"Multi Meeja"

(Updated: corrected some layout errors; and a clarification - this isn't "new" to the world of photography. A/V is what it's been known as in the past (multi-media is just a catchy phrase used by suits and others who want to to appear trendy and cutting edge) but it is new to me. It's also, despite it's trendy title, still rare in local media...)


Apologies for the blog posts being very thin on the ground over the last few weeks. I know that all seven of you ;-) miss these words of wisdom (!!) but I tend to write if I have something to write about, rather than thinking “I must post” and looking for a subject. Perhaps that needs to change.

However, here’s a little something that’s been bubbling under for a while...

Those of us in the photographic section of the media know that there’s been much talk about the growth of video and other media in our job specifications. A growing on-line presence - necessary because of the decline in newsprint itself - means that the Powers That Be have latched onto the moving image because of the web’s ability to play such things.

There is evidence about which shows that things aren’t as simple as “shoot a video, people will watch it”, and I speak from personal experience when I say that I’m not a big web news-video watcher. It needs to be REALLY, REALLY eyecatching or a big story to make me hit “play”. It seems that still images can be assimilated quickly whereas, even with short video clips, the viewer is at the mercy of the shooter/editor for the length of time they must watch to get the gist of the information.

And of course, there are the local issues, such as how are the huge files generated by video actually sent around (if you don’t have one of the TV companies’ satellite vans), who is putting these together, who is posting them and who, given the local snapper is frequently covering many jobs a day, is actually shooting the footage? I personally believe that if I’m shooting video, I’m missing out on stills and vice-versa when my days are so busy. You end up covering neither base in a satisfactory manner.

I’m also not sure every stills photographer is a cinematographer, and every movie cameraman a stills snapper either - there are some similarities but many, many differences. I remain unconvinced that grabbing quick clips on an HDSLR will make the grade, quality wise, sufficiently to satisfy the viewer or the shooter too. Much more time needs to be devoted to lighting, for one thing.

But a SLIDESHOW, a multi-media blending of stills and sound (and maybe those short video clips)? Now, that might be worth trying...

More, including a very-much-Mark-One effort, after the break...

I had 35 images I selected as keepers from a recent Primary Schools Cross-country championship, an event which takes place every year. This is way more than can be used in a newspaper and so I’d had a ponder about what to do to show off these images better.  I’m not a fan of the “click on a gallery, click between images” on many websites. They seem static and not very interesting. As an Aperture user, I’ve had a quick look in the past at the slideshow facility in the programme and thought that would be a good place to start.

Dumping all 35 images into Aperture, I let it play initially to check speeds and blending. For the slides themselves, I went with “Ken Burns” effect (zooming and moving the slides) and a straight dissolve transition between images. The timing is worth some thought, to allow Ken Burns to show, and I settled on 2.5 seconds for each image, with a dissolve of 0.75 seconds between them. I found a few where the Ken Burns effect did not work straight out of the box, and which needed some help - Aperture lets you choose a start and end framing.

I’ve watched this several times now, and think that, although I need to shoot uprights for the paper, a slideshow, like video, is primarily a landscape-format production. Some of the uprights do work but, as I also think it could be shorter, next time I would not incorporate so many. It may be that I’ll have to import them and physically see which ones work and which don’t.

Next is titles. I went with black screen, and after some experimentation settled on a 3.00 second play time (to allow it to be read), with a 1.00 dissolve. I watched this play a couple of times and added a black “blank” slide between the text slides in the titles and credits, playing for 1.00 second with a 0.75 second dissolve. The reason for this is that the text dissolves to black, rather than into the text of the next slide, and I feel it looks cleaner. 

Right, that was the images sorted, and playing reasonably slickly.

Sound.

Hmmm....

I felt that the slideshow needed to run with something going on for the ears of the watcher. In the end, again delving into a programme I’ve looked at briefly in the past, I put together two excerpts of music from the loops and riffs in GarageBand. I’m no musician, and it took me a good deal of time to sort out something that in the end sounds... OK. 

By fading both clips out - there’s one for the running and another for the prizegiving pics - I was spared the embarrassment of coming up with a clear “stop” point. I also played about with the individual volumes of the tracks I added. For what it’s worth, drum tracks seem to work well, and carefully selecting guitar pieces (bass and acoustic) over two drums sorted the “running” clip. The “prizewinners” segment proved more problematic until I found some cheering and crowd sounds in the effects loops, which drowned out some dodgy track endings. Again, I got this to sound... OK.

Dropping these into Aperture is straightforward, if you’ve saved your music into iTunes, and Aperture then lets you adjust the overall volume. I turned both tracks down so they were less obtrusive.

The show was then exported (a dedicated “export” button in Aperture for slideshows) as “MobileMe, YouTube” usage, H264 Codec, 30fps, 640 wide, 400 height, “best” quality, which gave a 17.7mb file.

And it was uploaded to the ‘paper’s Facebook page where it plays quite nicely, thank you.

There are some things I’d like to do differently, next time. Broadly, the images are all similar brightness (phew!) which worked out well but will need watching in future, and the show could be shorter. That could be accomplished by including fewer upright images. I would make the audio a little quieter in future, too.

In fact, audio remains a vexing question. There ought to be some sound there, but it took me so long to make up the music that I have to find an alternative. A colleague who recently did a time-lapse commented on the same problem and speculated about trawling for Royalty-Free tracks. However, as he noted, there’s an awful lot of jetsam to search through...

I now think that an audio track, of sound taken at the event, would be best (eventually, I’ll run out of appropriate loops in GarageBand anyway). It doesn’t have to be Surround-sound multitrack quality, but a selection of audio clips which could be laid over appropriate points in the show would do the trick. I’ve had a look at what’s out there, and having heard of iPods and iPhones being used as the recording device, will be looking to pick up a reasonable external mic - I’ve found some via Amazon - to plug in. The advantage of an iPod is that, again, it’s already Mac-friendly so a used Nano Mk4 with an iMic seems like a cost-effective avenue to explore. If I run the slideshow at about 60 to 90 seconds, I might perhaps have to get 10 minutes of clips - preferably with some longish ones as well as shorter “frame-relevant” clips, to work on in GarageBand. If theres somebody at the event I know, I might even have a VASR on hand (Voice-Activated Sound Recordist..!!).

There was a good chance to try out the new plan, at a Procession of Witness event on Good Friday where I know I’ve a good selection of stills but sadly I haven’t got around to getting the gear yet! So if I make up another slideshow we are back to the riffs and loops again.

Time to reach for the wallet...