<p>My d will be creating a video for prescreens in the next couple weeks. Is it acceptable to record each song and each school's introduction separately and then edit the sections together? Some schools require 2 songs where others require 3. There are also other other differences in the requirements from school to school. I'm just trying to avoid recording the songs without stopping the video between songs 5 or 6 times over. Please tell me that's not what they mean by "unedited". </p>
<p>Deleted post after figuring out how to edit original… ;)</p>
<p>You can record all at one time and them cut them to individual songs. You also need to be able to separate audio and video. Some schools only allow an audio recording and some only video and some either. The “edit” they are talking about is manipulating the voice. It is best to record using only one mike. Do not record voice and piano separately then try to manipulate the volume of each.
I really liked the Decision Desk portal that some schools used. I found it to be the easiest to use for uploads. You can go ahead and fill out all the student info and save it and them just upload songs when you are ready. </p>
<p>@Scubachick - Thanks for the info. I was pretty sure that’s what it meant by editing. I’ll check out the upload links from each school and see which ones are on Decision Desk so we can get that started. </p>
<p>Good luck and allow plenty of time to upload the videos - and try to avoid submitting them on the last day. We definitely found that these websites move more slowly when there are a lot of people trying to upload at once.</p>
<p>Also, allow time for multiple “takes”. DD did the prescreening recording with voice teacher and did mulitple versions. He then chose the best ones to include in the submissions. They do not have to be recorded at the same time. Just don’t edit within the recording itself. </p>
<p>Also check to see if the schools want the student to introduce themselves and the song. Some want “blind” prescreen. We had an audio with intro, audio without, video with name/song, and video without name/song. I suggest having each separate. The schools my D auditioned at wanted them separate. And, highly recommend uploading early!</p>
<p>Yes, some did want any type of intro. Read the fine print on all the school. </p>
<p>Back again with question #2…</p>
<p>We have the videos and we are planning to upload to DecisionDesk tonight. When I have the website open, it shows one window for browsing for the upload. I’m wondering if this will be the one and only upload, or if it will have an option for a 2nd, 3rd, etc. for the different songs. If the former, I would have to put the songs and intro together into one file, but I’m not sure if that’s what is wanted. I can’t find any detailed instructions for that either on the school website or DecisionDesk. Anyone know what my options are?</p>
<p>Hmm. Trying to remember. We used Decision Desk, Acceptd and Unified last year so it all runs together.
We found the admission people at all schools to be very helpful. Seems like I had this same question last year. Send them an email with your question and they will get back to you. I was thinking at DD it was pre-set for each school. In other words, if there is one file space you send as one file, if the school wants 3 files it has 3 spaces. </p>
<p>Thanks, @Scubachick. It looks like d is going to have to get in touch with at least a couple of the schools. For getacceptd, I noticed that there were two upload windows, so that made it pretty clear that the two songs go in there separately. We have one school that requires the video be uploaded to a website. That’s definitely not my favorite method. I think I’ll have contact them and see if a link with a password is acceptable. </p>
<p>D applied to 8 schools and it seemed every school had a different way of doing things even if they used DD and the Common App. I had originally thought my D should do it herself, but it did not take long to figure out it was a 2 person job or actually 3 (me, dad and D were all on computers uploading one night)
One piece of advice. Do not wait until the night before the due date. We did not, but several of D friends did and one of the websites slowed to a snails pace and there was some panic that things wold not upload :)</p>