“By the time we returned from the field, we had the key ideas for the video roughed out, and had selected most of the clips we would use,” Adams explains. “Then we scripted and recorded the narration in our basement studio at home. All of the footage was output on QuickTime, then we used Final Cut Pro for editing both video and sound.”

Editing in No Time
Though Gorton had been a Mac user many years ago, neither he nor Adams had any recent experience on Mac-based systems. But, says Adams, the couple quickly grasped the technique of editing with Final Cut Pro.

“It was so accessible, and so easy! I could sit down and, without any training, clip and edit pieces that we later used in PowerPoint presentations,” Adams says. “D. also created the montages and put music behind the shots with very little help. I’m sure you can do all of that with other programs, but I doubt we could have done it as quickly and intuitively as we did with Final Cut Pro.”

Making Optimum Impact
The finished production made its debut during the Fall 2002 semester at SIUC. First students viewed the entire program in class, then it was made available on the university’s website.

Adams and Gorton also imported the video into iMovie via FireWire for easy presentation to other groups. They use the university’s video projection unit for large assemblies, and employ their Apple Studio Display monitor for smaller audiences. In every instance, says Adams, viewers of the video have been hugely affected by the power of the medium.

“Seeing this footage has an impact that words simply don’t,” Adams confirms. “Many of us have never heard people say the things that Horace says in public. To actually see his gestures, and the emotion on his face while he’s speaking, is something that an audio tape, or the spoken word, or the written word alone just can’t do.”

More Videos in Their Future
Since the race video was completed, Adams and Gorton have produced several other pieces for their websites. The two are also researching ways to bring the race video’s message to an even wider audience, and make it a highly interactive experience. They are considering the addition of subtitles in several languages, which Adams terms “quite easy to do in QuickTime — we already have Chinese translations of the video on the web.” Whatever their future direction, the pair plans to continue using Apple technologies to support all of their visual projects.

“The film and the presentations have been very effective in the classroom for stimulating thoughts about the complexities of race,” says Adams. “Also, students are able to see the potential within digital video as a research medium. With tools like Final Cut Pro, we can achieve an astonishing clarity of sound and audio. This is a very important factor, since students have watched professional-quality television all of their lives.”