When are enhancements etc "gimmiky"

[nharris]

Hello:

I am a junior member and recently entered a mini AV in a club competition. I used "The Dom's" Handwriting template to create the title.

This does show up the power of the animation facility in P to E version 7.0.

I used a couple of other animation features in the show. Two of the three judges dismissed the presentation as "gimmiky" and marked down the show.

Does this mean that one runs a risk like this in utilizing the wonderful feature of 7.0?

Thanks

Noel Harris

[Barry Beckham]

Not if the slide show has substance as well as the effects. You cannot create an interesting slide show with technical wizardry alone, but sadly many people seem to believe you can.

By substance I am referring to a show that has a story or at least some theme and contains good quality images.

Moving images about the screen or using technical tricks does not do it alone. Those techniques have the ability to grab your audiences attention, but they will not sustain you through a full slide show sequence. You have to do that with good photography and and a good idea.

On top of all that, quite often the judges will write off an entry because they see it as not the authors creative work. I don't fully subcribe to that but I know it happens and when you see some work submitted you can't help but ask the question. How much of this was the authors work..

Why not put your mini sequence up on www.mediafire.com and let us have a link to view it ourselves

[nharris]

Thank you,Barry. I value your opinion.

It is on Beechbrook.com and is titled "Ten Portraits"

Noel Harris

[Lin Evans]

Hi Noel,

I wouldn't agree that the presentation was "gimmiky" but I think you could perhaps improve it by a bit smaller script writing in the beginning so that the viewer could see the words before the end of the display. So if the pen and text were smaller, I think the continuity would be more sound. Perhaps you could use a gradient background with the script effect reduced in size so that there is more that two letters at a time visible. You don't want the introduction to overpower the presentation. Perhaps slightly longer on each portrait might be useful unless there was some time restriction on the presentation.

The only other "niggle" would be that the background music and the last image could be slightly "tweaked" because it appears that the music continued slightly beyond the end of the last slide. It was almost as if there were one "note" too much. With PTE 7 you can fine tune your background music or sound to a very fine degree.

Best regards,

Lin

[nharris]

Hello

Thanks very much for your comments,Lin.

I have corrected the matter of the music and the last slide. It will be more difficult to change text size etc as you suggested as I am only a minor player,but I will surely try.

Noel Harris

[Barry Beckham]

Noel

How your slide show is received will depend largely on who you aimed it at. This will give you the best idea on how it's likely to be received. All of us have a visual IQ in our photography. Its what makes one picture great for one person and not so great for another. The same goes for AV. You have entered a competition and now your work is being judged far more harshly than it ever will here. In Audio Visual competition the judges are looking for originality, a flow from image to image, good appropriate music and a story. I can sort of understand why the judges made that comment.

A title for a slide show will be read by the audience in less than a second, but in your show it is on screen far too long and with the greatest respect to the Dom, its hard to read, because letters leave the screen and don't build upinto a word. Then, at the end of the handwriting, you give us the title again. Its 1 minute before we see the first image in your showand in my view that's too long. I think you will find that the judges felt that you concentrated more on the presentation techniques than the content. If your going to enter competitions, then whether you agree with it or not, you need to keep things simple and find a story or an implied story.

The Photo hierarchy are slow to change and judges can be even slower. Below is what your up against incompetition when you use techniques that are a little different to what they are used to. This relates to including video in slideshows, but its much the same thing.

Motion for an AV rule

Full motion video capture (above 10 frames/sec) should not be included unchanged from video cameras, however simulated motion by manually sequencing asuccession of still captures may be used in short sections foreffect.

As soon as something new appears in photography, the first reaction of the great and the good is to ban it, or create more hoops for us all to jump through. Why 10fps is quoted is beyond me.