SecretSchool.Org

We’ve been developing montage since 2002 and some of it involve PM as the guest. As per last week, I was invited for a class by training.org .my to share secretlab’s experience on doing and developing montage from industrial approach. Here are some of the class introduction.

1. Storyboard

Storyboard is the most important things you should consider and finalize before starting any montage project. It’s act as a master guide and a reference for the story and scene flow. You can alter your storyboard depends on your needs but the basic element of storyboard are time, frame, music/effect and descriptions.

2. Timeline

If you are working in a big scale of team, make sure you have the master timeline for all member to refer. The date line for gather the multimedia elements/ contents is the most important things. Without content, the editor cannot start the editing part and this will lead you to a late production.

3. Target Audience

Who is your target audience? You need to know your audience background. Delivering message to the wrong audience will be the disaster for the montage.

4. Time

You need to determine the length of the montage. 10 minutes? 50 second? The shorter is sometimes better. The longer will drag audience to boring mood. Time is always related to the content. The more content you have, the more time you need. Use storyboard as a guide. Remember… you are not doing corporate video but you are doing MONTAGE.

5. Quality Elements of Multimedia

You should understand that Flash is only the mixing tools. You have to ensure the images, sound and animations you use is always in high quality. A bad ingredient will always lead to a bad taste of the food. For instance, a blur image or photograph will turn your montage to a low quality of visual experience.

6. Music

Music is one of the most important things in Montage. Do not use wrong music theme for example, using love music for a futuristic montage. Choose music wisely. When it comes to corporate launching make sure you have permission on the music you use or else you need to find a music composer.

7. Transition

Be-careful with the transition of the montage to ensure the continuity of the scene. Continuity is important to keep the level of audience understanding and mood in a sequence projected graph.

8. Effects

Do not mix all the effects of the world in your short clip montage. Try to think that montage is not about the more the merrier. Effects should be always fluent with the concept.

9. Size

Depends on the medium of the launching, you should know the size of the montage or the size of the Flash stage. If your montage is going to be in the TV, then better not doing montage for projector size launching. Some part of the montage will be crop. Always know the safe area or can I say the margin?

10. Test

For the launching event, you need to test your montage at the stage at least 3 – 5 times before the launching day. You need to make sure the sounds is good. The timing of the montage with the event que, and most important things is the exact time to launch the montage. Avoid mechanical launching because we will never knew what will happen on the actual days.

11. Recce place

You should recce the launching place before the launching day. Where is the P.A system located, where is the stage, the speaker and etc. You need to know the logistic event.

12. Format

You should determine the format of the montage for the launching days. If you are using swf / exe as the format then you’ll in a big risk. Remember that the waiting time before launch will always make the notebook hang or out of battery. The best solution is to convert your montage as a VCD or DVD format so that you can control you launching by pressing play / pause.

13. Backup

Always have a few VCD or DVD as a backup on the launching day in case of CD scratch of misplace.

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Class organized by Training.Org.My

Venue : Residence Hotel, UNITEN
Date : 11 – 15 December 2006
Level: Certificate