Apple Keynote ’08: VoiceOver Recording …
I was just reading through the Keynote ’08 features on the Apple site. I’m excited about this new version. Besides slide creation, I find Keynote to be an extremely useful tool for graphics design.
You may be familiar with my Telos One Mix Minus article and diagram that is currently available on this site as well as on the forum. I’ve had a few people contact me asking what application I used to design the graphic. Guess what? I used Keynote to get it done. It’s just fantastic for design work. Completed projects can be used for slide presentations or captured as high resolution tiff’s, sent to Photoshop, and finished for various methods of distribution.
Keynote ’08 has a new feature that I’m sure will come in handy for online media producers: Voiceover Recording. Think about this for a second … If you plan to create a self contained presentation with embedded narration, this is really going to come in handy. Let’s not forget that you can export a Keynote project as a self contained Quicktime movie. With this new recording option, Keynote now provides an easy method to create web tutorials, podcasts, videocasts … you name it. In fact, using high quality export settings, the exported movies can easily be incorporated into an elaborate Final Cut sequence. The key is full synchronization of audio and video right out of the box.
For example: create a slide presentation with elaborate graphics, builds, and transitions. Sit back and record your voiceover in perfect sync based on the project attributes. Render a high quality output source and import the clip into Final Cut for finishing. In fact, it’s possible the Keynote segment may be just a small aspect of a large scale video project. The key is you will be be working with audio and video that is pre-synchronized.
This is fantastic.
I’m not entirely sure how Apple has implemented this feature. I’m sure the application manual is currently available on the site. I should be receiving my box in a day or two. I’ll report back when I have additional information to share. For now I say nice job Apple.
Before I forget, have you seen the new keyboards? Talk about slick. I couldn’t resist. I ordered the full sized wired version. I should have it in seven days,
I grinned when I read your discussion about using Keynote for graphic design. For simple, high quality graphics – I always use Keynote. It is a huge time saver and the output quality is amazing.
I’ll be buying this at the store tomorrow.
I agree entirely Alan. I know it’s possible to achieve the same results with Photoshop. The difference is that it takes zero effort in Keynote. And, methods are consistent with Apple Pages and iWeb [and now Numbers, the spreadsheet]. Consistency across all applications is what really makes it work for me.
One of these days I plan to study the advanced features of Photoshop. For now I’ll stick with what Apple has graced us with …
Let me know what you think of it when you get it.
-ptfigg.
Wow. All this time I thought you were creating those in Omni Outliner. I never really thought about designing graphics in keynote, but the built in tools are great for graphics. I downloaded the trial yesterday and played with instant alpha a bit and some of the other new features and started to realize how many uses Keynote actually has. Come to think of it, I created my web and graphic design portfolio with keynote and exported quicktime files and a pdf to put on my server. I’ve also created intro slides for an iPhoto slideshow in Keynote then used those slideshows for a DVD I created in iDVD and gave to my family during Xmas. iLife and especially iWork have made creating more than just presentations and newsletters simple and the end result always looks like it took me a lot longer than it really did. I’m also looking forward to the new version of iMovie, which I’ll pick up this weekend with iLife 08. The new interface looks great and I like that I’ll be able to use it to organize and manage my video. It just seems like a much faster and easier way to create quick movies. I’ll likely continue using Final Cut Express for longer or more elaborate videos, but for the majority of my video that I shoot with my xacti, especially family-type stuff, I’m looking forward to working with iMovie 08.
Michael,
Yeah, iMovie looks awesome. I loved the story behind it’s inception. Listen to Steve Jobs as he explains how this entirely new version surfaced all due to the needs of an Apple video engineer.
-ptfigg.
I just did a screencast demo on how to use keynote to create cool intros for your video podcast. Check it out – http://www.drupalnub.com/cool-intros-keynote-and-imovie
I made a keynote presentation, recorded audio for it, and have spent about 5 hours trying to figure out how to export it to imovie, so I can manipulate it some more. But can’t figure it out!
Could you walk me through it!
Many thanks.
Linda,
Have you exported an iMovie compatible QT Movie from Keynote and recorded an independent audio track?
-ptfigg.
Hi all,
Keynote ’08 won’t let you record your narration/voiceover if you have an “expensive” audio interface like the Alesis MultiMix8 Firewire or Presonus FireWire. I found an inexpensive workaround for this and wrote up the instructions I follow to do professional voiceovers for my clients:
http://www.burnsfamily.net/blog/?p=235
Cheers,
Bill Burns
Co-host and producer of the SecurityHype podcast
Hello,
Thanks for the good information re. Keynote 08.
My question is this:
We’re getting ready to do a big presentation at a major tourism summit that’s 5 days from now. Some of our slides int eh presentation have video file examples (with audio) and also some podcast examples.
We have a basic $1000 projector. Is there a way to enable the projector to provide adequate audio for the presentation? The presentation will be theatre-style and there could be 150 people in attendance. WE’ll have mics on ourselves, but I’m concerned about how our presentation, which has some audio files in it on various slides, will be heard by the whole auditorium audience?
I was thinking we’d use our MacBook pro connected to our projector for hte presentation… would prefer to stick with our Macs since it’s Keynote and I’m not 100% satisfied with the Keynote-to-Powerpoint export quality…
Please advise ASAP.
THANKS!
Shelli
This sounds great but it does not work. You cannot record a narration on a Keynote presentation and get it into iMovie. If you export the Keynote presentation as a Quicktime movie you lose all the soundtrack. This Keynote software is useless for this application.
Keynote looks like a pretty great application for fast, easy voice over work. With iMovie making progress, it will be interesting to see which will take over as the standard Mac app for voiceovers.
We are doing voice recordings the whole day. Sometime with synchronisation via ISDN. This means that a partner studio is running our video via ISDN lines. There a lot of tecnical issues when you do this. But if this programm could do this out of the box e.g. via Internet stream this would be great. Our clients could be on line during the creation progress.
Keynote is very interesting for us. As we are going mobile in our voice over service here in europe it will be one of our favorite apps.
Have you had an oppurtunity to use Keynote 09? What are the main improvements over the 08 version?
Have you used Keynote 09? What are the improvements over Keynote 08?
Keynote 09 is soon to be upgraded again