AV News 182 - November 2010
SLIC September AV Meeting
Sheila Goodyear
SLIC (South Lancs Imaging Club) only meets once a month so we have to fit
a lot into our meetings - competitions, visitng speakers, special events etc.
The September meeting has, for many years, been about AV in one way or
another. This year was no exception and we welcomed, as our guest
speaker, John Smith APAGB CPAGB (known for his links with the L&CPU
committee, Rochdale and District CC and Wilmslow Guild AV Group, to name
but a few). At SLIC we try to make our meetings informal and as friendly as
possible; John fits in perfectly!
It wasn't John's first visit to SLIC and, as usual, we asked him to come along
and look at our own sequences, both finished and in progress and then offer
any appropriate comments and advice. To finish the session we also asked
him to give us a short talk on how we should be approaching our own projects.
SLIC is a very small club but we had contributions from 6 of our members
(that's not far short of 50%!)
Keith Hughes - 'Haslingden Halo' ( 6 minutes)
The subject of this short sequence was a piece of public art, a sculpture,
known as the 'Halo' which is situated overlooking Haslingden and not far from
Bury in Lancashire. The opening frames set the scene by giving us the story
of the 'Halo', where it is located and what it is. The photographs are taken
against a glorious, glowing sunset, setting off the sculpture to perfection. The
frames gently merge in and out of each other against a background
soundtrack of music by Mozart.
Keith Hughes - 'Steam Spectacular' (7 mins. 30 secs)
The title of the sequence tells it all. Set on the East Lancashire Railway, it
is a sequence of steam locomotive and railway location shots taken along the
preserved line out of Bury. There are both close-up and long-shots included.
The backgound soundtrack is a piece of music of which the first few seconds
sound uncannily, but appropriately, like a steam engine just setting off.
Against this the front of a locomotive dramatically emerges from the clouds
of steam dominating the screen. A variety of devices have been incorporated
into the sequence, where appropriate, to keep the audience's attention,
including some use of zooming in and out, mono to colour transitions,
panning across a wide angle view and some splt screen effects to include
some portrait format shots.
Sylvia Hughes - 'Butterflies' (3 minutes)
Set to the music of Mozart the sequence concentrates on close-up images
of butterflies and the flower-heads they land on. A reminder of summer it uses
some zoom and minimal rotation to add interest and variety to the frames.
Sylvia Hughes - 'Autumn Time' (6 minutes)
This is a sequence of beautiful English landscapes in Lakeland and around
the area of Coalbrookdale and Ironbridge. They merge smoothly from one
into another and are set to the evocative music of Enya. Tranquility is the
keynote, with saturated autumn colours, sunlit days, villages, sights and still
lakeland waters reflecting the landscape around.
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