ENTS, Several of you are producing video shorts or slide shows that are being posted to YouTube or Vimeo. Most recently Barry Caselli, Jennifer Dudley, and Andrew Joslin. Jennifer has been adding music from her collection to fit the mood she is aiming for in the clips. For example in a clip from the New York Botanical Garden she used the song "Out of the Woods" by Nickelcreek. http://vimeo.com/7915881 Excellent. The trip to the garden itself is set to music by Copland http://vimeo.com/7915881 These are great for Vimeo.
You would be amazed if you took the time to listen to the movies and nature programs we see on television and the pervasiveness of background music. It is there and we don't even notice it most of the time. I suppose my revelation in this respect came when I watched a movie on the 1989 Bay Bridge Collapse in California. The movie did not have any background music - it was stark and different and that lack of background music just jumped out at me. It was like a news on location shot.. However, I was thinking that if people wanted to add music, but did not want to use proprietary music materials for their videos three are a couple of sources you can choose from. at http://www.archive.org/index.php there are many public domain works available, though they tend to favor older music saved from 78's. There are other materials, you just need to search through he archives for something appropriate. For those that want to generate your own music but are not musicians, there is another option to consider. Microsoft Music Producer (Windows platform - runs fine on Vista and XP) http://www.musicmachines.net/faqmp.htm this site is a download link and a patch for the program first released in 1996. It is a midi file generator. it makes midi music clips in various styles. There are default settings for several dozen music styles, along with options to change instruments, tempo, key, length, personality, and shape of the music. it is in effect elevator music-like but looking through he thousands of combinations there are several that could be appropriate for a short nature video or slide show. The can be mixed and matched. New Age and Romantic Styles seem to work well. (Download the optional style pack) Be sure to follow the instructions on the page or it will not work. Another option is to go with the natural background sound from the site. There is also an option to sweeten the background sound. In this case sound clips are added and mixed to provide more bird calls, water flowing, waterfalls, or the like to the existing sound track. I really dislike digitally altering to remove unwanted branches or leaves, to add things into the photo that was not originally there, or to generally tidy-up the photo. I am happy with digital manipulation of contrast, brightness ad the like to bring out features that are already on the photo. So am not an extreme purist, but still want veracity of my mages. The sound sweetening is something on the same order. I don't want sounds added that are not found at the location, but I can accept adding more natural sounds from the area to what is present on a particular section of video tape, or replacing car and truck sounds with natural sounds. Slide shows can add sounds to better bring the images to life. One way to do this is to simple collect bird calls and other sounds from your video tapes and save them as wave files that can later be added to other clips. (I have some nice shrieking goshawks attacking an owl.) Of course those of you who are musically inclined can create their own custom music for their clips. I am not that talented. Ed Frank Check out my new Blog: http://nature-web-network.blogspot.com/ (and click on some of the ads) -- Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected]
