Obtaining photos for screen for visual aspect of a Gig

[LiveMusic]

I've finally decided I'm going to try this -- add a visual element to a gig with a screen. I'm going to build "a show" with audio/visual being front and center. My brother has a slide projector and a screen. We need one of those projectors you could fire images from a laptop but they are $1000 or more and that's not in the cards right now. Unless it has to be.

 

So, how (where) could I obtain images? For instance, I was rehearsing my honky tonk setlist and I just played these three songs...

 

TEAR IN MY BEER - Hank Williams

BLUES MAN - Hank Williams Jr.

I DON'T KNOW - Hank Williams III

 

So, I got it in my mind... I would show Hank's pic on screen. Maybe a short paragraph about him follows. Then play TEAR IN MY BEER. Maybe even show a pic of Hank and Hank Jr together. (They did a video of them "doing it together.")

 

Then, a pic of Hank Jr. and I play BLUES MAN. When I sing "and his names a reminder of a blues man already gone," I'd show the pic of his daddy again right then.

 

Then I play the Hank III song and show a pic of Hank III. Maybe a collage of them together at the end of those three songs. Some tidbits of interesting trivia.

 

You get the idea.

 

Last night, my brother got my P.A. and hooked it up and was messing around with some sounds. He is doing a thesis on some kind of biology thing where he goes out to the boonies and records sounds. He played this KICKASS bullfrog. Man, I said "Hey, that is perfect for my original song 'River Rat'." I sing about the river and frogs and coyotes and stuff in the song.

 

So, I could play an audio file of his frog somehow. And show an image of the river. And a frog.

 

I have another song I wrote about a high school friend (who is dead) and he was mouthing to a bullfrog that was croaking in the creek outside our classroom (it really happened) and the teacher thought he was doing the frog sounds. I wrote a song about that. I could get his mom to give me a pic of him and then I could show that and also a frog. Maybe even a pic of the old teacher. I could pull it from a yearbook. Although, the resolution would be poor.

 

So, where can I get images of stuff like this? The main question is about images of celebs. But also stuff like frogs and coyotes.

 

I'd have to be able to make a slide. Unless we can buy one of those projectors for the laptop.

[zeronyne]

1. If you are going to do this with a slide projector, do it with two, and get a box that will dim the lamp slowly. Before LCD projectors, these were common place. It let's you switch without the low tech look of the transition.

 

2. As far as pics, well, I'd never advocate copyright infringement, but there are many places you can buy stock footage, Getty Images being the highest profile. Or you could take screenshots of license free movies from this stupendous database...it is REALLY awesome:

 

The Prelinger Archives

 

3. There are also services that will take jpg's and TIFFs and conver them to slides. Do a google search for one in your area if you want to QC them locally. And be sure to flip them backwards if you're projecting from behind the screen/scrim.

[LiveMusic]

Originally posted by zeronyne:

1. If you are going to do this with a slide projector, do it with two, and get a box that will dim the lamp slowly. Before LCD projectors, these were common place. It let's you switch without the low tech look of the transition.

Uh, no comprehende. Come again?

[zeronyne]

It's like a DJ. If you only have one CD player, there's this hard stop from one song to another. A DJ fades out one song and fades in the other one.

 

You have two slide projectors...you fade one in as you fade one out. You advance slides on the one that's dark, and then switch the process.

[doug osborne]

PowerPoint is perfect for this. Each PP slide can have audio, video, images, timed transitions, text, etc. I recommend getting a projector for the laptop.

[deanmass]

You can get those projectors used on ebay for under $1000 easy, but I'd say get a new one. The new ones are much brighter and much smaller.

 

RE: Images. Check screen saver sites and build those pics into a powerpoint type presentation timed for the song, interspersing applicable pics of the artists. Their is an alternate to powerpoint which is excellent called ACEEDCEE or something liek that, and it comes with tons of pics for like$29 buck.

 

You could also use hyperstudio or keynote on a mac.

[zeronyne]

Uh, I think he said a projector is not in the cards right now.

 

But Doug and Dean are right. When you factor in the cost of the photos, processing, and general PITA factor, you may be better off buying a projector and using a laptop.

 

Since January, I've created over 60 Powerpoint presentations for various conferences, and it definitely is a good way to get started if you haven't done this before, but the animation features are just crap, and I wouldn't rely on it to play back audio or video in ANY situation (oh, the horror stories...). One warning though - if you have an old laptop, avoid the tranparent transition effects, they'll skip and stutter...nothing worse than a jittery fade. Just use wipes and fly ins.

 

I'm about to do a corporate gig that's supposed to be like a "Strange Days" type of rave thing, and I'm using Director to playback flash movies and trigger the lights and traditional VTRs, so I empathize with the desire for visuals in any context.

[Dennyf]

Originally posted by LiveMusic:

Originally posted by zeronyne:

1. If you are going to do this with a slide projector, do it with two, and get a box that will dim the lamp slowly. Before LCD projectors, these were common place. It let's you switch without the low tech look of the transition.

Uh, no comprehende. Come again?

Z's refering to a little device called a "dissolve unit," and they were indeed big in A/V hardware in the not-too-distant past, when "multi-media" was a literal expression for single presentations consisting of slides, movie film and audio tape all synced up with Rube Goldberg hardware like . . . dissolve units.

 

It's a box with a timer and/or sync input, a couple of solid-state rheostats (like triacs)and connectors to the lamp circuits of slide projectors.

 

Look for names like Kodak Ektagraphic in slide projectors, and Wollensak/3M for dissolve units.

[flyscots]

Sounds like a good idea

 

You can use some of my pictures if you want.

 

flyscots USA 2003 pics

 

I'm not sure if they'll work for you but there's a Coyote in the Arizona section.

 

If you want to try any of them let me know and I'll send higher quality versions if I can.

 

John