Feb08 Challenge - Techno on the Beach in HDR - - - Cary

[Cary Profile Private message]

Here is my entry for the Feb08 Challenge.


I listened to the “song” several times and realized it wasn't a song at all but a soundtrack. Then I had a thought about the term soundtrack. If you have ever seen the movie Fantasia, there is a segment where they feature a visual of the “soundtrack.” So I decided to sort of go this route and pay homage to Disney’s groundbreaking music/visual film from the 1940’s.

I have also been playing around with HDR photography for the last few months. HDR or High Dynamic Range imaging enables photographers to record a greater range of tonal detail than a given camera could capture in a single photo. To make an HDR image you typically need 3 exposures and then they are tone mapped to maximize the HDR.

In constructing the show, I sequenced some HDR images I took at Venice Beach, CA to the soundtrack and here is the result:


http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 1580&alb=0



The show is a little large and might take a minute or so to Down Load. I am not sure why this is so. When I put the show together, Producer said it only 14MB. The .px file generated for uploading was much larger than that.


Anyway, enjoy………I definitely had some fun making it!



Cary

[marmart Profile Private message]

Hi Cary - Wow - loved the beginning, how in the world did you get the beat of the music to show like that?? The photos are spectacular!! Something really weird though, I tried to watch the 1st time and it got to the part where 6 or 7 photos come forward and when the pix of the guy on the beach came fwd, it froze. I waited, then did ctrl+alt+del and stopped it. The entire thing closed out and about 30 sec later the music began ON IT’S OWN!!! It kept playing and I’m like, “what the #@$#%^??

So I rebooted the computer and opened it again. When it get to that part (the guy on the beach) it kind of stalls and then a template comes on the screen and then it jumps around and then a pix appears in the template and I don’t know, but I am wondering if this is what it is supposed to do???

If so, well then, that’s OK, I just need you to explain what it is doing to me
Mary (marmart)

[Harry Profile Private messageYIM]

Awesome show. Loved the beginning with the music as a mask. Same thing happened to me as happened to Mary. I just let it go then it started playing again but pictures and music seemed to be out of sync.

Harry

[dajon0510 Profile Private message]

Cary ,
same thing stopped in middle....must have to do with lg file size?
I have not tried hd yet.....
but will have to try now after seeing your images...the range was awsume....very cool

I too enjoyed the wave file mask....would you perhaps explain how
thanks
David

[seektheburd Profile Private message]

Hi Cary,
Your HDR pictures are stunning. I really like this technique and can't wait to upgrade to start creating my own. Smiles.
Your show was on the beat and very creative with the sound wave. Enjoyed it very much!

Hugs, Stephanie

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Nice show with an original idea.
I downloaded all of it first, and played it only afterwards. This way there were no problems.
How did you make the sound wave video? Did you record your media player ?
How, and in what format ?

I liked your idea very much.

[rkligman Profile Private messageWebsite]

Wow, that was something else Cary. Not sure how you did the music bit but it was effective. You hit the nail on the head. It was less of a song and more of a soundtrack. I wanted to give you enough rope to ... do whatever you wanted to. Certainly that has come true given the variety of show topics. The beach is a wonderful place to shoot and your photos looked great.

[marmart Profile Private message]

I did as Mona commented - downloaded it and then was able to view it uninterrupted. The photos are amazing!! Nice job and very creative!

Mary

[57Corvette Profile Private messageWebsite]

Cary

Very creative and great execution. The show snagged in the middle;e for me as well ....... I still haven't got around to the HDR sots yet. I was hoping this weekend, but it appears I won't have time. Hopefully soon ......

Bob

[Jeffery Profile Private message]

Hello Cary
Photographic images very, very good. I think you fitted the strange music (sounds) perfectly.
It puts my little effort in the shade... have a look and please let me know your comment. Thanks for allowing me to view your show. Nice One Cary.

With kind regards
Jeffery
9 February 2008

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
Confucius Chinese philosopher (551 BC - 479 BC)

[nannybear Profile Private messageWebsite]

I too want to know how you did the audio "visual". Great show, no hitches here. I just booted it up and didn't watch for 5 minutes so it was fully loaded when I went back to it. Loved the whole concept, well done!! cheers Jan

[Cary Profile Private message]

Thank you for all your comments. I really appreciate them.

It really was fun work on a project where an element is the same for all and to everyone interprets it.

Maybe next time, we all get the same set of images and we all pick the music for them and then see what happens from there!


The audio effect I used in my show was done by first playing the "song" in my WinAmp player. I have several "“plugins”" for this app and one of them is a visual analyzer. I have had it for years. There are other similar ones but here is where you can find the one I used:

http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details/3277


As the song was playing in Winamp with the analyzer plugin going, I recorded the visual as a video with a program called HyperCam. You can record virtually any video from your screen with it and set the size parameters you want. I have other programs that do similar things such as Camtasia Studio 5, but for me HyperCam is incredibly easy to use.

Here is where you can look at Hypercam:

http://www.hyperionics.com/hc/downloads.asp

After recording the video, it was inserted into a slide in Proshow Producer, synchronized with the sound track and then the audio of the video was set to zero. Some of the slides in my show had duplicate videos running.

If you set the video as your mask and put an image behind it, you will see the video of the analyzer as transparent.

The biggest problem with using multiple videos is that the show becomes so bloated that it takes a while to play. If anyone has any ideas how to put a show on this on a "diet" to make the file smaller, please let me know.

I have always wanted to use this audio/video technique and this was a great opportunity to play with it.

It sounds long and complicated but it took me about 2 minutes to do!

Have fun.


Cary

[dilyla Profile Private messageWebsite]

Those pictures were stunning and I enjoyed the show! Makes me wish I were a photographer -- my slideshow business involves dealing with other people's pictures and, unfortunately, those aren't always the best.

I like your idea of a new challenge with all the same photos! It's been really interesting to see the multitude of "takes" from one piece of music!

- Diana

[Penny47 Profile Private message]

Hey Cary,
I enjoyed the part of your show I could see, I tried several times and different times but every time I got to a certain point my computer jammed up so I gave up. Then I decided to try again now but it still has not loaded after 15 min. So have now given it away again. But I will try again tomorrow in the early hours when I wake up as I said I was really enjoying what I did see.

Cheers Penny

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Very nice and very creative !!

As far as making the video smaller (since it involves multiple videos),
one option would be to export the video of the slides with multiple videos
in them as an uncompressed avi then use that video as a new video
in a new show so to speak ... well, you know what I mean
That is actually a trick a lot of people use with Sony Vegas Movie Studio
for example - it only allows 3 video tracks so they build up 3, render to
1, re-insert that back on the time line and do it again.

mikey