At least one person asked me to report back on what we
decide to do. I haven't yet decided, but I am now confident, thanks
to all the responses to my query, that we'll get something to work
reasonably well, and that it won't be extremely difficult.
I'm going away for a few days and will get back to this when I
return. We'll want to put it to use around the end of the
month when we'll be having a series of job seminars. Your
responses, on and off-list, have been very much appreciated.
John Gorentz
At 01:39 PM 9/2/2009, John Gorentz wrote:
I'm looking for advice on a
camcorder that would be good for recording faculty job seminars.
Here are some things to consider. (There may also be other things I
don't know about that I ought to consider.)
I don't want to spend a lot of money, but would consider a rental if this
can't be done with, say, a $300-$600 camera.
We don't need broadcast quality. We don't need HD. This
is so we can make the seminar available to a very few people who are
involved in the hiring process but who can't make it to the job
seminar.
The speakers are not going to do anything special to prepare a
presentation that will be recorded. In fact, they'd probably prefer
that we didn't record them, except they will probably go along with it
because they want the job. Ideally the recordings would cease
to exist after the successful candidate got tenure, and maybe even before
that point. That's not a requirement, though. But
recording a seminar in which unpublished data might be presented is a
delicate undertaking. At a minimum we need to be
considerate.
We don't need to capture the slide show. We'll probably ask the
candidates to provide a PDF version of their powerpoint presentation, or
something like that. Recording the audio is
important. The speaker could be miked.
One challenge is that the overhead lights are usually turned off so
people can see the powerpoint screen. The room is not dark (there
are windows) but the lighting is dim when the lights are off. We'll
be dealing with a low-light, high-contrast situation, trying to record
video of the presenter who might sometimes be standing in front of the
screen, and sometimes off to the side. I suspect there is no
good way to make a video turn out well in those circumstances. I
fear we may need to be satisfied if the speaker shows up as more than a
silhouette.
The seminar plus Q&A will generally last an hour, but we should allow
for the possibility of it lasting 80 minutes.
It would be good if we could go straight to digital, with a bare minimum
of human intervention.
We can have a camera operator. The camera operator might be
someone inexperienced like me, though. I have generally tried
to avoid such duties, explaining that I might be the worst possible
person for the job. If the seminar is interesting I get
engrossed in it and forget about the camera. If the seminar
is boring my mind wanders and I forget about the camera. I am
not opposed to learning to do better, though. I like to
attend these seminars and if the price of my attendance is that I have to
run the camera, I can do it.
If I don't seem to be asking the right questions, please be
gentle. I do a lot of outdoor still photography, but have had
hardly any experience with video. So I may be very naive about
this. I once made a slightly-edited YouTube clip from an .avi
file! But it was a struggle. (No, these seminars are
NOT going to be put on YouTube.)
Any suggestions for a camcorder and/or other resources for doing
something like this? Do any other departments have
experience in recording job seminars?
John Gorentz
Computer Services Manager
W.K. Kellogg Biological Station