Slideshows in 2019

Alan Edward Klein · Jul 31, 2019

railwayman3 said:
What is worse than any half-decent slide show is having to endure someone's holiday or family shots, comprising about 500 digital pictures, flicked through for about 3 seconds each on a tiny smartphone screen or a digital camera viewfinder.

And 400 of the 500 are just duplicates, triplicates, and quadruplicates of the first 100. You want to strangle someone.

Bill Burk · Aug 1, 2019

6 slides is pretty amazing restraint.

I'd do a tray of 80 or two, synchronized to music figuring 5 seconds a slide but varying the actual times to fit the slides to the music.

Maybe it works because my audience is usually my friends who were on the trip.

Alan Edward Klein · Aug 1, 2019

Putting the slide show in a memory card or DVD to show on a large UHDTV is pretty good too. It can be started quickly before the people feign a headache and go home. The music can be part of the show already incorporated in the DVD with title, credits, narration, fades, annotations, etc. Creating such a show is a lot of fun; I use Adobe Premiere Elements which is a pretty cheap but a complete program that's very effective.

But most people will get bored if they're not part of your family or had not been on the trip. That hasn't changed since when I was a kid.

runswithsizzers · Aug 1, 2019

As Alan Klein suggests, digital technology brings up the option to have an autoplaying slideshow which delivers the photos as a movie. May, or may not, have music, sound effects, titles, and/or short clips of actual video. May be projected on a big screen, but more likely shown on a TV.*

So which is better: A manual slide show with the narrator stopping to explain the shots and answer questions? Or a slideshow movie which plays from start to finish with little or no interruption?

*BTW, I would like to point out that that looking at photos on a TV can be an OK experience, but a phone, tablet, or laptop computer is a terrible way to show photos; especially true if your audience is more than one person.

Luckless · Aug 1, 2019

Best uses of a slide projector that I've seen, outside of an academic or technical setting, have been:

A few dozen images that were tailored to a very specific audience of friends/family, that were flipped through slowly while we all talked about it [and frequently wandered off course]

Set up as an art-wall at a party, with a projector rigged to randomly advance on its own every 4-8 minutes. [Fairly sure they made a custom controller for it, as it was based off the last button press or auto advance, rather than being locked into a timer or something.]

I think that the key to the impact was that the focus wasn't on the slideshow, but rather the focus was the conversations generated by the slides.

AgX · Aug 2, 2019

Alan Edward Klein said:
Putting the slide show in a memory card or DVD to show on a large UHDTV is pretty good too. It can be started quickly before the people feign a headache and go home. The music can be part of the show already incorporated in the DVD with title, credits, narration, fades, annotations, etc.

runswithsizzers said:
As Alan Klein suggests, digital technology brings up the option to have an autoplaying slideshow which delivers the photos as a movie. May, or may not, have music, sound effects, titles, and/or short clips of actual video. May be projected on a big screen, but more likely shown on a TV.*

We are in an analog forum and all you advised above can be done with advanced slide projectors too.

(There were Movie projectors in TV-style and I would not be surprised if there was a slide projector in TV-style too.)

Alan Edward Klein · Aug 2, 2019

AgX said:
We are in an analog forum and all you advised above can be done with advanced slide projectors too.

(There were Movie projectors in TV-style and I would not be surprised if there was a slide projector in TV-style too.)

That's a fair point you're making. This is an analog thread.

What are movie projectors in TV style?

runswithsizzers · Aug 2, 2019

AgX said:
We are in an analog forum [...]

Oops! Sorry about that.

jay moussy · Aug 2, 2019

Somewhat related: In many towns, here, we have reuse & recycle spots at trash collecting facilities, and that often leads to surprise finds.
I once got a few slide trays, and much to my surprise, in them was a whole series depicting actual surgical procedures. Eek!

I kept some, but I had to throw much of it away, as it was a bit much.

AgX · Aug 2, 2019

Alan Edward Klein said:
That's a fair point you're making. This is an analog thread.

What are movie projectors in TV style?

Eumig for instance made two versions (silent resp. sound for Super-8, models R-2000 resp. RS-3000). And they also made the Poloroid movie projector.

I know of course of several flip-up rear-projection slide projectors, but if someone knows of fixed slide projectors in the style of the Eumig movie projectors, give me a hint.

jim10219 · Aug 2, 2019

Luckless said:
Best uses of a slide projector that I've seen, outside of an academic or technical setting, have been:

A few dozen images that were tailored to a very specific audience of friends/family, that were flipped through slowly while we all talked about it [and frequently wandered off course]

Set up as an art-wall at a party, with a projector rigged to randomly advance on its own every 4-8 minutes. [Fairly sure they made a custom controller for it, as it was based off the last button press or auto advance, rather than being locked into a timer or something.]

I think that the key to the impact was that the focus wasn't on the slideshow, but rather the focus was the conversations generated by the slides.

Yes! This is how you do it! I might suggest "serve alcohol" as well, but other than that, this is the perfect response.

It's like any other event where you're entertaining people. You have to give them what THEY want (not what you want). And what THEY want is a good time. Viewing slides is not a good time in and of itself. Though viewing slides can help facilitate a good time. There just has to be a reason to show the slides to your audience and for them to be interested in them other than just showing off your slides.

Slideshows in 2019

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