WYNTON MARSALIS AT ORCHESTRA HALL
DETROIT,MICH (07JUN22)
Wynton Marsalis performed
with the
Lincoln Center Jazz
Orchestra
and traditional
African percussionists
Yacub Addy and
Odadaa...
The original is 10 megapixel (2592x3872 pixels).
Think about the story's title and credits section. It's often
easier and better to make some custom annotated pictures and use
them in the story than it is to use the titling feature of Photo Story.
With a large picture, it's easy to crop segments to use for title
and credit clips... the above is a crop from the upper left
corner (1236x995 pixels)... enough pixels to pan and zoom
within the story.
For a DVD, the text size can be moderate for easy reading.
On YouTube, with the smaller size and higher compression, it's best to
have larger sized text. It looks small in the above picture,
but notice when watching it that I've zoomed into it considerably.
I added the text in IrfanView, using...
Verdana bold italic 22 point...
white
I made two pictures for the opening title and
one for the closing credits. If you want to skip the adding of text on
pictures before starting, use the text feature of Photo Story, but if
you then wish you had more and easier control of the positioning, try it this
way the next time.
I made two more crops... a head shot of Wynton
of 1070x1590 pixels...
... and one of his hands on the piano of
1193x1969 pixels.
In total I had 6 pictures from the
original.
- two with text for the opening title
scene
- another copy of the same crop, but
without text
- the head crop
- the keyboard crop
- another with text for the closing
credits
Gathering audio/background
music...
When you sign up for Wynton's podcasts on iTunes,
they are free downloads. I used the first one on the list that came up, a few
minutes from his earlier 'Around the
World' performance.
As it played in iTunes, I captured it to Movie
Maker 2.1 as a WMA narration file, using the stereo mix option as the
audio device.
making the story...
Photo Story 3 is a 'linear' app... in that you go through
it by clicking 'Next' or 'Back' buttons... through the 8 or 9 screens
it takes from the start of a new story until you're finished.
The flow of windows or screens is shown at the right. The
main steps go from #1 to #9, all hugging the left side of
the image.
When you're on some of the screens, there are optional
settings to use, or other windows to open... they are shown
to the right of the main steps.
Perhaps most confusing in Photo Story is the lack of a menu
option or button that says 'Save the Story'... that's the main purpose of the
app, yet there's no menu choice to do it. You'll learn by using
it that the story gets saved when you set the file name and
location, select the quality profile, and press the 'Next' button on
screen #6.
You can step all the way through Photo Story from screen #1 to
#8 or 9, and then go as far back to #1 as you want... back and forth until you
decide to exit.
A great feature is PS3 not letting you close the app
unless you give it the OK to not save your project or changes to it. There's no
excuse for not having saved the latest project version.
I'll refer to the screen numbers in the image at the right as I
go through the steps of making the sample story.
Screen #1 is easy... I'll opt to 'begin a new story'. It'll
take up to 300 pictures, but I'll only use a few.
In screen #2, I added the pictures. Rather than using the
built-in file browser (#2A), my style is to drag them from my file manager
(Total Commander) onto the #2 window.
They end up on the story film-strip (that's what the
PS3 help file calls what Movie Maker refers to as the storyboard) in the
sequence opened or dropped.
The pictures I used were:
-
an unannotated copy of the picture used for the text
background
-
3 copies of the first title image... multiple copies
so changes in the panning and zooming can be done seamlessly in
'mid-stream'
-
another copy of the unannotated image used for
the text.
-
3 copies of the second title image.
-
another copy of the unannotated image used for
the text.
-
3 copies of the cropped head shot
-
3 copies of the cropped hands/keyboard shot
-
another copy of the unannotated image used for
the text
-
2 copies of the credits image... not much on this
one so I didn't need to do much panning/zooming
-
the final copy of the unannotated image used for the
text.
I had used 19 copies of the cropped pictures, 13 of
them associated with the opening titles and closing credits.
At #2B, I always opt not to remove the black borders... the
motion settings can work around them.
Using the dropdown effects list of #3A, I added the sepia effect
to the first two and last two pictures. They are dark and used as
background for the text. I figured no-one would notice the change to sepia
tone unless I told them. That's what I want, things viewers take for
granted, but in subtle ways effect the viewing experience.
I didn't add any narration in Window #4... but in #4B I spent a
lot of time with transitions and motion settings. The default cross-fade is
my favorite transition, when I use one... many of them I remove so the motion is
smooth from one image to the next. For such smooth transitions, you not only
need to remove the transition, but start the second image where the first
leaves off. That feature alone makes Photo Story 3
invaluable.
In Window #5A, I added the narration file I had made in Movie
Maker from the podcast.
Screen #6 is where you give the story a file name, pick a
folder to save it to, and select a quality profile. With a story of only a few
minutes, saving it often to a finished WMV file lets you see what it'll really
look like. It's a good way to check the placement and zoom level for the
text, along with the audio/visual synching. Sometimes things are a little
different when you view the saved story on a larger screen than they appear
in the small preview viewer.
If you haven't already saved the project file by this point, do
it (#8B).
That's all it takes to have the first 'rough-draft'. It's all
'fine-tuning' from here... spend a few minutes or weeks doing it. I
probably spent an hour in bits and parts doing the tuning for this
sample... always eager to get it out for viewing, but balancing it with the
desire to have it worth looking at.
Fine-tuning...
Watch the preview over and over and over... when you see
something that needs tweaking, stop and do it. It's usually easier to make a
change than it is to make a note and remember to do it later.
I've said it before, but it's important enough to say again...
when using multiple copies of the same picture, and changing the pan/zoom from
one to the other, I'll use the motion settings to align the starting position of
one picture with the ending of the previous one. When doing it, I'll remove
the default use of a transition. Doing both of those should result in a smooth
change in movement from one image to the next.
I left the default cross fade transitions in for some of the
title and credits images, when changing from a copy without text to one with it,
or vice versa. I didn't like the text abruptly appearing or ending, so the
transition smoothes it out.
I'll often change the duration of the pictures. When PS3 decides
a pan should happen in 10 seconds, I'll cut it to 6 or 7, or increase it to
15, depending on the picture and the story being made.
I deleted the opening transition for the first image. If you use
the default of fading in from black, the first frame is blackness, which
sometimes isn't a good thing to use as the thumbnail for the story on a DVD.
Even with the opening frame black, YouTube will pick one that works, even if
it's one you don't want.
I took the WMA music file into the GoldWave
utility and applied the orchestra hall reverb effect. The new WAV file from
GoldWave was used as the final story audio track.
Rendering the final story...
One direction was to an 800x600 profile for my
website. I didn't have a need for a disc with the sample story on it, and
you couldn't see it there if I did. I substituted the online copy for
the disc.
Another save was with my custom profile when heading to
YouTube. It's a 24 frame per second 320x240 sized story.
To DVD and YouTube...
Here's another
link to the 800x600 pixel story downloading from my
website.
And
here's the link to the smaller sized one at
YouTube
Half of the support session ended up being
about things I consider 'basics', in large part due
to 'mis-information' she had gotten from others. Her already installed
Roxio Easy DVD Creator software had no problems making discs from the story
files.
