AV News 200 - May 2015
H elig an B loss om s
Jim McCormick DPAGB
I became interested in AV as a result of attending an RPS AV Day at Wetherby around 1988 , one of the guest speakers was Peter Coles and I have to admit , he lost me . I then became a regular attendee at the twice yearly ' Northern AV Group ' meetings at Snods Edge , which I helped to organise for a few years . But living in the North East of England we really were on the periphery of AV activity and as a result of viewing the work of other regional workers , I didn ' t think my work was good enough for competition .
At the ' National AV championships ' in 2001 , Colin Balls introduced us to the latest advance in AV presentation , the ' Digitally Projected Image ', I was hooked . Early the following year I sold my Olympus camera collection , which I fondly referred to as my Japanese Leica , and went digital . My first serious digital camera was a 5 megapixel Nikon bridge camera , the results amazed me .
In 2011 I took the plunge and entered the National AV Championships , I didn ' t get a mention . In 2013 I decided to enter the Great Northern , once again I didn ' t get a mention , at least I was consistent . 2014 , The Great Northern has a new venue , a new committee and a new competition ; I ' ll give it a go . What sequence shall I submit ? Remember there ' s a time limit .
Looking through my files I came across the photographs I ' d taken with my 5 megapixel camera in 2003 when we visited the Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan . The Eden Project was the first digital AV I produced , it was assembled very quickly using PTE v2.8 and was a pictures / music type presentation , with quirky transitions and on-screen text . In addition I also found a template of the ' Lost Gardens of Heligan ' that I ' d played around with but always thought it deserved more time spending on it . So was the new Great Northern the time ? I set about reprocessing all the photographs , putting them into some sort of order , I rewrote and rerecorded the script , and it produced a sequence in excess of 7 minutes long . The next step was to sharpen my digital pruners , I snipped out the less than pristine photographs , chopped out parts of the script where I heard myself say " why did I say that ?" and generally tightened everything up . The multi-track feature in the current versions of PTE is a great facility , allowing each voice clip to be inserted individually and moved along the timeline for precise placement ; eventually I produced a sequence lasting 5 minutes & 41 seconds . It was awarded 2nd place in the ' Great Northern New Horizons ' competition , a mention at last .
But to have ones photograph grace the cover of the ' AV News ' was probably the greatest accolade . The picture was taken on that day in Heligan with my 5 megapixel camera , we had been walking through the jungle area and decided to have a seat on one of the benches , we took out a packet of biscuits and 30 seconds later the robin appeared . He sat on a rope fence opposite us waiting to be fed , I got my photograph , and he got his biscuit . In the original photograph he ' s sitting on a rope fence , in the sequence photograph he ' s sitting on a nicely textured log , I wonder how that happened !
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