  6. Make sure your document has your name and name the file, “yourlastname-interview-test”

Due Date

• 10/14: All videos and reflection document due in the Google “Subtitles and Captions” folder by class time