AV News 189 - August 2012
Bolton AV Competition
Keith Atkinson
Our first of two rounds of the Audio Visual competition took place on Thursday
10 May 2012, with guest judges Bernard Longley ARPS and Keith Fisher ARPS
DPAGB. Both Bernard and Keith are members of the West Lancashire AV Group
and are successful at international level.
They explained their scoring system by giving the first AV to be shown a 'B'
grade, against which all the other sequences will be assessed. This first one may
not end up being a 'B' as it is just their initial benchmark score. They do not score
with points, but will have a first, second and third place at the end of all the
presentations.
There were 9 sequences in this competition and after each one Bernard and
Keith each gave their constructive comments. As many of our members are on
the lower end of the 'AV Learning Curve' we were appreciative of their insightful
comments and help to further our AV skills.
The first presentation was 'Visions of India' and both Bernard and Keith said
the "fades between the images were all the same length and needed to be
different lengths." The first two images were of a sunrise and the third was a
lovely misty landscape and these in particular would "be better if the fades were
more gradual to create an extra image as the two blended together."
Some of the images were different sizes, portrait and landscape orientation
and Bernard explained that all images within a sequence should be of the same
size and suggested making a background image to put any smaller images on
that. He said that when we watch television the screen stays the same size and
the images fill the screen fully, so an AV should also fill the screen completely.
Both judges liked the choice of music as it was appropriate and the correct pace.
This AV told a story and gave an impression about India, which AV's need to
achieve.
'Wild Britain' was next and both judges said "that as with the previous
sequence they felt the fades needed to vary in length and some images were
differing sizes." They liked the many strong images of close-ups of deer and
birds. There was "good transition through the landscapes" and they felt the
music went well with the images, several of which "were of a really good quality."
Our third showing was 'Romantic Rhine and Moselle' which Bernard said
"told the story of a journey down the Rhine, stopping off at various places." He
said there was no variety with the fades and felt they were "in and out." He liked
the choice of music and enjoyed the change in music when the cross channel
images were shown at the beginning and end of the sequence. Also the images
in this sequence were "brighter than the previous sequences as this had been
produced on PicturesToExe."
This was the second travelogue and the judges liked the use of a slide to tell
the viewers were we were - it was helpful and well done. There were a variety of
transition effects and Bernard advised us to use these effects sparingly and only
to use them if the sequence works better. He also pointed out that the music
should be faded out at the end of the sequence to coincide with the end of the
final image.
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