American Civil War Re-vamped

[Tomuk]

Hi! All,

Well as promised, I listened to Forum members suggestions and Ideas, incorporated what I thought would be an improvement on the original and this is the result.

My thanks go to all who gave critique, in some cases spoke to me live on Messenger with ideas and learning points.

Hope you enjoy, and please, if you have any further learning points don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Here is your link.

http://www.mediafire.com/?qnxnwniiaki

Tom.

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi! All,

Well as promised, I listened to Forum members suggestions and Ideas, incorporated what I thought would be an improvement on the original and this is the result.

My thanks go to all who gave critique, in some cases spoke to me live on Messenger with ideas and learning points.

Hope you enjoy, and please, if you have any further learning points don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Here is your link.

http://www.mediafire.com/?qnxnwniiaki

Tom.

Hi Tom

Enjoyed this version better, however the voices chattering detracted from the overall effect for me. Excellent effort though.

Regards Eric.

[fh1805]

Tom,

You've picked a bad time to re-post this sequence for feedback - everyone will be playing with v5.6 beta!

You've obviously taken onboard many of the suggestions offered to you. There's just two or three points where, in my opinion, your soundtrack needs a minor "tweak".

Right at the end of the opening voice-over, you bring the music level up just a bit quick and partly mask the last word of the voice-over. All that needs is you to drag the fade up about 0.5secs to the right.

The other two points are the rather intrusive pauses in the delivery of the voice over just before the two dates (one in the opening voice-over and an even bigger one in the closing voice-over). Again, these are easily remedied by simply cutting some of each pause out until the voice-over flows more naturally. Try cutting out half the gap for a first attempt. If this is too much then Undo and try a smaller bite. If half wasn't enough, take half of what's left out, and so on until you are satisfied.

Just one point about the images. I found the dissolve from the last camp fire image somewhat disturbing as the red-hot fire dissolved into the eye of the soldier. This might flow better if you dissolved first to a monochrome of the camp scene (i.e. to a "grey" fire) and then dissolved that to the soldier.

But, as I've said before, "it's your sequence". You must decide whether these comments have any merit or not.

regards,

Peter

[Barry Beckham]

Tom

In my view the slide show is now far more appealing, but those voices are just not working for me at all. Its easy to impose your own views over another persons slide show and suggest all sorts of things you might have done different.

There are three things that I would highlight. The chattering voices, the red flame fires and the brass band music.

The red flames are not convincing and for me I think your intentions are having the opposite effect. The flames draw my attention for the wrong reasons.

The other music was perfect, but not played with a brass band. What you start off with fits a treat and that also sets a scene that is compromised by the brass. Not easy to find suitable music I guess.

This is a far more difficult project than it may first appear.

[tom millar]

Hi Tom,

Watched over the week-end and enjoyed the improvements. I can't really critise as I have'nt done a show yet except using another progam.

I enjoyed the sequences of images even when you faded from sepia to colour it seemed to work, what I didn't like was the Chatter also when you had campfire in colour just did'nt look natural also did'nt like the Blue eyes on one image that followed a fire sequence. Only other thing was Lee was not in charge of the Confederate forces when Fort Somter was fired at, he took charge about as Commander about 1862 not sure of the exact date but can get it for you if you need it or let you know officer in charge at the time.

However I thoroughly enjoyed it drop me a pm when you get time?

Tom

[Tomuk]

Barry,

I agree, Camp chatter has now Gone.

Peter,

Once again I agree with your points and I have made changes as I saw fit.

Eric,

My research, at my public library tells me Lee was overall commander with Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard being the field commander, on the Union side Major Robert Anderson commanded at fort Sumter, Bombardment continued by confederate artillery for 27hrs until ,heavily out numbered and out gunned, Anderson was forced to surrender.

No one was killed during this engagement on either side.

After the war Anderson was considered a national hero and promoted to Brigadier Gen, he later became the forces recruitment officer.

As a historian,I would be grateful if you would confirm these facts as you could save me some embarrassment in the future.

Thanks to all of the above for some very useful critique.

Tom.

[Tomuk]

Tom,

I do all my editing on high resolution images, it's only when I'm happy with the results will I resize and save as a Jpeg or png. file.

Hope this helps.

Tom.