AUDIO VISUAL FOR BEGINNERS............AND OTHERS
SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS TO HELP YOU MAKE A SUCCESSFUL SEQUENCE
- Consider your likely audience for your AV sequence - it may have a bearing on how you approach the project. A camera club audience may perceive your presentation in a different way from another group of people if they have a different specialised interest.
- Save all your images, soundtrack, music etc to one folder on your computer and keep everything together..........and leave it there as it saves searching throughout many folders or even hard drives.
- Resize your images to suit either viewing on computer or for projection. For AV work, there is no advantage in working with large files so reduce them to work within 1024 x 768 pixels (our club projector) or 1400 x 1050 pixels (probably the next common format at present). JPEG files should be acceptable to all AV programs.
- Try to keep the dimensions of your images consistent as minor variations in size can be distracting.
- Consider options for changing from landscape format to portrait format within a sequence in order to maintain a smooth progression through your pictures. Grouping images of similar format can minimise the problem.
- A blank image at the beginning and end of your sequence keeps the start and finish tidy and allows a bit of breathing space for the show to start and to close.
- Be ruthless in excluding images that duplicate others or don't add anything to your sequence. Because you like them is maybe not the best reason for including images that are better omitted if they don't contribute to the presentation.
- Make your transitions from one image to the next as smooth as possible (a simple dissolve can be a good starting point) - too many pans, zooms, page-turning transitions can be distracting and can make the sequence uncomfortable to view.
- Soundtrack music should be complementary to the images and where possible can be co-coordinated with it. Over-familiar music can distract from your images when your audience starts singing along to the music or taps their feet in time.
- Spoken commentary should be clear to the listener - if you don't have confidence in your own voice, use someone else for this.
................and finally...............
Remember that you are primarily a photographer and are creating a means of showing off your work through the medium of AV. The world of movies and video is something a wee bit different.
Have fun!
Alastair Cochrane
December 2008
