Peggy's Cove
Peggy's Cove is a picturesque fishing village and artists' colony in Nova
Scotia.
My wife and I first visited in 2001 as we were returning from Europe on a
cruise to New York City which was of course interrupted by the events of
911.
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 So Peggy's Cove
was a delightful stop in our travel. At that time I shot a lot of footage
around the village and of the water and the lighthouse and various activities.
It was a grayish day with a lot of wind and wave action. But I was very taken
with the beauty of the picturesque village. |
| The village is said to have been named for an orphan girl who
was saved from the ocean, adopted by the village and named Peggy. Another
version of the tale says that the Cove was named Peggy because it is a small
offshoot of the larger St. Margaret's Bay. Take your pick of what is true.
The village is probably most famous for its efforts in 1998 recovering the
wreckage of the Swiss Air 111 crash in St. Margaret's Bay.
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Return to Peggy's Cove
Then in 2009 I returned to the village to shoot some more pictures when I
took a "Fall Colors" cruise as a part of the reunion of my old army unit
the Department of Army Special Photo Office or "DASPO." This day was a lovely
sunny day but a much quieter time in the village.
For my video I combined footage from both trips as well as maps, Google Earth
views, and stills gleaned from the Internet. I also searched for additional
background information from various websites.
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The structure of the video was derived from the script which was compiled
from the collected information and was organized to tell the story of the
Swiss Air crash, the activities in the village and its history.
My wife took the outline and wrote the narration in her inimitable style
as I began cutting the picture to tell the story.
After the first cut, we tested the narration to the footage and after adjusting
picture and script to make both fit together well, Pamela recorded the narration. |
With narration in hand I proceeded to edit the good takes in short sequences
and plug them into the video: again adjusting the footage and the narration
to fit.
To make things fit together some footage was speeded up and/or slowed down;
and some panning and scanning was done to improve composition and to emphasize
the subject in the narration.
Once the video was locked in, I then eliminated unusable sound from the footage
(wind noise and distorted sounds) and filled in the missing spots with good
sound from other areas of the video and from stock sound effects (birds,
waves etc.)
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Sound track
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| I used two soundtracks to mix live sound and stock (see Figure 1) sound
over the whole video.
A third soundtrack carries the narration parts with a "volume envelope"
superimposed to smooth the narration and to correct for extraneous breaths
and loud plosive sounds.
[Some of these adjustments were made when the "good" takes were re-recorded
into the short sequences used in the final edit] |
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| With the completion of the effects sound track and narration
track I then laid in the music track; again, a volume envelope was imposed
on the tracks to control volume under the narration.
As a rule of thumb I run my audio tracks with a 0db narration track level;
a -5db effects and live sound track level; and music tracks at -10db -- to
ensure that the narration can be understood and all other sounds fill in
behind. |
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| Here you see volume settings a little larger:
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Most of the titles were designed and built as the footage was initially
assembled. I edit on Sony Vegas and used the onboard titling capabilities
to lay in the titles and markers. Video effects were used to enhance exposure,
to correct color and to sharpen some images and freeze frames. |
Titles
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Figure 2 shows how the opening titles begin with a fade into a sky colored
BG (track 3) and then into the first title "Pam and Walt Gilmore present."
The BG fades into the opening shot of a pan and zoom from the sky area to
a full frame shot of the cove. |
| The second title fades in as the first fades out. The fades
are shown on the timelines by blue slopping lines indicating the opacity
from zero (bottom of track) to 100% (at the top of the track) and the speed
and smoothness of the fade. The length of the slop indicates the length (time)
of the fade. |
Equipment
On the first trip I shot with my Canon GL-2, hand held with the optical
stabilizer activated. Sound is from on board microphones. On the second trip
I used a Canon HV-30again with the stabilizer and on board microphone.
Both cameras shoot to MiniDV tape. All the frames were converted to the 4:3
format in editing. I sometimes carry a monopod but usually prefer using body
stabilizing camera holds and "found" surfaces to help maintain a solid base. |
Sound track
I rely on the usable background sound for my soundtrack but find that very
little "natural" sound is actually needed (in this case waves and incidental
conversation).
I try to shoot ambient sound on site if there is important and unique sound
at the location; particularly if there is music in the shot I will shoot
footage just to capture usable "chunks" of the sound for use over other video
shots in the video. |
I am very happy to build a layered track of "appropriate"
sound effects from other shoots and my collection of sound effects.
I also sometimes record missed sounds like running water, fountains, rain,
hammering, door creaks, etc. as necessary.
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