Virtual Christmas Concerts

In this post I will discuss four steps to creating a virtual Christmas concert - 1. Recording your show
elements, 2. editing your show together, 3. Sharing your performance, and Step 4. What's next?

Step 1 - Recording the Show Elements (Video & Audio)

When recording your performance there are 3 things to think about – The Space (Where you record?),
the Video (What you see?) and the Audio (What you hear?).

Space –
Avoid large empty rooms (Gym or Theater). These will lead to bad
audio with sound traveling and bouncing. Consider setting up a
dedicated performance space in a music room or other room that all
performances could be recorded in.

Video –
Stable Video makes all the difference - Record the video with at least one stable
camera. As long as your camera is set up using a tripod or perched on a stack of
books and not being held by you as you coach or conduct your student performers,
it will help create a viewable product.

Your video can be dynamic – If your tripod has a smooth head, you can use a tripod to pan across your
group or add other angles. You can shoot your performance with more than one phone. More angles
can create more interest and a better viewing experience.

Smartphones make great cameras - Smartphones are often the best camera available - any smartphone
from the last 5 years will be able to go a great job filming your performance. Include other school staff
armed with their own smartphones and you can have a film crew.

Audio –
Record from a dedicated device - The best way to record your audio it
to use a dedicated microphone that is closer to your performers than
the camera. Your phone or camera will also record audio, but if you are
set up to get a wide shot of your performers, it may be too far away to
pick up the performance sound well. If you have another device
available, it can be set up much closer to your performers. An iPad or
smartphone on a music stand in front of the performers will do a much better job. You can use the
phone or tablet’s built in voice memo app, or you can try out Garage Band or other music creation apps
with some light effects. You can always have the camera device audio to fall back on if you are not
happy with it.

Your audio can also be recorded with a laptop with through a USB microphone using Audacity, a free
audio editing software that is available for your PC (Windows of Mac).
Syncing your video and audio - (Bonus Tip)
If you are recording your performance with more than one device,
perhaps 2 or more camera angles and a separate audio recording, it is
a good idea to get everyone quiet before you press record and then
perform 3 loud claps on camera. This will give you an audio cue to help
line up all your recordings when you go to the editing phase.

When it comes to audio and camera angles, more is more. On a lot of TV broadcasts, news anchors and
other presenters will wear 2 microphones. Failsafes and backup plans can save a great performance
video take and can prevent you from needing to redo a performance video because of one failed
element. This leads to my last tip –

Stay Organized –
Do not to keep endless numbers of video takes on your device. Record the best one and delete the rest.
You may even want to find a way to name your file on the device before you move on to recording the
next class. This will save you lots of time when you move to the editing phase.

Step 2 - Editing
Once you have your classes recorded you will need to edit your video together. For this you will need
some video editing software.

Free Editing Software Options –

There are a few easy to use free options out there. Perhaps the easiest to use
and one you might already be familiar with is Windows Live Movie Maker. This
software has been discontinued by Microsoft, so it is not easy to find online, but
as a teacher in ASD-S, you can find this software in Software Center. There are
also a few other options (Video Pad, Shot Cut, Davinci Resolve, hit film).

Teaching Laptops – Work with What You Have – Keep it Simple

Your teaching laptop should be able to handle the simple editing we are looking
to do, but keep in mind that the more complicated you make your video the less
likely your computer will be able to handle the editing tasks.

Don’t shoot in 4k, 1080p is fine - If you have 3 camera angles, all shot in 4K
and you want to sync those angles and have shot transitions with titles and on-
screen lyrics, your computer will not have enough processing power. If you are
only using 1-2 camera angles shot at 1080p, and 1 audio track, with a title or title
card at the beginning of the video, your teaching laptop will be fine.
Chunk Up Your Project –
I would suggest that you create a new project for each performance to do your
editing, and then save the single class performance as a finished video. This will
save you from creating a project that will be too large (every class in your school
X 2 video angles X audio recording X titles and transitions) and might lead to
difficulty saving the final product. When each class performance is edited and
saved/exported as a complete self-contained video, you can use the same video
editing software to combine all the class performances videos together into your full Christmas concert
show. This will make the data smaller and help your computer be able to handle the saving and
exporting of your full show.

Step 3 - Sharing Your Performance

When it comes to sharing your performance, YouTube is truly the best option out
there. Sharing our videos on YouTube will ensure that they are easy to view for our
students and families, and that the video quality will not be impacted. In using YouTube, we must
remember that we are putting our videos in a place where technically anyone in the world can watch
them, but there are some simple ways to make this a safe experience. School Christmas concerts have
always traditionally been more of a community event, not simply a closed school event. We want our
siblings, parents, and grandparents to be able to see these video performances with ease.

Here are a couple of important YouTube tips and tricks that are best practices for school videos.

1.Create Your Account and Verify It.

It is a good idea to create a YouTube account for your school if one does not already exist. It
is also a good idea to share the account with your admin or other school staff. When you
create the account, you can link it to an already existing Gmail account, or you can use
your NBED email address. If you choose to create a new Gmail account, you can use some
iteration of your school name and then create a password. You can then share the login info with your
Admin or other staff members.

Verifying your account is necessary to post videos longer than 15minutes. All that is required is inputting
a cell phone number and receiving a text code that you enter to be verified. This a step YouTube
requires simply to prove that you are indeed a real person and not a bot or other computer-generated
AI.

2. Understanding the difference between Private, Unlisted, and Public. (Choose Unlisted)
When you upload a video, after you input the title and description, you can choose your audience
settings.

Private: If you choose Private, you or other account admin will be the only people who can ever view
your video. This might be good for testing or previewing video, but when a video is private it cannot be
shared with anyone who does not have the login to your account.
Unlisted: Choosing unlisted is the best option for schools. This means that your
video cannot be viewed unless someone has the specific link/URL to your
video. No one will be able to search 'Christmas Concerts" and find your schools’
video. Only someone with the link you share can watch. This does not stop
others from sharing the link, but it does help limit greatly who will see your
video.

Public: Public is wide open. This means anyone who searches hard enough can
find your video. With the number of videos that are on YouTube worldwide, it
is still unlikely that anyone will find your video, but you honestly never know.
Unlisted would be my best choice for school-based videos.

3. Made for kids

When uploading your video, you will also be forced to
choose whether or not your video is made for kids. By
choosing ‘Yes’ the comments for your videos will be
turned off (a good idea, saving you from needing to
monitor the comments for appropriateness). This will also
clean up some of the advertising around your video and
protect from targeted advertising to kids. All good options
for school-based videos.

4. Upload Your Video as a Scheduled YouTube Premiere.

When you upload a video and choose to Schedule as
a YouTube Premiere, you can choose a date & time
that your pre-recorded and pre-uploaded video will
become live, playing in real time as a first premiere. If
you choose Tuesday morning at 11:00am or
Wednesday night at 7:00pm, your audience can all
tune in together live. Two minutes before your video
is played, there will be a countdown and then your
video will play for the first time live. Your entire
school can watch the video at the same time,
whether they are at home with their families or in
school with their classes (Or a combination of both).
Anyone who has the link can also watch the
premiere, so families can also be tuning in live from
home. This truly helps recreate the Christmas
Concert event.
Step 4 - My video is up and shared, what do I do next?
What you do next is totally up to you. If you choose you upload your video as a YouTube Premiere, after
the premiere viewing is complete, it will live on YouTube just like any other video. You can choose to
leave it there forever, or you can choose to only leave your videos on YouTube for a limited amount of
time (the Christmas season for example) and then change the video setting to private or delete the
video off of YouTube completely. I personally would not feel the need to hide the video or take it down
after time passes, but every school is different. You should do whatever make you feel the most
comfortable as educators and school staff. These truly are unprecedented times, and your parents will
understand whatever you decide, as long as you communicate your plan early and often.