AV News Magazine | Page 39

AV News 180 - May 2010 In my mind what stood out was the whizz-bang showing of "Flowers" by Mike Brown, demonstrating the creative use of advanced motion graphics, not to everyone's taste, but I have a preference for this style of presentation rather than the more traditional whimsical style of an "English Country Garden" as was his choice of music, but it set the day. Eddie Spence's masterly control of events ensured the morning session reached it's conclusion bang on time allowing us to be fed and watered ready for the afternoon performance. And what a performance, not at all what I was expecting. A brief introduction by Bryan to the duo of "not only, but also" Linda and Edgar Gibbs, from Cardiff, with their delightful presentational style, wickedly bouncing off each other, in their melodic Welsh accents. Linda and Edgar were to concentrate on their approach to creating soundtracks, for which they are well qualified, having won the award for best soundtrack, both at the Adelaide International AV Festival, in 2007 and the RPS International AV Festival at Cirencester in 2008, with their sequence Talbot House. Rita - Linda and Edgar had been invited along to tell us about their approach to using sound effects in AV's along with the music. Having recently transferred from Proshow Producer to using PicturesToExe, this was just what I needed. They showed us Adobe Audition, as this is their chosen programme, but Audacity or Cool Edit can also be used. It was all clearly explained on the big screen and even members who are already using sound programmes picked up some tips. They showed us some of their sequences and at the end explained how they include special sound effects, cut and edit the music and change the volumes to produce a soundtrack. John - A list of pointers sets the scene and with examples, we are lured down the track, or should I say, advised on the dynamics of creating an effective sound track, accompanied by the mischievous vocal interplay of our demonstrators, with Linda keeping her finger on the pulse. Edgar, introduces us to the use of portable digital recorders (using an M Audio MicoTrack 11) a