Organizing with Markers (or Locators)

Using Markers, example 1In the wonderful world of Avid Media Composer, the editing software we are using for our documentary, there are these things called "locators" (or "markers" in the most recent software versions). In our attempts to organize the nearly 200 hours of footage we filmed during the 2011/2012 school year, we're using these markers to our advantage. Think of it as taking notes while watching a movie. As we watch, for example, a thirty-minute clip from String Orchestra class, we pause the playback to add a marker to indicate the action that is taking place. On average we add a marker every 5 to 30 seconds. We even have color coded our markers to help quickly find different actions.

Color-coded Marker GuideMost actions will be categorized as "reality" and marked blue. This includes Eric Jarboe, a main character in our documentary, (denoted in our markers as "EJ") opening the door to a classroom or talking to the class. When the camera is filming a student or group of students, we mark their action with a cyan colored marker. This will help us later on when we need to find footage of a particular student. "B-roll" is basically anything that is not "Reality"; it's footage than can be used in any scene at any time. For example, footage of a clock is considered "b-roll". We're also locating all the songs the orchestra plays, camera moves (i.e. pans, zooms, wide shots, etc), and production moments (i.e. Kelsy or Alburn).

Using Markers, example 2Interviews are typically transcribed, which means someone watches the interview and types everything word for word. So far, we've transcribed one interview with Eric Jarboe. However, our transcription isn't a word document. Instead, we again used markers. Red markers indicate the question or answer topic. Blue markers are the transcription of Eric's answer. His answers weren't always transcribed word for word and in these cases we use a blue marker but the text is all in caps.

Take a closer look at the example photos. These are just a small sampling of what we've been up to at Music Man headquarters the past five months, and what we'll continue to work on for a few more months to come. Cheers!