This page describes how to polish an IGC video before releasing it to production.
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Polishing Production

Remove Black Borders

Sometimes Camtasia creates empty black space around video recordings that impede visibility, especially when embedding the videos into web pages.

To remove black border space around recordings:

  1. Queue the recording on the timeline.

  2. Crop the black space out of the recording using the crop tool.

  3. Expand the recording to fill the entirety of the production area.

Transitions

Course transitions in videos confuse and disorient the viewer. A quick and simple fade to black between screens lets viewers know that what they are seeing is not a continuation of previous actions. More animated or dynamic transitions tend to look unprofessional and should be avoided.

If you need to fade between slides to make a video recording splice less obvious, use the transition that fades to white and shorten its time span.

To learn about using transitions and animations in Camtasia, check out: https://www.techsmith.com/tutorial-camtasia-transitions-annotations-behaviors.html

https://www.techsmith.com/tutorial-camtasia-animations-effects.html

Poppy Ps

Watch video tutorial.

Sometimes in audio recordings, some syllables will stand out to the listener more than others, such a “Poppy Ps,” Fs and Ts. You can reduce the obvious audio discrepancy by splitting they audio around the offensively loud syllables and reducing the audio level.

To split recordings and reduce audio levels:

  1. Queue the recording on the timeline.

  2. Zoom in on the desired section.

  3. Place the timeline playback line right before the audio level spike.

  4. Right-click the timeline playback arrow and select Split Selected.

  5. Place the timeline playback line right after the audio level spike.

  6. Right-click the timeline playback arrow and select Split Selected.

  7. Drag the green audio level bar down for the syllable that has been sectioned off to reduce the audio spike.

Tonal/Timbre Discrepancies

Listen to your recording multiple times in headphones, and when in doubt, re-record the audio. Listen for the changes in tone and timbre from each audio recording to the next. If you need to re-record something, be sure the record the whole sentence or phrase to avoid awkward splicing.