Hot air Ballooning Show

[jfa]

G'day Everyone,

My first attempt at posting a show on Mediafire so I hope it's OK.

This is the link for a show I put together a few months ago with an early beta V5.

http://www.mediafire.com/?7xdaio4jxxt

Comments welcome.

[ronwil]

Downloaded OK and well worth it. I really enjoyed the sequence, which gave an ideal documentary of a hot-air balloon flight from start to finish. The aerial shots - the church depicting the perfect shape of the cross; the patterns on the ground; etc. The landing. with the turf being disturbed by the basket as it came to rest on its side with the happy occupants. Well done, I will watch it again.

Ron [uK]

[jfa]

Downloaded OK and well worth it. I really enjoyed the sequence,

Thanks for the generous comments Ron, and Happy Birthday.

[ronwil]

Thank you John for your greetings.

Ron [uK]

[ADB]

Hi John

Thanks for posting you show and here are my comments:-

PHOTOGRAPHY/GRAPHICS

You have obviously put a lot of thought into your images for the show and pieced together a very good story sequence showing all aspects of ballooning, from the early morning start to touch down and the back on land celebrations. Not only have you told a story with your images but you have included some stunning photography in the process. Your use of perspective and scale in your images is brilliant and enhanced the unique experience of ballooning from our desktops. For me personally the only criticism I could make about about your photography/graphics would be minor and includes having possibly one too many shots of a small sequence you ran of the balloon shadow amongst some trees and the other small niggle I had was the frames you used around your inset images, I thought they competed and complicated the inset images a little and took me back out to looking at your show from a computer desk as opposed to being right there behind the camera but as I say a VERY minor criticism and a personal one.

SOUNDTRACK

I go on and on about soundtracks and your show has handled this area better than most I have seen, you have included actual sounds and at times these have been the only sound track which has certainly added realism - the frogs, the burners, the vehicles, wine bottles popping - brilliant, then when appropriate you brought in the music and then played 3 or four different (but totally appropriate) pieces of music throughout the show.

TIMING

Your soundtrack and sound effects were well synced and added to the realism immensely.

PTE MASTERY

Good use of PTE features, especially in the opening titles. I was really surprised not to see any shots looking straight down and being panned slowly to give the effect of actually being in the balloon and moving above the ground - I can't think of a more suitable show to employ this effect :-)

Another of my pet little things is animations that occur at the start of slides and appear stationery briefly on the screen then begin to move as was the case with your balloon on the title page, that stationery then start effect breaks the "flow" of the presentation. All you need to do is have your balloon starting right off the page then we never see it stationery.

WATCHABILITY - Couldn't finish / Watched Once / Would watch again / Would watch many times

OVERALL COMMENT

I enjoyed your show very much and certainly appreciate the years? of work that has gone into making it. A solid presentation that I personally believe would benefit from a couple of subtle tweaks.

Does this mean if I come to OZ I get a free balloon ride??? :-)

Cheers

Andrew

[Paul T]

G'day Everyone,

My first attempt at posting a show on Mediafire so I hope it's OK.

This is the link for a show I put together a few months ago with an early beta V5.

http://www.mediafire.com/?7xdaio4jxxt

Comments welcome.

Hi John

Just watched your show and was well entertained throughout. Music ideal and the sound effects did help to make it feel as though I was in the midst of the action. The photography was excellent, and creatively used in the construction of the presentation. It did seem a long show but the subject did warrant this and did manage to hold my attention. I did think that the view point from the balloon would have been an ideal opportunity to use the pan facility in pte with the use of a panoramic image (I do believe Adrian made a similar comment) However, this is only a small observation and doesn’t detract from the fact that it is a superb presentation.

Regards Paul

[jfa]

G'day Andrew and Paul,

Thanks for your comments, I appreciate all comments especially when they are as constructive as yours.

I was really surprised not to see any shots looking straight down and being panned slowly to give the effect of actually being in the balloon and moving above the ground - I can't think of a more suitable show to employ this effect :-)

I had started to make the show in v4.48 and finished it in a early beta of v5, (beta5 I think), and had just started to learn the Ken Burns effects in PTE. In fact the title screen was the first attempt at using these in PTE. You are both correct it would enhance the show to use these. Maybe a future AV on ballooning as I have a lot of good images left over not used in this show.

SOUNDTRACK

I go on and on about soundtracks and you show would have to handle this area better than most

Yes Andrew I totally agree with you the audio is very important in AVs, many authors forget that the "A" stands for audio and is 50% of the total presentation. I think I spend more time on that than I do on the images.

By the way what happened to your points?

I think we could manage a ballooning ride for you, (weather willing), if you ever visit OZ neighbour.

Thanks again.

[ADB]

Hi John

Glad you appreciated the comments. By the way I have just re read my post and can not believe some of the crazy grammar and spelling I had in there! Apologies for that, it was getting quite late at night. I have now edited my post.

Regards adding points I decided not to do the points thing based on feedback in the forum. But thing the sectional comments (only) works well.

However if you really wanted to know I would have rated your show as follows:-

PHOTOGRAPHY - 5/5

SOUNDTRACK - 5/5

TIMING - 5/5

PTE MASTERY - 4/5 (That show cried out for a pan )

So 19/20 would be your total score - which would suggest it was "bloody good"

Cheers

Andrew

[JudyKay]

Here is my nickels worth

PHOTOGRAPHY/GRAPHICS (Out of 5)

FIVE I actually gasped a few times. I LOVE every single picture.

SOUNDTRACK (Out of 5)

Five for me. Just really cool. It didn't steal my attention--it just added dimension to each image.

TIMING (Out of 5)

Five. I am not hard to pleaes, but I don't like shows that are too slow. Give me a fast one and let me watch it twice. I like this one.

PTE MASTERY (Out of 5)

Five compared to me (a teensy little 1).

WATCHABILITY - Couldn't finish / Watched Once / Would watch again / Would watch many times

I watched it. Then got my family to watch. Then I put it in the file where I keep all the BEST shows. YEAH! that would be a FIVE.

OVERALL SCORE AND COMMENT (Out of 20)

20.

Thank you for sharing. I want SOOO bad to go ballooning. I like how you told the whole story. Funny, scary, delightful, beautiful. I almost can feel that basket dipping and swaying under my feet.

[lyndongrove]

John

Absolutely fantastic show, 11 out of 10! I suffer from vertigo so baloons are not for me but my wife has been up in baloons in England, South Africa (sun City) and Florida - she loves it! When possible i follow with my camera but I'm not up to your standard, I'm afraid.

I especially liked the frame you used in your insets. I presume you did that in Photoshop. I would be most interested to know how you made it or better still if you could post a template on this site or send by email.

Look forward to your nest production.

Regards

Gordon Cochrane

South Wales, U K

[jfa]

Thanks for your comments Gordon. Sorry about your vertigo, still photographing the balloons can be almost as much fun as riding in them.

I especially liked the frame you used in your insets. I presume you did that in Photoshop. I would be most interested to know how you made it

Yes the frames were created in Photoshop, with the stroke and layer style functions.

Have a look at the tutorial "Create Slideshow" by Oleg Lobacheb and Coral Thomas at Beechbrook Cottage.

Download from here:- http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/index.asp?ca...4&view=View

It is an excellent demonstration of the technique, (better than I could do), and several others techniques that I'm sure you will find interesting.