Slide Show Feedback

[BBorges]

Hi guys,

I would like to get some feedback on this slide show I've put together. I've finally put the time reading the tutorials and manuals for PTE and was able to create a MUCH more complex slide show than previous attempts.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdrkHQu8Tew

It is nothing as fancy as some of the pros around here, but i feel it is a step ahead of basic slides.

Could someone give me some constructive and/or creative inputs on how to build on top of this?

Thanks in advance,

BB

[fh1805]

Hi BB,

Your sequence was enjoyable to watch - but left me puzzled as to what it was about. The semi-silhouette, golden tone treatment of the images was pleasingly consistent all the way through. The choice of music was fine for something which, to me, was a bit abstract in its subject matter. Your animations were smooth and gentle enough to not be unsettling or intrusive. For me, the only down side was the text captioning. It was very intrusive visually. But to reduce its size would probably render it almost too small to read when the video plays in a "thumbnail-sized" viewer, such as the embedded YouTube link. I think that the overall effect of this sequence would be much improved if the text was used as the script for a voice-over recording. It would need a voice capable of conveying whatever emotion you are trying to convey. You may need to get someone from a local drama group or college drama class to help you if you decide to try this.

regards,

Peter

[Lin Evans]

Hi Peter,

Actually, the message was quite effective, but only for those with a prior understanding of the "Burning Man" phenomenon.

Best regards,

Lin

Hi BB,

Your sequence was enjoyable to watch - but left me puzzled as to what it was about. The semi-silhouette, golden tone treatment of the images was pleasingly consistent all the way through. The choice of music was fine for something which, to me, was a bit abstract in its subject matter. Your animations were smooth and gentle enough to not be unsettling or intrusive. For me, the only down side was the text captioning. It was very intrusive visually. But to reduce its size would probably render it almost too small to read when the video plays in a "thumbnail-sized" viewer, such as the embedded YouTube link. I think that the overall effect of this sequence would be much improved if the text was used as the script for a voice-over recording. It would need a voice capable of conveying whatever emotion you are trying to convey. You may need to get someone from a local drama group or college drama class to help you if you decide to try this.

regards,

Peter

[Hubert]

Great video. Well put together. Love the music.

Hubert

[BBorges]

Peter,

Thanks for the feedback. This is the introduction of a presentation about Burning Man. I am part of a crew in NYC putting together a proposal for a Village, and we'll use the slide show to spread the word about our camp.

I am working with a writer and hopefully it will make more sense once the entire message is included in the presentation.

Regarding the font, I received the same comment from the writer but I am not sure how to address this issue. I am considering other fonts too, and I definitely do not want the pictures to lose space in the slide show.

The idea about the voice is INCREDIBLE. I'll bring it to the table. Just fantastic!

Thanks a lot!

[BBorges]

Hi Peter,

Actually, the message was quite effective, but only for those with a prior understanding of the "Burning Man" phenomenon.

Best regards,

Lin

:D

[BBorges]

Great video. Well put together. Love the music.

Hubert

Thanks Hubert, glad to hear I am moving in the right direction!

[David Porter]

In order to get a message across I found the screen time for the words conflicted with the moving images - not enough time to take in both. Whilst I appreciate that the pans and zooms were meant to be quick and sharp but maybe they were a bit too much particularly the zoom into pan sequence. But I did enjoy the show and did appreciate the message. Well done.

[Guest Yachtsman1]

I assume the "Burning Man" was the film showing someone jumping from the Twin Towers during 9.11.???

Yachtsman1.

[Lin Evans]

http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/

Lin

I assume the "Burning Man" was the film showing someone jumping from the Twin Towers during 9.11.???

Yachtsman1.

[Ken Cox]

DAVYC

put this show up quite some time ago

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12542&st=0&p=80777&hl=burning&fromsearch=1entry80777

quite enjoyable i must say

my grandsons want to know when we can go

ken

[coopernatural]

BB,

I’ve made a couple of Burning Man AV’s and put one up here a while back.

The other,I wouldn’t post here,as the naked dildo fencing scenes, might leave some more than puzzled.

My take on your AV (so far) is very good.Don’t know how or if you want to develop it more in relation to the full thing.

As you say this is an intro, but 1 dictates the other.

If Youtube is where you want to target for your promo then that is a different audience from here.

Quality of Youtube for viewing a photo AV sucks, and for here,an exe will show things off better.

An AV If it’s overly wordy,may lose impact/interest.There is a 16 sec intro to build things up,using edited text,

or combine with spoken word.Spoken word,if you want,could be given a treatment.

Useable space still remains inside images,so maybe after your intro time you could confine text to 1 or maybe 2 ‘impact/resonating words’.

There is a tribal vibe to the music,so maybe try an emphasis with a word on each selected (say 4th ,6th whatever) downbeat.

Maybe try varying the Position/persistence of words on screen.

While music is in the tribal vibe,a neat effect is to introduce a short break to an ‘image per beat’ set, of the same peeps dancing.

It’s a suck it and see thing.Might help/work and might not.It is easy to try out a few things though.

Maybe troll some vids on Youtube and see what is missing from them,or what you would like to try.

Good luck with the AV and application for a Village.

Code gets stricter every year.

Davy.

[BBorges]

DAVYC

put this show up quite some time ago

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12542&st=0&p=80777&hl=burning&fromsearch=1entry80777

Incredible Davy, loved your slide show and your pictures! Wow, inspiring! I can tell you've been there at the same time I was (temple and man shots) and also other years that I was not, because of the different temple design.

I love the soundtrack, the photos (and how you use their forms in sequence) and the quality of the slide show. It is very "chill" and you throw in some rotation and elements, GREAT!

I have to ask, how did you do the kid's shot? Was that basically an PS edit with oil/canvas filter and then you fade out the original and fade in the painted photo? Just so smooth.. great idea!

The balloon idea is also so nice, it looks so real. Whats the secret here?

I also like the effect towards the end, I think you used the rotation? It didnt even occur to use the rotation, but now I see how it works beautifully if used correctly and I'll try it too!

Towards the end, the statue shooting fire up in the sky, what a SHOT! Great work man! I can see the PL filter in the early day leading to that blue sky (or just plain PS!)

My take on your AV (so far) is very good.Don’t know how or if you want to develop it more in relation to the full thing.

As you say this is an intro, but 1 dictates the other.

If Youtube is where you want to target for your promo then that is a different audience from here.

Quality of Youtube for viewing a photo AV sucks, and for here,an exe will show things off better.

An AV If it’s overly wordy,may lose impact/interest.There is a 16 sec intro to build things up,using edited text,

or combine with spoken word.Spoken word,if you want,could be given a treatment.

Useable space still remains inside images,so maybe after your intro time you could confine text to 1 or maybe 2 ‘impact/resonating words’.

There is a tribal vibe to the music,so maybe try an emphasis with a word on each selected (say 4th ,6th whatever) downbeat.

Maybe try varying the Position/persistence of words on screen.

While music is in the tribal vibe,a neat effect is to introduce a short break to an ‘image per beat’ set, of the same peeps dancing.

It’s a suck it and see thing.Might help/work and might not.It is easy to try out a few things though.

Maybe troll some vids on Youtube and see what is missing from them,or what you would like to try.

Good luck with the AV and application for a Village.

Code gets stricter every year.

Davy.

Yes, technically the entire thing would be about 4 mins, right now I am at 2. We need to talk about our crew and also what we are putting together. Or maybe not, i could propose we keep a Burning-Man-only AV and create another for the Village. The project is flexible.

Youtube would definitely be the main venue, because we have a blog for the Village and would simply link the youtube on it. And honestly, all crew members could easily spread the word on facebook with youtube links, for instance. But nothing prevents me from also offering the higher quality EXE file.

I have to work on the text and I think part of the problem could be the font size (as pointed out). Also, I am REALLY considering the voice-over, it sounds very nice.

Regarding the music and how to actually do the things you mentioned, I have not a clue how to do that. This is literally the first PTE file I create with audio.

Last thing, do you think you could share the structure of your PTE project? I wouldnt even want the photos, just really the structure to see how you create it. I am having a hard time figuring out the best approach to use PTE.

For instance, the slide show I create had only ONE slide in it, and many many objects inside (26 total). I am not sure I am doing this right, because if I am to expand this even more, the list of objects will be much longer.

Thanks again,

BB

[BBorges]

In order to get a message across I found the screen time for the words conflicted with the moving images - not enough time to take in both. Whilst I appreciate that the pans and zooms were meant to be quick and sharp but maybe they were a bit too much particularly the zoom into pan sequence. But I did enjoy the show and did appreciate the message. Well done.

Yeah, I suspected I could be overdoing some of the effects and didnt leave enough time for the text. Definitely will take this into consideration for the next revision.

Thanks for the feedback!

BB

[coopernatural]

BB,

It’s important for me to state that this was just my take/ideas on things.

I don’t want you to take your eye off the ball.It’s not for me to say what will or won’t work.

With Youtube there will be videos,so a photo AV will have to be pretty punchy/standout,to compete.

If you get caught up with too much text......well it’s the exit to next show button.

I often build an AV around the soundtrack.I would say that music is the most important thing here initially.

Effects less so,as a lot will be wasted/lost in translation to this format.

You will need to use more images I think to keep peeps away from the esc button.

Use whatever advertising/promo technique you think will work best,but keep it simple.

For expert advice on how to’s I would point you first to the experts like Lin.

Lin recently made available FOC his PTE tutorial,so if you haven’t already,download it.

For the show I posted,it was a total remake,as I did not want to use any of the original images a friend had sent to me from Burning Man.

I have never been there myself and so trolled the archives for images from over the years.Sets from the likes of David Best are just amazing.

The vibe is a bit more Chill with this.Probably a bit boring by Youtube standards.

The young guy in the AV was an image in PS and a fade to a Corel Painter 11 painted version.

The balloons are probably done a bit crudely,but I was just trying my hand at a bit of animation.

The rotations,I liked as they gave a 3D effect to the images.

These and other pics can be downloaded from Google,but it’s down to what you want to use or do.

Just give me a shout If I can help, but seek out the experts here first.

I might be one of the best set builders in the world, but PTE tutorials is a whole different ball game.

Davy

[BBorges]

Davy,

Thanks again for the feedback and ideas. I can see you are absolutely right about everything, but actually doing it is a bit harder: i need to overcome the software learning curve (and I am getting there) then I have to do the hardest: creativity.

Yesterday I was working again on the AV, and I finally had a breakthrough with frames: great moment and it has simplified my AV a lot. And I am sure there is a lot more to learn on the software.

Regarding the music, I am still not sure if I can synch the soundtrack to a certain point of the slides. The only thing I actually do is edit the mp3 on audacity and make it the correct length (fade in/out), per one of the tutorials.

So I am not sure how to create the slides around the sound. It sounds counter intuitive and I can't see that working efficiently.

Thanks,

BB

[coopernatural]

BB,

I am going out right now.Will post back later to you.

Davy

[dpletts]

Regarding the music, I am still not sure if I can synch the soundtrack to a certain point of the slides. The only thing I actually do is edit the mp3 on audacity and make it the correct length (fade in/out), per one of the tutorials.

So I am not sure how to create the slides around the sound. It sounds counter intuitive and I can't see that working efficiently.

Hi BB,

I thought I might put my penny-worth in based on my, admittedly, limited experience with PTE audio. I find that synching a soundtrack to slides can be done, provided you have shortish chunks of audio and you use the music facilities provided in PTE, found in the 'Customize' section, to the full, using fade in, fade out, cross fading, start time and offset as appropriate. A whole lot easier, but not always appropriate, is to prepare a complete soundtrack and adjust the timing of slides to suite the audio. The visible waveform can often help with this. You can, of course, combine both approaches. Sometimes I prepare a soundtrack to fit the length of the show and add 'effects' at appropriate moments to synch with the slides using the first method.

I find that making a soundtrack can take longer than preparing the the slides, and even then, I can't always get the timing right. There isn't an easy answer to audio other than to choose a piece of music and spread the slides to the length of the soundtrack, another PTE option.

I hope my comments help a little.

David P

[dpletts]

Hi BB,

I forgot to say that I liked your show, especially the words, which I felt were given the prominence they needed, with the other visual/audio aspects supporting them. Good stuff, I would like to see more of that kind of thing.

Cheers,

David P

[coopernatural]

BB,

The creative bit is down to you,as well as actually having to do the thing.

Your AV gets better with each viewing,so maybe just expanding it to the 4 minutes will do the trick,

with the text more interspersed.

The future release of Video capable pte will open things up even more for you.

As David P has indicated,there are various methods to sync slides and music.

If you click on ‘Slides’ at the bottom of your screen you will see a timeline with your slides.

Click on the audio waveform tab on the far right and it will bring up the soundtrack as matched to the timeline.

Make things easier to view,by doing a mouse drag upwards on the horizontal bounding line between the timeline and view screen.

With the audio waveform stretched in height you can now see the peaks/beats more easily.

Click on a particular slide and there will be a vertical line showing its relative position to the soundtrack.

You can now drag the slide along the timeline to sync fairly accurately to the audio.

You can tweak things further/differently by milliseconds by fine tuning the duration of a slide in the,

Slide View mode ‘Customise Slide’ setting under slide duration.

Read the tutorials though,for a full deccription of this.

I don't use Audacity or PTE sound edit function. Try working with wav files for your sound creation and then when happy with

completed editing etc,convert the audio track to mp3. MP3 is a lossy format, a bit like photo jpegs that will degrade with changes/saves.

Seems like you are having fun,so just keep at it.

Good luck.

Davy

[BBorges]

Hi BB,

I forgot to say that I liked your show, especially the words, which I felt were given the prominence they needed, with the other visual/audio aspects supporting them. Good stuff, I would like to see more of that kind of thing.

Cheers,

David P

Hi David,

Thanks for the feedback, glad to hear the project is moving in the right direction.

Regarding your audio tips, I have a very basic question before I even attempt to apply your suggestions: under "Project Options" > "Music", what is the difference between "Add Music" & "Add Track" ?

[BBorges]

The creative bit is down to you,as well as actually having to do the thing.

Your AV gets better with each viewing,so maybe just expanding it to the 4 minutes will do the trick,

with the text more interspersed.

The future release of Video capable pte will open things up even more for you.

Hi Davy,

I am a photographer, so I know very well it boils down to creativity. It may seem like the technical aspects are hard, but they are very easy at the end of the day and then creativity is the differential. Yeah, tough but it makes possible for all these great work we see.

And what do you mean by "future release of Video capable PTE"? I am a bit out of the loop, but I thought the current version of PTE was already video-capable with the VB option. Is there something new on the horizon?

I've seen threads about PET 7, maybe I should take a look at them...

[coopernatural]

Hi BB,

Version 7 of PTE will let you use video in your AV.

See Igor's post on Version 7

Might be useful for your Youtube work.

Davy

[thedom]

I really like your work ! The effect on the pics give a very special atmosphere.

I don't know if it's on purpose but there is something very dark and dramatic with this presentation, almost apocalyptic.

But I like it.

I could easily imagine a 16/9 screen ratio for your A/V, it would increase the movie effect.

I hope to watch an other version reworked (exe available ?).

Anyway, congratulations and thank you for sharing.

[dpletts]

Regarding your audio tips, I have a very basic question before I even attempt to apply your suggestions: under "Project Options" > "Music", what is the difference between "Add Music" & "Add Track" ?

Hi BB,

You put music, or other sounds, in tracks. Tracks are collections of sounds that are played sequentially, ie you can't have two or more sounds playing at the same time in one track. You can set the time at which the start of a sound is played by using Offset in the Audio Clip Properties dialog; click on Customise (Project Options/Music). You can set for how long the sound plays by using Duration. If you want to play two sounds one after the other with no silence between them you can use Crossfading to set a time during which the first sound morphs into the second sound.

Tracks (containing sounds) are processed simultaneously - ie the sounds are played and heard together, so you can add further tracks (Add Track) which can contain other sounds. Make sure the track you are adding music to is highlighted and click (Add Music) to add a sound to that track.

An example might be that you have a music 'bed' in Track 1 which lasts for the whole slide show. At a particular point in the show you want to superimpose a sound effect. The effect goes into Track 2 with the Offset time set to coincide with the time in the slide show where you want to hear the effect start (commonly at the start of a transition). I have found it best to create a new track for every effect I want to introduce because it is much easier to adjust just one sound in a track and believe you me you probably will want to adjust the timing.

I have yet to come to a limit of the number of tracks available at one time; this is possibly dependent on how much memory you have in you computer.

I think the manual explains most of this and there are a few references to the Music functions in the forum.

However, what I have written may not be too clear so don't hesitate to ask more questions.

Best of luck,

David P