Alan Lyons

Hi all Just a quick call to wish everybody all the best for 2010. Hope you all have a wonderful year and that we see loads of sequences in the new year, and that we get the chance to meet at one or two of the many festivals and competitions around the world. My next stop is the NIPA festival in Northern Ireland in Feburary see www.niphoto.co.uk for details. Alan

Exellent show well put together. Nice relaxed commentry. A long sequence but it held me quite well. There are som images wich do not reach the standard of the vast majority of those in the show. I would suggest a re shooting of these to raise the standard of the piece. Well done to all involved

Hi Tom, when I make a sequence I always start by setting up the following folder set for the show within a folder called "Audio Visuals" on my desktop. "Audio Visuals" "Show Name" "Images" Contains all images for the sequence. "Sound" Contains all sound files such as; Ripped music, voice recordings, FX, and Session files from your audio editor. "Projects" Contains your .pte file, .exe file and any other files wich do not fall naturally into the other folders. This setup allows you to move all relevent files between computers and to archive all sequences to an external drive. It also allows for quick and reliable working on a project as you can route all saving and opening options to the relevent folder(s).

no problem there, just load your key on to the computer ( you have kept a copy haven't you ) and load the set up for P2e then show it the key and you will be up and running,

Happy Christmas and a creative new year to you all. Hope the recession does not bite too hard!

Hi Tony, I just read through your thread today and would like to add my bit. As most people come to Audio Visual through photography the come to sound as the second part of the mix. We are happy for a while to add pre recorded music for a while and then, reach the point you have just arrived at. I'm amazed by those who proudly claim to have spent a lifetime learning photography, but if you cannot teach them everything about sound in an afternoon they want their money back. Sound is just as creative a part of this dicipline as photography and once you are over the worry of cost, you will unleash a creative side you will enjoy as much as your photography. The good news is that sound technology is going backwards rather than fowards. The big thing now in studio recording is valves!!!! What this means to you is that you don't have to "chase technology" as you do with PCs and Cameras.If you invest now in good equipment it should last a lifetime. Studio mics are routeenly expected to last 30+ years. One option you could look at for recording voice at home is an external sound card wich allows you to move away from the PC as this is conected by USB to the pc and bypasses the onboard card. The background noise most recordingd pickup is due to the fact that the mic gain is too high for the voice which is near the mic so the sounds are picked up. Think of it as Depth of Field for sound. Don't be shy to use the EQ facility in Aduacity to chase down rogue hums etc. "Fixing it in Photoshop" is seen as the lazy way out for photographers. Whereas, "Fixing it in the mix" is seen as the creative genius of the sound engineer. Have a look at http://www.soundonsound.com/ it is a treasure trove of all things sound. One final quote to set you on your way "Ya buy cheep ya buy twice!" Alan

David, I asume when you say a bigger screen you are refering to a screen "display" size for your laptop/PC and not a bigger projection screen. If this is the case then your 1024x768 should stretch to fit the screen. You will see some stretching paticuarlly in text and such. I would solve your problem by sizing to 2048x1356 as this is twice what you need for current projectors and will match perfectly the higher res projectors now comming on screen. On your PC your images will fit on screen and will be compressed by about 20%. I can assure you that 1024x768 images will project perfectly on large screens. If you want to see this in action you could visit Jeff and co at Snods End, or the RPS International in Cirencester this September. I've already booked my seat and bought the popcorn! Alan

Sorry, I'm not a techie but the idea is that if you send an image which for argument sake is 1234 X 567 pixels then in order for the projector to show the image at 1024 x 768 some trade off is done somewhere? Square pegs in round holes if you see what I mean. Where as the 1024 x 682 of a 3:2 in lay mans terms "leaves some of the lights off" I would opt for "best fit " every time, Alan

Hi All, The thing with resizing for projection is that if you don't match the projector res 1:1 or 2:1 etc then you will loose pixels which will be randomly rejected by the projector. What I do is to set my with to 1024 and allow the hight to be calculated by "Preserve Aspect Ratio". This means that your image will fit the with of the screen and black will be projected where there are no pixels. If you do this with 3:2 images you get a more "cinematic" or "35mm Slide" aspect which I feel looks better on a large screen than the nearly square 4:3 Aspect. As a final fix for projection I reduce the Quality slider in photoshop to 8 for each image ( this can be done in actions) this gives you an image which is between 300 and 150 kb. Ideal for projection on cinema size screens but useless for printing. Alan

Fine piece of work Igor, Now go and enjoy your holiday with Maureen and Robert, Alan

Hi Dave, on the tech side a lot of people use outdoor recoeders with the levels up full. This results in a lot of noise you dont want. You will need to experiment witl levels to find a setting which will suit. You can get good bird song from far off with low input levels. Alao if you can get reasonably close to your subject and use low levels this will help. The same rules apply here as in normal studio recording in that clipped sounds cannot be rescued so give the recording some headroom and if nessary use EQ in the computer to take out hums and wind noise where possible. SoundFX can usually be mixed fairly low in the final mix as they are usually ment to be background sounds, (Water, Birdsong, Wind etc.) You can also help the mix by using compression on the final to help the FX stand out abit. Alan

John Putnam on Making Films, Cinema Relases, Movies, Motion Pictures, The Flicks. Yes they have loads of names too. "If you make money, it's an industry. If you don't, it's an art form, I am working in an art form"