Wiess made use of a high contrast lighting setup to take team portraits for Beer Bike and used Adobe Photoshop on the DMC workstations for post-production editing. The look was achieved by using some of the lights to light the backdrop and then having an intense primary light source with no diffusion for the subject, casting deep and long shadows.
Rice’s crew team used the new lighting equipment and colored gels in the Photo/Video Studio to create dramatic team portraits. Images courtesy of Eduardo Ruiz.
Images courtesy of Zeisha Bennett
Photography Lecturer Angela Chen brought her FOTO 205 and FOTO 210 classes to the DMC for a demonstration on use of the lights and backdrops in the Photography/Video Studio. The new seamless paper backdrops and high output lights give a lot of flexibility and allow for creativity in lighting schemes, which a number of the students made use of for their projects.
As of Summer 2022, the DMC’s Photo/Video Studio has undergone a drastic transformation. We have acquired 6 high output LED lights with large soft boxes and white, black, and dark blue seamless paper backdrops which make the studio ideal for professional quality headshots. Using a simple 3 point lighting setup, the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department took headshots for the incoming graduate students for their department website. The studio can be reserved up to one month in advance just as you would a piece of DMC equipment using the self-booking feature in Primo. Photo/Video Studio Reservation Page
If you have any questions about how to use the equipment in the studio, ask DMC staff or refer to our Photo/Video Studio written guides
The DMC staff had the pleasure of assisting the Spring 2017 “Intro to Physical Electronics” (ELEC 305) class in creating instructional videos! In the “whiteboard animation” videos the students created, you will see various clever utilizations of software and hardware available in the DMC. Examples include our AverVision document camera, Nikon DSLR, and using Microsoft OneNote in conjunction with screen capturing software. All the videos have been made available in Rice Digital Scholarship Archive.
The “Thermoelectrics” video was made with AverVision document camera and can be viewed here.
“The Ugly OLEDuckling” video was with OneNote and OBS screen capturing software. It can be viewed here.
Click here to see the rest of the videos deposited in the Archive!
Please refer to the previous blog post to get more information on how to create whiteboard animations like these!
A “Whiteboard Animation” is a great way to bring some fun into instructional material. Although it may seem daunting, creating a whiteboard animation can be easy – and you don’t need to be an artist to make it effective. Here at the DMC, we’ve created some guides and examples on how to create a whiteboard animation using various methods.
You can use PowerPoint to make a whiteboard animation without ever leaving the application. PowerPoint has built in drawing, animation, and recording functions. To learn more, you may read the guide here.
We have also put together a two-part video tutorial that you can watch below:
In the DMC audio studio, we have an AverVision document camera that can be used to quickly capture drawing and voiceover. There is a written guide here and a video tutorial you can watch below:
The most advanced way of creating a whiteboard animation would be to use a DSLR camera with studio lighting. Although it is the most difficult method, using a DSLR allows for higher quality and more control over lighting.
There are many more methods than the three listed above. You can see a brief overview of these other methods here. Please visit our YouTube channel to view example videos we’ve created, and feel free to contact us for further assistance or questions!
The video interviews with musicians were recorded in DMC Video/Photography Studio using studio equipment.
DMC staff helped to set-up the equipment, background, and lighting for each interview conducted. Training on video editing with Final Cut Pro X and iMovie was offered to the staff at Woodson Research Center. Consultation on media transfer, editing, exporting, compression, transcoding was provided when requested.
Below is the equipment set-up in the studio:
For more information about the project and the video interivews, please see https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/94056
Have you watched this beautiful chorus of this 2016 Christmas eCard? Do you know the initial recording was done inside DMC Video Photography Studio? Later the videographer decided to use a multi-cam recording done outdoor. However, the videographer verified the audio track is still from the recording done in the DMC studio. Listen to the chorus and enjoy the clean and beautiful voice!
The students from ELEC 305, an Electronic and Computer Engineering course taught by professor Gary Woods in Spring of 2016, created videos to explain “how something works”. They made full use of DMC resources. They checked out DMC equipment to record their videos and audios, used DMC video editing software to edit their videos. DMC staff presented an in-class training as well as hands-on help in the lab. The staff also helped the professor to judges the videos.
Below video created by the students from this class is a good example of how students used the Chroma Keying effect in a very creative way. The green screen footage was recorded inside the DMC video/photography studio.
Transforming Electricity Procurement At Rice University, Richard Johnson, 2016 (Spring 2016): This video was created by Shari Smith, who used DMC video studio to record Richard Johnson’s shot using green screen. The voiceover narration of the video was recorded in DMC audio studio.
User’s Comments: “Thank you very much for your help and the use of the audio and video studios in the DMC…You rock! ” –Shari Smith
