Slideshow input

[pwc]

Hello,
My wife and I will be embarking on a Nepal Slideshow World Tour!!! By which, we mean, a couple places in Seattle. We have done a slideshow of her trek last October in Nepal along with 5 other people (they were all at the shows). This was just for friends and family, so not much pressure.

Our next step is to use an organized, narrated, soundtracked slideshow in larger venues, like REI and the Moountaineers here in Seattle. This will be more of a hit play and site back affair to make it smoother and paced better to keep interest. We'd like to keep it about 45 minutes with a 15 minute chaser of a Room to Read introduction they already have on DVD. After the slideshow we'd have Q&A with trek members and maybe even a Sherpa or two who guided the trek. We also have some items picked up in Nepal so people can "feel" the country; a rug, yak bell, katas, prayer flags, dolls, yak wool clothes, etc...

Does anyone have any experience putting on a show like this? And would you be willing to share your experience, both do's and don'ts? We've got about 7 weeks before the first show and already have the site reserved that will also feature an art exhibit of the trek. Beyond that we plan to have maybe 2-3 more showings in the Puget Sound area and are considering "taking it on the road" as some of the trek members were from LA and Chicago and would like to see it to.

Thanks in advance and feel free to post here or email me.

pwc

 

[Bella PSD]

I use to produce slide shows back in the days of slide film. I always had the 2-second rule. Never show an image for any longer than 2 seconds. Keep the show going. The human brain does not need much time to soak in an image and gets board FAST if the images are coming to slow. Same as if someone talks so slow you want to shake the words out of them. You can have stopping spots (more than 2 seconds is a STOP) and hold an image up for narration but have a story board (plan) ahead of time. Also, only show your best images, the ones that are “just OK” will drag the better ones down. I stay away from the flips and spins and use fades and dissolves mostly. The other FX look like a bad birthday party show to me. When was the last time you saw a show on TV or the movies that did NOT have just cuts between scenes?

I have no idea on programs to create slide shows. I use i-Movie HD on my Mac.

Louie

 

[kcowyo]

gjackson does a sweet slide show presentation. His was the first slide show I've ever seen outdoors at a base camp of near 10K feet. You might PM or email him.

I think DesertRose does slide shows for her work too...?

 

[gjackson]

Thanks KC!

I use Keynote when I can. Allows movies, sound and pics to be integrated pretty seamlessly. iPhoto also works, but can't be controlled from a projector remote like Keynote can.

If you are using Windows, then powerpoint does work pretty well.

I find stories are best especially if they span a set of pics. Keep things moving and tell the funny stories. You can skip detail, but fun is better. You'll always be surprised. I believe the outdoor slideshow I did (that KC mentioned) was the worst I have ever done. Mainly because I had low blood sugar at the time and was *freezing*!

cheers

 

[Pskhaat]

As to what BellaPSD was saying about getting bored, use the Ken Burns Effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Burns_Effect which adds a touch of movement to still slides and captures the attention buch better especially during naration.