Is this project one for lots of transitions?

kirkdickinson wrote on 3/19/2003, 10:42 PM

I am working on a new project. I usually like the minimalist approach to transitions. Simple crossfade, straight cuts, with maybe one or two fancy transitions thrown in at the intro and end.

This project might have been done in a program like powerpoint, but I don't have powerpoint and thought that V4 would be better any ways.

I have 300 photos and 60 video clips. I am doing a video of prominent cattle sires and will be having a section for each separate sire. My tentative plan is to have each sires pedigree (genealogy) shown then show the sire and dam (mother/father) for that animal, then show his baby photo, yearling photo, adult photo, then exceptional offspring.

I was thinking that I could use pan/crop and keyframes to depict familial relationships. There would be a simple background texture on the bottom track.

My idea would be to start with the pedigree and then have the sire's (father) photo appear to enlarge from that position on the pedigree and stay full screen during narration, then have it shift to a smaller version at the top left leaving the pedigree revealed. Then have the dam's (mom) photo appear to enlarge from that position on the pedigree and stay full screen during narration, then shift to a smaller version at the top right of the screen. At that point, I would show the progression of the target animal from baby to adult below the two parents.

If I have photos or video of a renown brother or sister, they would be depicted by a sideways slide in. Parent child relationships would be shown top to bottom, sibling side to side.

This may be a very ambitions project for only my second full length video project.

I am wanting to get some opinions to see if I am having some decent ideas, or am way off base here.

Thanks,

Kirk

Comments

TorS wrote on 3/20/2003, 1:46 AM

Here's a way to go about it:
1: Design an ideal way to show the relations between a group of animals. This could be inspired by montages of great grandparents and families with the older folks side by side at the top, their children side by side next level down etc. They will eventually be PIPs on a general (or specific) background.
2: Line up your stills/clips of the animals - each on a separate track - in an order that will fit the narration for that particular "family" (I mean you don't always want to talk about the sire first, then the dam and then the offspring, or do you?). You should have the narration, at least on paper when you do this, because you want to keep that image/clip at a length that fits the amount of words needed.
3: Shrink the image/clip and make it go to its place on the genealogy chart - consistant in the way that the sire/dam/offspring is always in the same position. But like I said, it might not matter who goes first and second.

Put together, this will be: One clip of an animal with narration, swoosh to a frame on "the old folks wall" where it stays as a PIP over the next animal which then goes swoosh to the wall where both stays put over the third etc. When one line is finished you remove the PIPs and start over again, same way.

Right. Now you only have to worry about a quick beginning and a sweet end. The rest is design, rhythm and overall quality of touch. You can fiddle with that 'till the cows come home. For instance, you could create a background for the wall of fame by enlarging a significant clip from that group, slowing it down and greying it out 40-60%.
(The last bit is based on Shredder's photomontage idea, presented in this forum some months ago. Here's the thread):
Photomontage thread

Tor