Hints and Tips

Rubbish In. Rubbish out
There’s something lovely about a “snap”, but sometimes its’ charm may not transfer easily onto the TV screen. Make sure the pictures you choose are in sharp focus, not creased or damaged. An image that’s a bit soft when its 6” x 4” is going to look much softer when it’s 4 times larger on a TV screen.

Although we can absolutely use small photos such as passport size ones, or those multi image photo sets they used to do in the 60s, do remember the smaller the image the more compromised the quality will be when it’s made bigger.

One thing I‘ve found doing this that sometimes the framing of a photograph isn’t quite as good as it could be, so I may crop the image to improve the composition – I hope you don’t mind – if you don’t like it – then let me know and I’ll change it. (Interestingly, the older the photo the better the composition in general - what’s that all about I wonder)

Presentation is everything!
One of the things you might want to consider is how and where you’re going to give your gift of a film? Showing it at a party of 60 guests is a whole different ball game when compared to showing mum and dad in their living room.

Make sure you’ve provided a system suitable for the number of folks in your audience. At least a big screen TV, but maybe even a projector and screen would be more appropriate. Of course you might need a little PA too so folks can hear your music choices. That kind of audio visual kit can be expensive to hire so if you’re having a party see if your venue has something suitable.


High Definition.
Currently I don’t work in High Definition. The day is imminent however. But remember, a normal DVD WILL play on Blu-Ray player and screen, but a High Definition Disc WON’T play on a normal DVD player. If you are determined your movie requires Hi-Def – let me know and I’ll try and accommodate.


Aspect ratio 16:9 or 4:3
Ok ok ok ok! Basically aspect ratio refers to whether a TV screen is widescreen or not. We’ve had widescreen TVs for about 15 years now which has a screen aspect ratio of 16:9. But there are still millions of older TVs with the old 4:3 screen aspect ratio. Now, unless you specifically want a film made in the old 4:3 ratio I will always make your film in widescreen.

DVDRs
DVDRs can occasionally be a bit unreliable. (These are the writable DVD discs you can write your own stuff on and so the kind of disc your film will be written on.) Oddly enough, in my experience, the cheaper the DVD player the more tolerant it is of DVDRs.

A DVDR disc will almost always play better in a DVD player than in a computer. I don’t know why exactly – that’s just my experience. If someone has a problem with playback of a DVDR , on investigation, it’s usually something to do with a computer. Typical really.

So the moral here is TEST YOUR DISC when you get it – nothing worse than giving a gift that doesn’t work – it’s like getting a toy on Christmas morning without any batteries included.