Song Imagery

The verbal and musical imagery found in songs is similar to visual imagery in some ways – it can be beautiful, powerful, subtle, in-your-face, evocative and so on.  And like the best visual images, the poetry, melody and harmony in great songs has the power to move us, to express universal truths about our lives.

 

In this assignment, you will attempt to combine the power of 3 types if imagery:  musical, verbal and photographic.  You are to choose a favourite song, and then create a PowerPoint presentation of images that illustrate the song.  If it’s well done there will be a synergism between the visual and aural components that makes each more powerful.

 

I will leave my exemplar (currently unfinished, but a good start) in the Student Drive:AWT4/Song Imagery folder.  You can open the PPT file there to see what I did, and look at some of the techniques and effects I used.

Guidelines

The Song

  • Your chosen song should be appropriate for a school audience (not sexist, racist, not overly vulgar or violent etc.)
  • It should (obviously) be a song that moves you, one that you love and understand its imagery, mood and message
  • It should be 2-4 minutes long.  Longer songs can be cut back using Adobe Audition
  • It must be saved in MP3 format before inserting.  You’ll be shown how to do the recording and editing in Audition.

 

Click HERE to learn about recording techniques in Adobe Audition, and HERE for Sound Setup

Photography

  • The visual images should illustrate the idea and mood of the song images.  They don’t need to be literal pictures of what the words are saying – in fact, they shouldn’t be.  Just try to make a visual complement to the themes and concepts that are brought up in each part of the song
  • As always, aim for sophisticated, powerful, beautiful, striking images, not just a series of snapshots.  This is an Art class!
  • Some of the images should feature people.  This is easy, since most songs are about human behaviour and emotions.  Again, choose a song that you think you have some good ideas about how to portray.
  • You can use raw photographs, photos that have been altered (even extremely) in PhotoShop, layered images, whatever you think works best.  A lot of the evaluation is about your artistry in shooting the photographs and how you process and use them.
  • Most of the main images should be shot by you, but you can use some images from other sources (e.g. Google image search, or Google Earth, as in my Helpless intro.  You MUST keep track of the URL for every outside image you use, and try to find the photographer’s name so they can be credited in your presentation
  • Also keep track of where and when you shot your own shots.
  • Take every photo into PhotoShop before inserting it.  Why?  Likely to crop and improve its levels etc., but also to RESIZE it.  It only needs to be 1000 pixels wide to more than fill a PPoint screen.  Your presentation must be under 15 Mb.  This is easy with small jpegs inserted, but impossible with large ones.  (Image menu, Resize, Image Size)

 

Effects

Either through PowerPoint and/or PhotoShop and the sequencing of your photography, try to do the following:

  • Zoom in or out, and Pan.  These are animation concepts, but you can simulate them in PPoint.  For instance, take a series of 4 photos of your subject against the same background, walking closer to them each shot.  Then display these images in rapid succession, and it acts as a zoom.  You could do the same by having the subject as a separate layer in PShop, changing its size relative to the background and saving a series of jpegs as you do so.  You can also shrink or expand the same picture after you insert it on successive frames in PPoint.
  • Use your blending/layer transparency and many other PShop skills to try to illustrate moods, feelings and other imagery in artistic ways.
  • Time each slide so that images appear at exactly the moment you want  (right-click and choose the Slide Transition pane).
  • Use PPoint effects like Fade , Dissolve, fade Through Black etc. to smooth the transition between slides
  • You can also use similar effects on objects such as test boxes.

Software

  • As explained verbally, the norm is to use PowerPoint here – it works well with few problems for what you need to do, so why not?  However, a few of you are experts with programs like Windows MovieMaker, Flash and Adobe Premiere.  These can do what we need here, maybe with more precision and effects, so yes, you can choose to use them, with the following warnings:
    • You will get whatever help you need from me (when I return) and your classmates in PPoint.  Although we will work in Flash and maybe MovieMaker later, for now you will get very little support from me – it’s not an eeficient way to teach a large class, so you’re pretty much on your own.
    • At AHS, Premiere is not available to anyone but CommTech students, so you’d have to do your work at home.  This is a problem if you can’t keep busy in class, and also I can’t monitor your progress
    • MovieMaker is sometimes a pain, especially when you start making a lot of frames – it’s slow, and it sometimes freezes or crashes.  If you’re not careful to only use small files as slides, the project can get huge and unwieldy.  The final product has to be rendered into a movie file, which can be unnecessarily huge compared to the equivalent length PPoint file, and won’t be of the same video quality.  But if you’re a pro, maybe you can overcome these problems…
    • Flash has similar challenges – how will you avoid creating a huge unwieldy file with the dozens and dozens of images you need?  However, if you know Flash well, you might be able to do an amazing job – just do some quick experimenting to see if it’s realistic to load a lot of jpegs (say 30 at least) into Flash and work with them, and render a good movie.

 

Planning

This is a major project, and shouldn't be done on by the seat of your pants!  In your notebook/sketchbook or a Word document, write or type out or download the lyrics of your song.  Then in brainstorm fashion write or sketch out all the ideas that pop into your head as you listen to the song and read the lyrics.  What are the themes and images?  What visual images do you see?  How could these be represented through photography and Photoshop imaging?

Next, write out each line, and under it rough out the ideas you have for visual images connected to it.  You could also do this as a storyboard, where you sketch out each image in a box, and make notes on timing, effects etc.

Here's a partial example – my notes and sketeches were on paper, but I transcribed some of them here.  You have time to do a better job!

This is the first part of your project that will be evaluated, so make sure you do a thoughtful, thorough job of it.  You don't have to stuck to it exactly as you build the presentation, but it will make your photo shoots and PhotoShopping more focused.

 

Organization – What Should and Should Not be in your Folders

The main project folder must be in your AWT4 folder, should be named Song Imagery.  In it, make two subfolders, one called Final, one called My Shots and one called Images From Other Sources.  Here's what they should contain:

  • AWT4/ Song Imagery/Final: the PowerPoint presentation; the MP3 file of the song, all required Planning and Reflection documents; and ALL jpeg files inserted into the presentation.  If you don't have a jpeg file because you copied and pasted straight into PPoint, you're doing it wrong!  Instead, copy from wherever, go into PShop, and choose "File, New" and then paste.  Then you can properly edit, adjust and resize it, save as a jpeg, and THEN insert it into PPoint.  NO OTHER files should be in this folder, there must be NO PSD's in it (your working PSD files go in the folders below).  The whole folder should be under 25 Mb if you've resized everything properly.
  • AWT4/ Song Imagery/My Shots: This is a place to put all your photo files when you download them.  It's also a place where you can keep PSD files when you layer your photos together.
  • AWT4/ Song Imagery/ Images From Other Sources: Keep any images that you get off the internet, scans and other sources as jpegs here.  It's VERY important to keep track of where each one came from, and the artists/photographer where possible – do it in a Word document named Sources in the Final folder.  Just copy and paste the URL beside the file name for each file it takes about 10 extra seconds.

Clean Up!  After a photo shoot, delete any files you know that you won't use.  Resize the remaining images where possible (keep them larger when you might need to crop of just use a small part of the file).  Keep your PSD files in case you want to go back and alter a layer, but not too many.  Remember, the fna file you need for each slide is a jpeg about 100 pixels wide, which you will save to or copy to your Final folder before inserting into your presentation.

Enjoy Yourself and Make Great Art

This project will take a lot of work, some of it difficult and sometimes tedious, but the end result should be worth a lot of sweat.  If you don't enjoy the process, you're in the wrong course!  Be sure to ask for feedback as you go along – I can sometimes suggest easier or more effective ways to do things.

When Is It Due?

The plan is due when I return on April 7, and a major chunk of the work.  You will get a “Plan” and a “work so far” mark on April 7.  I expect to see reasonable progress by then: most photos shot, lots of images processed, many inserted onto slides in PPoint.  You should also have your song inserted onto the first slide, set to stop after 999 slides (in other words, it wion’t stop til the end of the show).

The final product will be shown in class festival on the very last day of class.

Want a Better Mark?

Projects receiving higher marks will exhibit these characteristics:

  • Done on time to present at our Festival  (meaning have it ready by the start of the period so we can all enjoy each other’s work)
  • Files are in the specified folders.  Your original full-sized photos are gone – there should just be a sub-folder of shrunk pics.
  • Jpegs and MP3 files are reduced in size before insertion into PPoint;  Pics are compressed within Powerpoint to “screen” quality so the final product is likely 10-20 Mb or less.
  • Your notebook, sketchbook or a Word doc shows evidence of thorough, thoughtful planning
  • Song is the right length (2-5 minutes), and smoothly edited in Adobe Audition where necessary.  Sound quality is good, and appropriate parts of the song are used (if not the whole thing)
  • Most of the images are based on your own photography
  • Photos are well shot and processed in PShop
  • Images are subtly appropriate to the mood, theme, imagery and content of the music and lyrics.
  • Some of the images are appropriately enhanced, through PShop filters, effects, levels etc.
  • Some of the images are composites of several photos/other images from the net etc., blended artfully together
  • All processing of images is for a definite artistic purpose in your overall production
  • Images skilfully placed and resized on the slides
  • Text added where appropriate:
    • Titles, credits at the beginning and/or the end.  Be sure to include your own name, and the song title, composer and performer
    • You may want to display some or all the lyrics as they’re sung, especially if they’re hard to make out.  Don’t assume your audience knows the song and what it’s about.
  • Excellent timing of slides, so images coincide with lyrics
  • Use of effects in PPoint, such as Fade In Slow, for both slides and Text.  Learn how to use these in Help, and by experimenting.  Use it for smooth transitions only -don’t overdo it  e.g. spinning fly-in text is usually a bad, distracting idea!
  • Effects created in PShop  e.g. watch the exemplars, and notice how the background in Helpless dissolves while the young woman in the foreground stays constant at one point, or how people move coolly around inside a static frame in “Don’t Panic”.  This is accomplished by saving the same file as 2 or more jpegs, changing only one layer but keeping the rest constant.  Insert these jpegs onto successive slides and you get an interesting effect.  You can also gradually fade part of an image in or out by saving several jpegs with the layer opacity gradually increased.  I will look for excellent use of these kinds of effects.
  • Overall Artistry and Impact : in the end, a lot of your mark is a subjective evaluation of its impact.  The best projects will have a synergistic combination of musical, lyrical and amazing visual imagery that will move the audience to tears, wild applause or some other strong emotional response!

 

Song Imagery Reflection

The purpose of this reflection is to give you a chance to describe how your presentation meets the guidelines.  It shouldn't be overly long - half to one page - but should cover these main points (not necessarily in this order):

  • How do the "visual images illustrate the idea and mood of the song images"?   Tell me what you think the song is about, and then how your overall visual theme/approach connects with the overall theme and mood of the song.  Why did you choose to approach it the way you did?  How well did this work?
  • List or describe examples of how your imagery fits the imagery of the song – as many as you want, some literal, others more subtle.  I might miss some of the subtle connections, so it's important to point these out
  • List the major things you're especially proud of  e.g. a photo shoot that was tricky, Photoshopped images and sequences that took a lot of effort, synchronization that worked well – whatever you want me to be sure to notice.  There may even be challenging things that you decided to leave out in the end that you'd still like me to know about.
  • What would you improve or do differently in a perfect world?

 

Save as Reflection.doc in your AWT4/Song Imagery/Final folder.

 

* This might be a good time to re-read the assignment, making sure you've met all the criteria, and that you've save the correct files in the correct folders.   PLEASE clean up unneeded files, especially PSDs and the large original jpegs off your camera if you did a batch shrinking of them.