forum AV

[Maureen]

A year ago I embarked on my first joint sequence (with the rest of the world!)

It was to create a "sequence" which would send birthday greetings to a friend who was celebrating his 70th birthday. His name will remain anonymous but many Forum members know about this and took part.

I asked for a birthday message from AV friends around the world.

They could send me images, sound clips, or a complete mini AV (not too long obviously).

These were sent by www.dropload.com or on CD through the post.

I certainly did not anticipate the response or hard work & long hours preparing it all and putting it together.

(especially two weeks before Christmas!)

My main concern was not to make it into one very long sequence as there would be a problem if he started to watch and the phone rang or had an interruption - he would then need to continually restart the sequence and using the navigation options would mean the flow of the work would be spoilt.

I therefore used a "chapter method"

There were four "chapters" eventually.

Those who sent images, words or sound clips were all used to create one AV which finished with a screen shot linking it to several mini AV sequences which had been sent as final exe files. This last screen image also had the option to go on to the next "chapter".

Thus I could work on what was being sent in immediately without waiting to receive it all & then rush to get it done.

I was delighted with the response. I had planned to host the final sequence on my web site (privately) for others who had taken part to download, but the eventual file was 261 mb so it was too large. I then made copies to send to all my fellow "co-authors". As I have a UK licence for music copyright and this work was private not for any commercial purpose we were OK.

It is certainly a great fun thing to do and I will certainly take part in Dave's project ... and happy to give any advice needed. I'm sure my fellow co-author's on "Boyo's Birthday" will be happy to show their CD to others. It was all done using PTE and there are a vast range of Av techniques used on that project.

Hope this gives you some ideas Dave.

I don't think you need to have a massive hosting space at all.

I can offer some space at www.avworld.org and at www.maureenalbright.com

MY New Year's resolution is not to volunteer any more !

I have a major project planned for this year which I'm determined to sit down and complete as soon as possible.

We're also organising the UK part of the new 321 Challenge and at 4am this morning I finished the UK web site at

http://www.maureenalbright.com/321

The official French web site is now at http://www.atelierdiaporama.com/

(did I say I've given up volunteering )

Think I'll turn professional and have a rest & some money !

Happy new Year to you all.

May your sequences be fun to make and enjoyable to you and all who see them.

BW MAureen

[Ed Overstreet]

I like John/Ebenist's suggestion of posting a list of what music is available free and then vote on the music, or at least express views and let the producer who has to live with the choice make the final decision. I also like "Imagine" if there's any way it could be made available without cost. But I think listing what music is accessible and choosing from that list is a practical way to proceed.

In terms of size of show and whether we need to have chapters or a single big show (good points about length Maureen), maybe the best approach initially is to identify one or more collection points and see how many images we're dealing with (once a reasonable time has elapsed for people to post images; maybe we need a preliminary cut-off date at least to get a reading on numbers, we can always extend it if we want or need to). I say "we" but actually it should be damor since it's his idea, obviously we need one focal point and decision-maker for logistical issues etc. Once we have a ballpark number on images and an idea of what music is practicable, the planning for length, size etc becomes a lot easier for the folks who are doing it.

I agree on further reflection that having many short sound clips is probably not going to work, at least not very elegantly. It's a nice idea in principle, but it could turn into a nightmare for whoever is producing the show and result in something very disjointed. It's probably possible to pull it off, but I think it would take a huge amount of work to do it smoothly. I certainly wouldn't want to be the one to do it.

It sounds like having this hosted/produced in the UK by those of you who have a license makes lots of sense. Alas at the moment such licenses aren't available or affordable for the likes of me here in Canada, and at the moment trying to shift our licensing body's viewpoint has been like trying to nail jelly to the wall, or maybe drawing blood from stone is a better analogy .

[Ken Cox]

when this production starts to roll, and the producers are decided[volunteered] upon

we send them the picts

they pick the music and produce the show

and

if we dont like the end result that is too bad

but judging from the quality of the shows i have reviewed since my indoctrination to this forum i do not feel we will be disappointed

what i would like access to is all the parts so i can make a dvd out of it for my personal pleasure

if we are willing to put our picts up we should be able to trust the producers without voting

ken

[JEB]

As a new member I don’t feel competent to provide any particular image but will give it some thought.

However I am delighted to note that the use of National anthems is unlikely. As a patriotic Scot I don’t believe I just said that! One thought that has occurred to me is that perhaps the use of a quotation from perhaps the most International of all Scots, Robert Burns, may be considered suitable. I have in mind the last verse of “A Man’s A Man For A’ That”.

“Then let us pray that come it may,

(As come it will for a’ that,)

That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth,

Shall bear the gree, an’ a’ that.

For a’ that, an’ a’ that,

It’s coming yet for a’ that,

That Man to Man, the world o’er,

Shall brothers be for a’ that.

The use of the compete poem may even be possible with someone – preferably with a Scots accent (Nationalism creeping in!) reading the poem over appropriate images and even, where necessary, English/French/Spanish/American!!/Russian superimposed translation!!! – I’m now getting carried away (perhaps I should be carried away and be locked up too.)

P.S. As Igor will confirm Burns is big in Russia. I think he is quite well known accross The Pond too!

John

[cottage]

and as always, I will be happy to provide hosting space and send out email notifications from my site if it would be useful to the group.

Bill

Ken and Al,

I'll be happy to do whatever I can to either provide space for hosting or simply collect items for the overall project. Just keep me in the loop as we go. My server provider is down today, and has been down for some five hours now - hence Beechbrook.Com is totally offline. I'll get moving on ways to accomplish this project once we're back online!

Ken,

In answer to your question, no the upload utility is not online. There is a code difference that has not been resolved with some of the new servers. Emailing project items will have to do for now. I will create a special protected folder and web pages as necessary for those who will need access to the project, giving instructions as necessary.

Looking forward to working together.

BIll

[Ken Cox]

so damor Dave

Bill says he will help

when we are talking picts they will be easily emailed

i would suggest you write to Bill , set up a depositor for the project

and lets start gathering the flock:))

ken

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....st=entry25118

[Gilio]

Oke, I am in I have to find out some nice pictures for this show to the world.

happy new year to all, greetings from Holland. Giel Rombout

[cottage]

I've created an upload utility for submissions to the 2006 World Peace AV Project. I appreciate Ken Cox working with me during some of the early testing. It will be available soon for those that wish to be part of this project.

I welcome your comments.

Bill

[davegee]

Hi Bill,

Will the submitted images be available for viewing prior to constructing the show?

DaveG

[Guest damor]

HI Ken,

Sorry for the delay in getting back, been busy- busy-busy.

I have done as you suggested and e-mailed Bill.

I am currently involved in setting up an exhibition at Swansea, here in Wales, so may be "off line" untill saturday.

If I have any news will make time to make a posting to advise. Thanks and regards to every one.

Dave

(damor)

[cottage]

Hi Bill,

Will the submitted images be available for viewing prior to constructing the show?

DaveG

DaveG,

I will be happy to set things up so that everyone involved with this project has the opportunity to have all resources available to them. I don't see this as a repository for items that are not related to this project, therefore I may impose some restrictions on access to certain areas. Nothing has been finalized and I welcome any suggestions as we move forward.

Bill

[davegee]

Thanks Bill,

I just thought it would be nice to see the sorts of things other people are submitting.

Best wishes,

DaveG

[Ed Overstreet]

Here’s another technical issue maybe worth kicking around before we go too much farther along: aspect ratio. Do we prefer that everyone’s images fit into a standard aspect ratio, or not?

I can see arguments on both sides, and I can live with either result, but I’d like to know which way we’re going before I finalize my entry. I know a lot of the Supercircuit shows seemed to have all their images in 4:3 aspect ratio, which of course maximizes the amount of screen real-estate you’re using and arguably maximizes the images’ impact. However, the universe doesn’t fit into 4:3 most of the time, and my cameras all shoot in 3:2 which is the way I compose most of my shots. I often crop what I shoot, and my cropping is always based on what I think works best for me aesthetically, without regard to the aspect ratio produced by the cropping. Not a problem for individual images especially when printed, but of course varying the aspect ratio from one image to another raises some issues for AV.

I’ve selected three images. For now, they’re all cropped as 4:3 (though that’s not how I originally conceived any of them). For two of the three images I don’t think it matters much (in fact, in one of those two the 4:3 cropping arguably is better than what I’d done originally), but I think the third looks better in more of a panorama format, which is how I had originally cropped the 3:2 slide from which it was scanned. I can live with the 4:3 cropping, but if feels a touch claustrophobic to me, perhaps it wouldn’t to someone else who hadn’t seen the original image (or who hadn’t been in the original location, which is anything but claustrophobic).

Any views on this? There are all sorts of ways of sequencing images that don’t have the same aspect ratio, by softening the image edges, using non-fade transitions, compositing images so they don't overlap or only partially overlap (but that means reducing the image size on the canvas and hence also reducing its impact), or other ways of reducing the discordance that can result when the image boundaries shift from one frame to the next. I know some producers and viewers like those effects and some don’t. Forcing everything into one aspect ratio eliminates the “shifting image boundaries” problem, though there can still be situations where you might prefer not to centre two images on each other because certain elements in the two images blend in the dissolve better if they aren’t centred. But that makes the producer’s life more complex; certainly production is simpler if everything is in the same aspect ratio and at the same size. However, simplicity isn't always a virtue.

So, when we are saying “make your images 1024x768 in size” are we saying “crop everything 4:3 and resize to 1024x768" or are we saying “make sure the image is no wider than 1024 and no higher than 768, but if you want 1024x681 or 520x768 or whatever else, that’s OK?” Obviously, if we go with a fixed 4:3 ratio we're telling everyone "no portrait orientations, only landscape orientations" which is how a number of Supercircuit shows ran, sometimes to their disadvantage I thought.

I can live with the consensus, I’d just like to know if there is a consensus and what it might be.

As it happens, I’m giving a presentation Monday night to our photo club’s AV group which addresses the aspect ratio issues in some detail, with examples of how I’ve dealt with it in one particular group show I was involved in a couple of years ago. I’d be interested in hearing your views on this before Monday night (-5 hours Zulu), not that it will change my presentation or how I normally do my own shows, but it might provide some grist for the mill of our discussions Monday night if we have time for discussions (it’s a full program).

I have mixed feelings about raising this issue in this particular forum thread; while it's sparked specifically by this forum AV show, the issue is much broader than that and might deserve a separate thread. But I'll leave that to the forum moderators and the rest of you; if someone wants to start a separate thread on this issue I monitor the forum daily and will spot it.

Thanks.

[alrobin]

Ed,

In order to encourage maximum participation by Forum members, I suggest we stay with 1024x768 for this project.

I, too, am using a wider aspect ratio now as it more readily fits my 3/2 originals. However, as you mentioned, there are pros and cons. I find I am often wanting to crop some images horizontally in order to retain maximum vertical information, and avoid some of the distracting details near the left and/or right edges. Guess that's why we sometimes used to use the vertical format. I doubt if we'll ever convince projector and monitor mfrs to go to a 1/1 format, though.

[LumenLux]

What a wonderful response - 39 comments and we still have a peaceful approach to world peace!

I was absent a few days and this idea has blossomed wonderfully. I guess this is what I would expect from the members of this forum, but it is still inspiring. Every idea expressed is great. Rather than jump in with comment on the ideas, I will just say "I'm with you."

Afterthought - If any of us are submitting photos of people of languages other than our own, perhaps some sound clips of the relevant language could be included. This might make for a little (lot) more work but could bolster the international tone of our presentation.

Onward

[Guest damor]

Phew! what a week this has been.

Good news and bad news.

Bad news..

Canon wont help.

Good news....

Canon wont Help

Better news is as soon as beechbrook is "up" we should start submitting before the imputus slows, however, I dont think thats likely due to the respons.. Fantastic...Im gonna be even more busy over the weekend, up untill Wednesday. Swansea Exhibition. Get there if you can. Opens on tuesday 7.30pm in the Grand.

I should have a list of suggestions for types of images by friday for critique. Music, I'm stuck on. can someone else handle that?

the size seems to have been sorted out and will probably be the default.

damor

[Ed Overstreet]

Hi again, it’s me your resident gadfly.

I gather from the minimal reply to my earlier post on the subject of aspect ratio for images for this endeavor, that the consensus seems to be that we go with 4:3 (1024x768 completely filling all those pixels with the image). Before throwing in the towel (on this one project) and submitting to that, I thought I’d come at the issue from a philosophical angle which I’d like everyone to think about before finalizing this.

There are different ways of arriving at what one might call “peace.” The grave has been said to be peaceful; I don’t want to live in a graveyard. A police state, at least one with a sufficiently ruthless police force and a sufficiently submissive population, can be said to be peaceful I suppose, but I wouldn’t want to live in one of those, either. A society of conformists where everyone is the same, thinks the same, acts the same (at least within certain boundaries) can also be said to be peaceful, though some of us might also describe it as rather boring. There can also be a peaceful society where everyone is different but everyone also is tolerant and accepts the diversity of others and respects everyone’s rights to be diverse, as long as the diversity doesn’t hurt others. That’s the model that I subscribe to.

Now, where does telling participants in this project that all images should be in the same aspect ratio fit into this philosophical structure? Think about it, please, before you all decide that all the images for this production should be displayed in 4:3 cropping.

I’ve never (as far as I can remember) produced a digital AV show (and very few 35mm AV shows) in which every image had the same aspect ratio, and I probably never will produce such a show on my own in future. Having said that, I will also say that I want to participate in this particular project badly enough that I’ll crop all my images to 4:3 if that’s what I have to do to participate. But I would find it more-than-a-little ironic (and perhaps even a little scary) that a project on world peace would go that route. Yes, I know there are some technical things that we need to standardize, but I really don’t think that image aspect ratio is one of them.

There, I’ve said it; the gadfly will now retire to his nest for a while and shut up.

PS Al, I have some trouble understanding your statement that standardizing on 1024x768 (if by that you also mean standardizing on 4:3 cropping of the image) will maximize participation in this project. I'd have thought it might constrain participation in this project, but maybe I'm overlooking something.

[davegee]

Hi all,

My vote goes to - 1024x768 full screen 4:3 ratio.

There's nothing worse than aspect ratios changing during a show....

....and this is an attempt to be unified is it not?

Just my thoughts,

DaveG

[alrobin]

Ed,

I basically agree with you. I thought (or, should I say "assumed") that you were asking if we should create the AV production itself around a different format than 1024x768 - so, I was suggesting that (if we did), it should perhaps be the one most used in the 500 or so shows I've watched so far.

However, I would be happy not having any restrictions at all on individual image size or aspect ratio - as long as the contributors are equally happy with having the producer(s) crop and/or otherwise edit their work in order to adapt it to the overall production.

[Ed Overstreet]

Hi Al. I was in the midst of drafting a clarification on the matter of image aspect ratio (which can be totally different from the canvas aspect ratio, as you of course know) when I saw your reply. Glad we clarified the misunderstanding; and I agree that in spite of how the photographer chooses to present his/her image on the canvas, the producers may have to make some (hopefully not too extreme) changes to it so it blends more smoothly with another image in the specific show. I have no problem with a 1024x768 canvas as long as I can place an image at some other aspect ratio onto that canvas, and fill the empty canvas space with whatever makes sense to me. Also, I'm a lot less concerned about producers changing what I did to that empty space than I'd be if they changed what I did in the actual image; in fact, I don't care what the empty space is filled with as long as it looks good with my image, though of course were I to submit a non-4:3 image on the canvas I'd fill the blank space with something that I thought worked, as a suggested starting point for the producers.

I don't agree that nothing looks worse than aspect ratios changing on the screen through a show -- I can think of lots of things that look worse, I guess I have different tastes. However I agree that if the aspect ratios change, one often needs to make some accommodations to the canvas content underneath the images, to the edges of some images (sometimes with layer styles, sometimes by rendering them less linear), or in terms of what transition effects one uses in going from one aspect ratio to another, to make things look less jarring than they might look otherwise. This is particularly necessary when going from landscape-format to portrait-format images, and I've always thought it ridiculous to contend that AV should never include portrait-format images, even back in 35mm days we evolved several ways of going smoothly between those orientations. Also, one doesn't have to centre all the images in the middle of the canvas, one on top of the other; one way of dealing with variable aspect ratios is to shrink the images somewhat and place them on the canvas so they don't centre or fully overlap or don't even touch each other. It's all a matter of taste, judgment, and trade-offs. Coming up with pleasing and creative ways to blend varying aspect ratios can make life more challenging for the producers, but that challenge is part of the fun for me as a producer -- otherwise, the process becomes pretty mundane IMO. Again, a personal taste.

As I suggested earlier, peace to me doesn't necessarily mean unified. Unified has a lot of connotations that don't strike me as particularly peaceful, depending on how the unity is achieved and at what price or prices. I think we can be peaceful without being unified and by being diversified; I realize that's a cultural value that perhaps not everyone shares, but it's value that I hold to. Peace at the price of ramrodding everyone into one mold isn't worth having, in my view, and failure to accept and respect diversity is often what causes peace to break down.

Maybe I'm waxing over-philosophical here, but it seems to me that in a show like the one we're contemplating, it makes sense to be philosophical and to mold the technology to the concept and not the other way around. I think more flexibility and less rigidity is what's called for.

Awright, so I didn't shut up ...

[Guest damor]

Ed,

Well, things are starting to flow. If by suggesting that the image size be restricted to the default was final, I set the record straight in that, I was ( foolisly perhaps ) only trying to follow the posts on the forum, being so busy I have only had time to quickly read through the notes. I assumed that due to scant comment on the subject that it would be the chosen path. Philosophical, I am not, an expert at AV I too, am certainly not. Human, unfortunately, I am. And we are all prone to making mistakes.

Not being such a deep philosophical thinker, I'm more a philosophical ludite, I think, I get the gist of Eds comments and agree with them ( I think ) . Quite a bit of what you said went way over my head, but understand that there should be chance for individuals and the more creative AV producer/s. as wll as the less experienced.

I must admit that your forsight tends to inspire me and to that end wait in anticipation to see the finished result It sounds much more adventureous. certainly more democratic, and hopfuly more peaceful!

Well Said Ed. the air needed that.

all in good spirit.

Dave.

[cottage]

With many thanks to my testers, Ralph McDermott and Ken Cox, I am pleased to announce that the 2006 World Peace AV Project upload site is now online. Those that wish to submit items to this project may do so here: 2006 World Peace AV Project. The upload link requires that all submissions include the senders name, email address and a single zipped file which contains all images, music, voice-overs and text files.

Beechbrook.Com will serve only as the repository for project submissions. No modifications will be made to items submitted to Beechbrook.Com. All submissions will be held until forum members develop further project guidelines and plans.

Please use a single file name continually for all your submissions. If modifications of previous submissions are necessary, the upload script will not overwrite your previous submissions. All files received will be uniquely numerically identified so they are not overwritten if an exact file name already exists on the server.

A suggested naming convention might be: "first initial, last name-country.zip" (example: rsmith-usa.zip for Roger Smith USA). However I will retain all submissions as they are received regardless of their file name.

I look forward to working on this wonderful project with each of you !

Kind regards,

Bill Hines

[LumenLux]

OK, do the comments-to-here mean each submission should be a file of 1024 x 768? This image size would be the uniform size for the "canvas". In some of the submissions, the canvas may be only partially occupied, as with a vertical format image.

[cottage]

OK, do the comments-to-here mean each submission should be a file of 1024 x 768? This image size would be the uniform size for the "canvas". In some of the submissions, the canvas may be only partially occupied, as with a vertical format image.

I believe that there are still some differences of opinion with regard to "image size". At this point the items I have received have been of various sizes and of various image quality. But as I said in the outset, I am only 'holding' the project pieces on beechbrook.com as further plans and discussions take place both on and off the forum. However, what I am most impressed with is the fact that folks are taking this project so seriously. That's encouraging!

Bill

[davegee]

Hi Bill,

Going back to Jan 5 in reply to my query about everyone concerned with the project being able to see (if not download) all that has been submitted, you said:

"DaveG,

I will be happy to set things up so that everyone involved with this project has the opportunity to have all resources available to them. I don't see this as a repository for items that are not related to this project, therefore I may impose some restrictions on access to certain areas. Nothing has been finalized and I welcome any suggestions as we move forward.

Bill"

Will you still be able to do this?

Best wishes,

DaveG