Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1174.
Describing video quality.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1174.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is a dialogue between Amelia and Victor about how we describe the quality of video, such as what you watch on television or perhaps on your computer.
Let's get started.
I wish we had hired a professional videographer to film it, instead of asking your friend Lenny to do it.
This video isn't so bad.
The production quality isn't the best, but he did a pretty good job.
It's not bad if you like your video out of focus.
There are no transitions between scenes and the lighting is terrible.
At best, it looks like a rough cut.
It is a little rough, I admit.
There are problems with the audio too.
There are sections of dead air when the audio cuts out, and when there is audio, the volume isn't uniform.
That's true too, I guess.
And the handheld camera footage is so shaky that I feel ill watching it.
Lenny was just having a good time, getting into the spirit of it.
Is that why he got close-up shots of all of the pretty women and none of the other guests?
Well, you know Lenny.
He'll do better next time.
Next time?
How many times do you plan to get married?
Amelia begins our dialogue by saying I wish we had hired a professional videographer to film it, instead of asking your friend Lenny to do it.
Amelia mentions a professional videographer.
V-I-D-E-O-G-R-A-P-H-E-R.
A videographer is a person whose job it is to make movies of certain special events.
To film special events such as birthdays, but more typically something such as a wedding, which is what we're talking about in this dialogue.
Emilia and Victor asked Victor's friend Lenny to film their wedding, instead of getting someone who was a professional, someone who knew what he was doing basically,
Notice videographer is like the word photographer.
A photographer is someone who takes photos, what we would now call stills or still photos.
A videographer is someone who makes or films video.
Victor says this video isn't so bad, meaning it's not as bad as Emilia says it is.
The production quality isn't the best, but he did a pretty good job.
Production quality refers to how professional a video looks, whether it looks like it was done by someone who knew what he was doing.
Victor thinks his friend Lenny did a pretty good job, which means not the best job, but not a terrible job either.
Amelia doesn't agree.
She says it's not bad if you like your video out of focus.
Out of focus means the same as blurry, B-L-U-R-R-Y.
Something that is blurry or out of focus means is something that you can't see clearly because the lens was not adjusted properly the part of the camera that is responsible for making sure that the image is clear.
The video is out of focus.
Emilia adds, there are no transitions between scenes The lighting is terrible.
A scene S-C-E-N-E in a video is one part or section of a video that is about the same topic or that is showing the same area or people.
A transition, T-R-A-N-S-I-T-I-O-N, in a video is how you move or change from one scene to another.
Sometimes in videos, the video will seem to move from right to left or top to bottom.
Or sometimes it will seem as though one scene magically fades away or goes away slowly and another one comes in slowly.
These are called transitions.
Amelia says that their video doesn't have any transitions.
In addition, the lighting, L-I-G-H-T-I-N-G, is terrible, meaning that you can't see properly.
You can't see things because there isn't enough light, or perhaps there's too much light.
At best, Emilia says, it looks like a rough cut.
The term rough cut, C-U-T, refers to the first draft or the first attempt at editing a video.
If someone makes a video of say, a wedding, he may sit down at his computer and put different parts of the wedding footage or the things that he filmed together.
But it isn't perfect yet.
It's only his first attempt to try to put the different parts of the wedding video together so that it looks good.
That first attempt would be a rough cut.
The opposite of a rough cut would be a final cut.
This is when you're all done, when you've finished doing all the editing on the video.
Victor says, it is a little rough, I admit.
Rough, R-O-U-G-H, here means not perfect, still something that you're working on.
Amelia says, there are problems with the audio, too.
The audio also has problems.
The audio is the sound, of course, of the video.
There are sections of dead air when the audio cuts out.
Dead air A-I-R is when there is no sound, either on a radio or on a television program or in a video.
This is when there is no sound, usually by accident.
There should be sound, but there isn't any.
To say the audio cuts out means that it stops suddenly.
You are listening to some audio and then suddenly, and then you don't know what happened.
That's what we mean by the audio cutting out.
To cut out can also be used in other circumstances, meaning simply to stop something.
I'm going to cut out something.
Pizza and hot dogs from my diet.
I'm going to stop eating them completely.
Amelia says, The volume, V-O-L-U-M-E, is how loud something is.
To be uniform, U-N-I-F-O-R-M, here means to be constant or the same.
If the volume isn't uniform, sometimes it's really loud and sometimes it's what we would call really soft.
You can barely hear it.
Victor says, that's true too, I guess.
Amelia isn't finished with her problems, her complaints.
And the handheld camera footage is so shaky that I feel ill watching it.
Handheld H-A-N-D-H-E-L-D means, of course, that you are holding something in your hand, such as a camera.
Footage, F-O-O-T-A-G-E, refers to part of a recording, part of the video.
So handheld camera footage would be part of the video that the person who was the videographer recorded.
Filmed not by using a special instrument called a tripod to keep the camera still and steady, but rather by using his hand and walking around with the video camera in his hand.
When you use a handheld camera, sometimes the footage is shaky.
S-H-A-K-Y.
Shaky means that it's not steady.
It looks like the camera is moving back and forth all the time, and so it's hard to watch the video, because everything keeps moving up and down and from side to side.
Lenny, according to Victor, was just having a good time, getting into the spirit of it.
To get into the spirit S-P-I-R-I-T of something means to get involved or interested in something in such a way that you are excited about it.
Amelia says, is that why he got close-up shots of all the pretty women and none of the other guests?
A close-up shot, S-H-O-T, is when you bring the camera very close to someone's usually face so that you can see them very, what we would say, close up, very near.
The term close-up, used as a noun, refers to when the camera is right next to a person's face.
You can see the face very clearly.
Apparently, Lenny has a close-up of all the pretty women at the wedding and nobody else.
Victor says, well, you know Lenny.
He'll do better next time.
Amelia says, next time?
How many times do you plan to get married?
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I wish we had hired a professional videographer to film it, instead of asking your friend Lenny to do it.
It's not bad if you like your video out of focus.
There are no transitions between scenes, and the lighting is terrible.
At best, it looks like a rough cut.
There are problems with the audio, too.
There are sections of dead air when the audio cuts out.
And when there is audio, the volume isn't uniform.
That's true, too, I guess.
And the handheld camera footage is so shaky that I feel ill watching it.
Lenny was just having a good time, getting into the spirit of it.
Is that why he got close-up shots of all of the pretty women and none of the other guests?
Well, you know Lenny.
He'll do better next time.
Next time?
How many times do you plan to get married?
The quality of our scripts is uniformly great, thanks to the wonderful scriptwriter, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2015 by the Center for Educational Development.
