National Audio: Editing Assignment

Feature Story

For: Groups of 1-2
Difficulty: Advanced

Objective
This assignment tests a student’s ability to stay on focus and tell a story with a lot of captured content. The focus statement is “The return of the cassette tape”. This assignment will take a considerable amount of time and effort to do well.

Points to emphasize

  • Students should start by adding sound bites to their timeline; then add nat sound pops and b-roll. The sound bites are the framework for the story. The b-roll and nat sound add texture and visuals.

  • A reporter’s voice over is used to add information. Sound bites are used to provide emotion and opinion.

Equipment: Computer, editing software, headphones

Assignment

Students must create a 2-3 minute feature story from the elements in the raw footage pack. Students must also write, record, and include their own voice overs. Students can use a smartphone or computer to record their voice over. No music, effects, or transitions may be used. Students can add their own made up lower thirds if they want. Tip: Find a quiet room like a closet to record voice overs.

Note

There is a LOT of footage in this raw footage pack. The biggest challenge is going to be sorting through all the footage and staying on focus. In the fact sheet below there are several facts that are not relevant to the story. Students should not use any information that takes the viewers drastically away from the focus.

National AUdio Facts

National Audio Company started in 1968. They started by recording background music for restaurants, using reel-to-reel recording technology. 

In the 1980s and 1990s, most cassette tape manufacturers went out of business or sold off their cassette tape manufacturing equipment. National Audio purchased a lot of the equipment.

National Audio Company manufactures their own magnetic tape that goes inside the cassette cartridges.

They create cassette tapes for over 5,000 record labels around the world.

National Audio Company can create up to 100,000 60-minute tapes in an 8 hour day.

It generally takes about 30 days to finish a tape project from beginning to end.

The compact cassette tape was invented in 1962 by Dutch inventor Lou Ottens.

The compact cassette tape was important because it was the first recording format that made it easy for anyone to record audio themselves without complicated reel-to-reel recording equipment.

In the late 1980s, National Audio Company was the largest manufacturer of blank cassette tapes in the United States. CDs displaced the cassette tape in the 1990s. National Audio Company pivoted to duplicating CDs and DVDs in the 90s and 2000s.

From 2015 to 2022 cassette tape sales saw a 443% increase in sales.

In 2022, cassette cassette tapes and vinyl outsold CDs.

The duplicators record at 80x playback speed. The loaders load tape at 800x playback speed.

Steve Stepp does not have a computer in his office.

Phil was a professor of neuroscience before he joined his father’s business in 2017.

 

Example

We suggest waiting until after the students are finished to show the example.