Photo by Simone Impei on Unsplash

Now that my time at OpenText is done, I can start showing off some of the work that I completed while I was there!

A big focus during my co-op was creating videos - specifically, creating videos on how to create videos. While it feels a little redundant, they felt it was the best way to help get their team up to speed with video creation basics.

I received a lot of video creation training during my previous co-op at SAP. They had the art of creating videos almost down to an exact science, and I picked up a lot of skills that I’m sure I’ll keep using throughout my co-ops and maybe even beyond, as video starts becoming more and more important for technical writing.

And that prior knowledge was very important for OpenText - pretty sure it was one of the main reasons I got offered the position.

After all, sometimes it’s easier to just watch a video, rather than try and read through a document to find the information you need to accomplish a task.

For now, let’s break down one of the important parts of video creation: getting the audio right!

Recording your Audio

The first, and probably the most important step to get right, is recording your audio.

Audio can make or break a video. Aside from having a good microphone and a quiet space to record, you need to ensure that your settings are configured correctly to avoid any issues.

I can’t speak to other audio recording and editing software, but I learned how to do some of the basics in the free, open-source program known as Audacity when I was at SAP.

My first video, which goes into more detail on the basic steps to remember for recording in Audacity, is below:

Editing your Audio

The next part of getting good audio for a video after recording is editing the and putting together the final track.

Even if you have a perfect set up, there’s still probably going to be stray noises you need to edit out, mistakes that need to be corrected, and other changes.

Going in order, the following videos cover some of the common steps for editing audio in Audacity:

Remove Background Noise

Normalize Volume Levels

Remove Stray Sounds

Remove Breaths and Plosives

This part is especially important for me, because I’ve found that I tend to take a lot of audible breaths when I’m trying to do a recording.

Adjust the Recording Volume

Create Final Track for Export

Hopefully you found some of this information useful! Are there any tips or tricks you know for recording or editing in Audacity, or another free program that you like using more? Let me know in the comments below.