Shortcutter Showcase: Bringing High-End Audio Sensibility to Video

Shortcutter reader, FCP user and multimedia producer Brad Horn works for National Public Radio member station WAER in Syracuse, New York and his audio pieces have aired on NPR member stations around the country and on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. When you watch–and listen–to his video pieces, it’s obvious that he knows how to handle, layer, mix and tell a story with audio.

But his video chops are by no means lacking. In his “Still Hoping” (above), notice the effective handling of negative space, motion graphics elements and still montages. If you have ever wondered what the NPR sensibility would look like on video, I think Brad’s work give us a taste of that.

His “Veterans Listening Project :: John Allis and Andrew Young” (below) is an unusual and compelling video presentation of John Allis, a Vietnam vet and Andrew Young, a photographer for the U.S. military listening to a conversation they had about the lingering mental effects of war that was recorded in October, 2009.

This piece was produced in conjunction with the Veterans Listening Project, for which Brad was Executive Producer.

Brad Twitters and his work can be seen on his professional website, www.bradhornmultimedia.com and his Vimeo page.

A professor of mine once said “audio is 51% of video” and Brad’s cleanly produced pieces might be good proof of that. We asked Brad for an editing tip and its no surprise that he gave us an excellent audio pointer: “make good friends with audio filters.” As for something specific: “low cut/high pass filter can cut out mic handling noise and wind. Start out with eliminating 150Hz and below….the voice will be preserved and the wind will be gone….magic!”

Thanks for the tip Brad and now, since it’s Sunday, I’m off to listen to Weekend Edition Sunday with Liane Hansen with my wife as we do every Sunday.