Wednesday, September 16, 2009

He Lives In You

This video is an example of how you can take a group of pictures and turn them into a more powerful medium by grouping them together and putting them to music. For example, they may have a similar theme or be about the same person. You then place them into a certain order based on the story you're trying to tell. Maybe you're just showing someone's life from a chronological point of view. You could be trying to tell a story based on the lyrics in the music or just trying to put more powerful photos to more powerful movements of the music.

Before you put together your story though, you want to look at all your pictures and utilize picture editing applications like Picasa (free on the web) or Microsoft Picture It, or Photoshop to make sure that all your pictures are ready. I love Picasa and Picture It best myself. They're just more user friendly. You can crop out any unnecessary background (or people), light up dark pictures, improve contrast, fix errors, noise and dust, etc.

After that than the fun begins, you can choose the music that helps you to tell your story and start putting the pictures in order. Again there are a lot of applications that will help you to put together a musical slide show. They're all pretty much the same. As you're putting the pictures in order, you also have to start playing with any transitions your going to utilize in your show because they take up time also. With the pictures and the transitions between the pictures, you will want to establish a general rhythm that goes with the music and the mood you're trying to set with this specific slide show.

If you want to actually choreograph the pictures, so that they appear at the very moment specific lyrics are being sung or at a time when the music is more dramatic, then you will have to play with the specific timing of each picture to get it just right. This might require that you listen to the music over and over again, so make sure you really like the song.

Once you get your timing and order, you can then zoom in, pull out, or pan across pictures. This gives them an additional sense of motion that makes the viewer feel like the still photographs are almost moving. In addition, you can add a video clip, or groups of clips to music to achieve the memories or feelings as you do with still photographs.

This sounds like a lot of work and I don't want to minimize it, but you get better at it and faster the more your do. These videos can then be burned to DVD to be played on any television with a DVD player attached. The slide shows can become meaningful, even powerful memories, for those who knew the people in the pictures, are the people in the pictures, or participated in the events and/or locations displayed in the pictures. They can invoke feelings of love, respect, or even humor.

They are becoming more and more popular as people are using them to entertain at weddings, eulogize and honor at funerals or wakes, and give as gifts for birthdays or holidays.


If you don't have the time, patience or desire to produce your own slideshow but would like to enjoy your memories in that type of format, you can contact me at vixpixandvids@gmail.com to receive pricing information. You can view other examples of this type of slide show at www.youtube.com/vicniesp.

Friday, September 4, 2009

I Love To Work With Pictures

I love to work with pictures. I learned through trial and error, but now I can scan, edit, and crop old photos and then utilize them to print out and frame. I can then post these pictures on the Web or burn to a CD so they can be shared with family members. My absolute favorite thing to do with pictures though is choreograph them to music. They take on a completely new and sentimental meaning depending on the song, the lyrics, the placement of the picture in time to the music and the motion, transition, or scanning of the picture as it appears on the screen can become powerful images for family members or others.

My intent for this blog was to show people all the things that can be done with pictures, give them tips on how to do it themselves, or earn additional income from home doing it for those who are not interested in or don't have the time to do it for themselves. I can set up My Space, YOUTUBE, or Facebook accounts and post your pictures and videos on the web for you. If you have questions or would like to contact me in addtion to posting on this blog, you can also email me @ VixpixandV
ids@gmail.com

For example, go to www.myspace.com/vicniesp and you see how picture albums can be created and displayed with music and in creative motion picture album formats that are unbelievably fun.

You can also go to www.youtube.com/vicniesp and see the video clips that are just cut and spliced to bring out special moments from larger video tapes and pictures chorographed to music with a theme that relates to the music and lyrics.

Do you have 200,00 digital pictures that you have never had the time to even organize, let alone post on the web, or print and frame, or put to music. I could do that for you I can place them on a DVD where you can enjoy them on your large screen TV. The possibilites are endless.