Three-Point Lighting for Video Oral History Interviews
For several years, professional video technologies have become increasingly more affordable and accessible. We see more oral history projects utilizing HD (high definition) and 4K video as the primary recording method for interviews. Professional-looking video interviews can be a powerful way to capture and disseminate oral history; however, from a user’s perspective, bad-looking video can…
Using Jotform for Oral History Deed of Gift Submission
There is a tremendous amount of attention placed on the numerous technical challenges involved when remotely recording oral history interviews; however, the logistical challenges can be of equal importance. One logistical challenge is the simple act of obtaining signatures for consent forms, release forms, or the interview deed of gift. When conducting in-person interviews, there…
Zoom Podtrak p4 and phone interviews
Zoom has just released the PodTrak P4 ($199), an impressive recorder with the built-in ability to easily conduct and record high quality telephone interviews. As more of our oral history projects include remote interviewing, most of the focus is on online web conferencing systems such as Zoom or TheirStory. Web conferencing systems add an important…
USB Microphones: The Bumblebee
As oral history and podcast interviewers around the world look for remote interviewing solutions for conducting oral history interviews during a pandemic, a lot has changed about the way we conduct oral history and our notion of best practices. However, there are aspects that have, indeed, stayed the same. Best practice for recording oral history…
Webinar: Using Theirstory for Remote Oral History Interviewing
The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History recently launched a national interviewing project using a new video interviewing platform called TheirStory. This webinar will present how to use TheirStory for conducting remote oral history interviews. Specific topics will include a general overview of the platform, the use of TheirStory for individual interviews as well…
Digital Audio Recorder: Sound devices Mixpre-3…OMG
In my mind there were three tiers of portable audio recorders: the low-end (under $400), the mid/high-range professional ( $401-$1,499), and the super premium recorders (more than $1,500). For years, this tripartite structure worked quite well. If you were aiming for professional recording, I would steer you to the mid/high-range recorders. However, the competition between…
Microphones, Oral History, and that “Radio” Sound in the Field: Shotgun Microphones
This is the third post in the series Microphones, Oral History, and that “Radio” Sound in the Field about the microphone options for trying to achieve “broadcast quality” recording when not in a studio. The first post in the series focused on handheld electronic news gathering (ENG) microphones; the second post focused on lavaliere microphones….
OHMS Updates: Viewer version 3.6.3 / OHMS App version 3.0.1
We have launched a new development cycle for OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchronizer) that will have some minor and some major updates coming in the next few months. The first of the updates have been released. OHMS Viewer v 3.6.3 Improved footnote feature in the transcript view. Added search and hover features with footnotes. Disabled…