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School Power Point Project

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:11 am
by Flash
Check out my power point I made for history. I really don't care about the actually information, but feedback on the transitions and music would be nice.

http://www.hdshare.tv/video/3719/The-Pr ... e-Movement

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 4:40 am
by starman
Only my opinion of course...but I do this kind of thing for a living.

The music is far too distracting for the presentation...too foreground so to speak. There's a lot of information the video is showing with cartoons and pictures of book pages, I guess we are supposed to try to read. The heavy groove doesn't put me in the mood to comprehend it or it didn't match the video message most of the time..."Lion Sleeps Tonight" came the closest, but only for the "jungle" book cover scene, but overall it missed the mark as well.

You had too heavy use of odd transitions in some of your video scenes. Simple quick fades and blunt cuts usually work best unless you are making a really special point.

I also found some of the chosen music to be unnecessarily offensive in places. The gangsta stuff doesn't play well with everyone my man.

You did show some Powerpoint skills in editing the presentation and for that I commend you, but otherwise the music completely distracted me from the points you were trying to make....you lost me....and that's NOT the goal of a presentation.

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 8:47 pm
by Flash
I wondered about the background music. At the time I did it kinda as a a joke. Just to make sure, I made sure my teacher watched the video with the sound off.

What did you think of the last couple of slides (starting with Theodore Roosevelt)? How was the transition from his speech to the song? Did it fit the tone of the slide?

Really appreciate the feedback. This was my first video.

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:50 pm
by starman
You should think about using period music when you're doing something like this...that tends to take you back to the time...whereas "Rhianna - Live Your Life" just takes me to the car radio coming in to work this morning. If you can't find period music, just use some non-descript synth pad, acoustic guitar, strings, orchestra, mostly instrumental music. Watch a historical documentary on the History Channel sometime. That should give you an idea. Boring...sure it is...that's why it called "background music".

If you were documenting snow boarders in Utah you would have much more leeway in your music selection.

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:29 pm
by Flash
Thanks! Do you have any tips on how to make it both interesting and authentic?

Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:13 am
by starman
Flash wrote:Thanks! Do you have any tips on how to make it both interesting and authentic?
Well not really...it's an art and much too complicated to discuss in detail here. Here's a fairly good discussion on some do's and don'ts ...
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mihaib/presentation-rules.html