Classroom in a book

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LESSON 18 Exploring Adobe OnLocation CS5
4
Select the clip named 
light_quiet.mov. When 
you play this clip, notice 
that the waveform is 
pushed to the top, with 
lots of pixels above 100 
IRE and none near 7.5 
IRE. This means that the 
detail in the brightest 
pixels will be lost and that 
the video will appear faded. This is another case where adjusting the lighting or 
camera exposure would make a much nicer image.
Although the Waveform Monitor is helpful for analyzing brightness, the 
Vectorscope is useful for analyzing color. The Vectorscope is a round graph with 
“no color” represented in the center and a high value of color represented on the 
outer edge. The color wheel is represented in quadrants around the circle of the 
Vectorscope. Starting at 11 o’clock and going clockwise are Red, Magenta, Blue, 
Cyan, Green, and Yellow. The farther the graph extends to the edge, the higher the 
saturation of that color.
In addition, the line between red and yellow represents flesh tones, and the posi-
tioning of the pixels along that line tells us that the face tones, which comprise the 
bulk of the saturated pixels in this shot, are accurately white balanced.
Looking at the waveform, you can tell that there aren’t a lot of saturated colors 
in the frame (it is shot in a medieval tower, after all) but that facial colors appear 
accurate.

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ADOBE PREMIERE PRO CS5 CLASSROOM IN A BOOK
331
So far we have been focusing on Adobe OnLocation’s video capabilities. But audio 
is half of any good production, so let’s take a look at one of the audio tools included 
with Adobe OnLocation: the Audio Meter.
1
Play the clip named normal.mov, and observe the levels represented by the 
green/yellow lines in the meter. Since this is a stereo clip, you can see the left and 
right channels represented as it plays. Notice that there are good levels across 
most of the frequency range, indicated by green and some yellow high points in 
the audio. This is an example of a good audio file. The meter did not peak (turn 
red) as you played this file. The overall volume is good and it’s not too loud.
2
Play the clip named dark_loud.mov. 
Notice this clip peaks, or 
clips
, on the 
meter, as shown indicated by the red 
bars. This audio is too loud at some 
points, which causes clipping and 
makes the loud sections sound very 
flat. In this case, you should turn down 
the audio to the camera or reposition 
the microphone.
3
Play the clip named light_quiet.mov. 
Notice the overall level or volume is 
too low. This is represented visually 
by displaying only green levels, never 
peaking into yellow. This would be 
difficult to correct in postproduction. 
It is much easier to fix the problem 
at the scene when detected with the 
Audio Meter.
Using these video- and audio-monitoring tools can save you hours in postproduc-
tion trying to correct problems. Adobe OnLocation can be a real time-saver in 
preventing problems and helping you produce high-quality video and audio.
Many producers shoot with cameras not tethered to the computer via IEEE 1394 
connections. Although you can’t capture video from these devices directly to disk, 
you can create shot lists with placeholders for each shot and capture metadata 
about the clips to these placeholders before, during, and after the shoot. Then you 
Volume 
good
Volume too 
loud
Volume too 
low

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LESSON 18 Exploring Adobe OnLocation CS5
can link the actual video files to the placeholders. Linking can be either manual or 
automatic; here’s the workflow for automatically linking placeholders with clips: