AV News 180 - May 2010
AV is for Life
P e te r C o le s FRPS
We often fondly imagine that our National and International Festivals are major
events. Other countries often do better than we do, with publicity and
encouragement for the general public to take part. Both the Leeds 'Colour and
Music Spectacular' and, much more recently the 'Fiesta' event in Wilmslow
have indicated how much our art is appreciated when folk know about it. I would
like us to make far greater efforts in this direction rather than continuing to play
Sequences to 'mostly ourselves!'
Last year, out of the blue, I received
an invitation to send a Sequence to
a place in Italy. I think this must
have been through my work having
been seen in Chelles, on the
outskirts of Paris.
Then, I received a programme
for the event and a DVD which
contained a few images.
Look at the size of the audience!!
Observe the sort of presentation
that is achieved when they put their
mind towards entertaining the
general public.
They produce an impressively
large full colour programme, rather
than the A5 sheet for our Nationals
The other way that we can show
our work to the general public is
via the internet and web sites. I do
try to keep my website at
up to date and I am assured that several folk visit it regularly.
I also have pages on youtube and so far over 42,000 viewings have taken
place. Not that many have ever turned up to an AV Day, not even in the 'good old
days'!
Currently I see about four or five Powerpoint presentations each week; most
of them are powerless and pointless. Presenters insult their audiences by
reading the words they put on the screen. Most of us can actually read! How
much better these would be if these presentations included a few short AVs to
get their points across. My AV is meant for life, not just as a hobby for a few of
us to entertain each other for one or two hours now and then.
Page 18