Learning the Software.

The big challenge was learning new software.  I had never put together a photofilm and didn't have any software to do it.  The first step was to research what was available, then download trial versions and test them to see if they would do what I had in mind.

The first package I tried was soundslides plus.  The frustration with this package was that the photos and audio are imported separately.

  I used audacity for the audio and found it very good.  I learnt how to cut an audio track so it doesn't end abruptly. I learnt how to take sections from different tracks and make a mixed track.

Putting then together separately is difficult and not ideal as you have to keep changing one or both until the sounds match the right image.  My idea was to have music and bits of the crowd cheering woven together.

I then looked for software that enable both photos and audio to be edited within the same package.  I settled on proshow gold.

For the music I looked for something that had relevance to the event. My first choice was "Sing" by Gary Barlow and the Commonwealth Band. 

I had recorded some of the crowd sounds on my mobile phone.  I tried blending these together. It didn't work.

Sing is just too cheesy and after you've heard it half a dozen times you find yourself screaming "no i can't listen to this one more time".  My sound recording was too noisy.  I learnt from a professional sound recorder how to read the sound waves very much like a histogram on a photo.  My sounds were outside the acceptable range and so the sound was distorted and also unpleasant on the ear.

My attempt of a multi recording here:

I decided I was being too ambitious and I would be better just picking one track of music that was relevant but easier to listen to.

"On July 17^th 1717 George Frederic Handel premiered his composition Water Music after King George I requested a concert to be performed on the River Thames"

Various artists were commissioned to produce their version of Handel's water music for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.  I chose one of these tracks to go with the photos.

I played around with the order of the photos and changed a couple of photos as well as the order. I put the man raising his hat at the end as it this is similar to a gesture of saying goodbye and seemed a more appropriate position for this photo.

Getting there.