Assignment 3: Video

Part of the development of my "Transient Light" book was creation of a slide show set to music to be inserted as a DVD into the back of the book.   My first thought was to raid my CD collection for something with the right degree of serenity and long enough to enable the photos to be viewed properly.  However, using copyright music would have limited how I could distribute the video, so I searched for some rights free music, or rather music that I would pay a fee for that would then permit use on the internet and incorporation into a short run DVD release.

I found a suitable track on musicmediatracks.com, Velvet Dreams, just over 7 minutes long.  Cost was 15 Euros and allowed me to use it in a web site and on up to 500 copies of a DVD. I would have preferred, "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd, but as well as being a terrible cliche, would also have been illegal.

Putting the video together was challenging and needed a couple of attempts plus some very useful advice from fellow students, for which I am very grateful, especially Stuart who provided good input on the timing.  What I found was that the opening 1 minute was quite unstructured and needed careful transition planning.  The music then settled down to a regular beat, a 7.5s transition timing seemed to work well.  Finally the music goes into a less rhythmic flow which allowed more creative placement of the final few images.  I used adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and Encore CS4 to build the video and then DVD.  Overkill, these are very sophisticated tools, but it was a good learning experience.



My overall goal was to create a soothing flow of images, taking the viewer from the whiteness of the pre-dawn mist into the rich colour of the sunrise and finally into the clarity of day.  This followed the same sequence as the book and is designed to compliment the paper based images.

The question I now face is whether to actually use this as a part of my submission for the course, it is far more than 8 photographs, but conversely is taking my photography in a new direction.  Need to consult with my tutor.