Photography Montage Guide
| Creating
a captivating video montage or slide show that you can enjoy for
years to come is not difficult. Take a few simple steps to
prepare your slide show and it will be everything you expected.
Here are some tips to follow while selecting your slide show
content. |
| 1 |
Know who your audience is -
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. |
| 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. Coolwater Studios 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 can be done. 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. Coolwater Studios 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 Dusty,
you're audience may not want to sit through all the pictures of
him. Instead of showing 10 pictures of ole' Dusty, 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. |
| 7 |
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. Coolwater Studios
has 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. |
|
