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10 Tips for Creating a Great
Slide Show or Video Montage
Creating a captivating video montage or slide show that you can enjoy for years to come is not difficult, but by taking a few steps prior to creating a slide show or having one created for you can go along way. Here are some hints that we use at
Pure Energy.com while creating our slide shows:
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1. Know Your Audience
Knowing who your intended audience is an obvious, but sometimes
overlooked step in the process of developing your slide show.
For instance, if you’re showing your slide show at your wedding
reception, perhaps you’ll want to include some pictures of the
guests, and not just pictures of you and your fiancé. |
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2. Shorter is Sometimes Better
After you’ve determined who your intended audience is you can
start to get an idea as to how many pictures you’ll want to
include in your slide show. We’ve found that video montages that
are between 8 – 12 minutes in length are ideal for wedding
receptions. This usually works out to about 3 songs and 75-100
pictures. While you can certainly display more photos during
your slide show, you want to be careful not to subject your
guests to an extremely long slide show. Some people have elected
to develop two slide shows. One that is their “personal” slide
show that will be given to their parents or kept for themselves
and the other is their “reception” slide show that will be shown
during the big event.
Pure Energy
can help you determine the correct length, and pacing of the
slide show to keep your audiences attention. |
3. Choose Quality Photographs
While recent advances in digital photo restoration have allowed
torn and poorly developed photographs to be brought back to
life, there is only so much that the software can do. Pictures
that look great printed (correct lighting, framing, developed
properly) will also look great while scanned. Pictures that are
extremely dark or grainy, while perhaps improved somewhat, will
still not appear the best.
Pure Energy
automatically reviews each photograph that is scanned and
optimizes it to be viewed on a television or projector.
4. Choose a Variety of Photographs
Even though you may love all the pictures of your dog Rusty,
you’re audience may not want to sit through all the pictures of
him. Instead of showing 10 pictures of ole’ Rusty, perhaps
choose the best 2 or 3. Using a variety of photographs can keep
your audience interest.
5. Landscape pictures show better
than Portrait pictures
Given the standard 4:3 dimensions of television
monitors, photographs that are in landscape mode (vertical) as
opposed to portrait mode (horizontal) show better on a TV. While
portrait photographs certainly can and SHOULD be used, you
should be aware that there will typically be a black border that
appears around the photograph. It’s best to use these sparingly
throughout the slide show and not clump them all together.
6. Give some thought to music
Choose music that has meaning to you, music whose lyrics go well
with the pictures. Also pay attention to how long the music
you’re choosing is. If you’re only showing 30 pictures, you
might not want to choose a 8 minute song. Pure Energy can
help you with your music selection to make sure your music
length matches the number of pictures you have to create a
smooth flowing slide show.
7. Add short video clips
Do you have any home videos sitting around gathering dust? Think
about adding perhaps a 10-15 second video clip in the middle of
the slide show. The video clip can help break up the video
montage and is a great way to keep your audiences interest.
Pure Energy is able to incorporate video clips into our
slide shows.
8. Add motion to your slide shows
Slide shows developed on PowerPoint and other consumer level software will
typically be just static photos that go from one picture to the next. Consider
having your slide shows created with the “Ken Burns” effects that Pan and Zoom
on each photograph. This can help bring your pictures to life.
Pure Energy
automatically will add the panning and zooming to your photos free of charge.
9. Add transitions to your slide
shows
Transitions such as fade in/fade out, dissolve, and image peel
are also an effective way to move from one photograph to the
next. Pure Energy automatically will add transitions to your
slide show or video montage free of charge.
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10. Test! Test! Test!
If you’re planning on showing your video montage or slide show
at an event like a wedding reception, try and test ALL the
equipment prior to the big day. Make sure the projector or
television, DVD Player or Laptop, and sound is all working.
Pure Energy
has years of Audio/Visual equipment setup and testing
experience. We’d be glad to consult with you free of charge
regarding the best possible setup for your slide show. |
| Creating a
captivating slide show or video montage can be done successfully
with keeping a few of these tips in mind. Pictures that are
preserved to DVD can be enjoyed for years to come. Partnering
with an experienced slide show company like
Pure Energy.com can help create a slide show you’ll be
proud of. |
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