AV News 175 - February 2009
RPS Northern Area AV Day
Howard Wilson APAGB
Ian Jolly, our Chairman, welcomed 46
attendees old and new, on Saturday 18th
October, to Snods Edge for the Autumn
meeting of the RPS Northern Area AV
Group.
The first half of the morning was taken
up with members sequences and we
were off to a good start with Geoff
Burdiss’s take on food “Cholestrol”.
Others were “Swaledale” by Val Burdiss,
“Britton” on the life of Benjamin Britton by ,Malcolm Burns, “The Kingston
Flier” by Mike Lawrence and “Lanercost Priory” by Jeff Evans. All excellent in
their own way. “Light, Sight and Colour” by Jim McCormick was a real physics
lesson on the Electromagnetic Spectrum – if only physics lessons at school
could be made like this! Jim explained that this was a slide sequence revised
and re-worked and far better in digital; Superb. “Beauty and The Beast” by
Geoff Coe was a re-worked sequence on Wind Turbines. A very thought
provoking sequence with good text and commentary. It was suggested that a
copy be sent to the PM. Each sequence was assessed by a critic and helpful
comments were made. A new feature enabled authors to give an explanation
AFTER the showing, rather than before and this was well received.
Peter Appleton gave us a tutorial for the second
half of the morning. He actually faced the
audience, with the screen behind him, while
giving us a lesson on how to plan a sequence,
with good detail on the “5 phases” as he called
them:- Aquisition (images, music, voice over);
Selection of these; Manipulation of all three;
Assembly of the "finished" article and Polishing
to smooth out all the little irregularities which are
bound to be there in the initially assembly.
Next a demonstration of "Audacity" and
various ideas on how to lengthen, shorten, edit,
split, cut and bring together all the sound
elements of a sequence. Peter finished the sound section by showing how
easy it is to alter the music track volume, so that the voice can be clearly
heard. (TV producers please take note)
Then followed a bonus; a taster of some of the new transitions in PTE 5.6
Beta 2, which had just been issued the previous day! Finally, two AV's. A
poem - "My Laptop, My Camera and Me" and a not so serious, short AV,
using the zoom, rotation and animation effects of PTE. Very effective.
An excellent and very educational 1 1/4hrs by a man who knows how to
do it, how to present it and how to give the audience exactly what they want.
Page 46