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Video in Performance

With the increased use of video in performance the theatre technicians continue to invest time and resourses into finding the best ways of presenting your videos to your audience in a reliable and high quality way.

In the future we hope to be able to use Apple MacBooks running Q Lab sofware to show video but this year we are using a PC based program called screen monkey.


Preparing your Video
Screen Monkey can take the following format files:

• AVI Video
• Flash animation
• DVD video
• Power Point presentations
• JPEG still images

and output them direct to the projector without showing the control panel or any annoying screen savers Screen Monkey can switch between files in a reasonably reliable way; with near instant start and and choice of freeze frame or black screen when the video comes to an end.

Experience has shown that a DVD burned directly from Adobe Premier is more reliable than using the copy station in the Media Centre. Copy Station DVDs have a tendancy to pixelate and stutter.

When editing, start the video at the point you wish it to start playing in your performance and add 15 seconds of black to the end. Using three separate short DVDs is more reliable than one long one with black between the clips. Keeping a music track on a separate CD allows for more flexibility, however is not as accurate for syncronisation.

Screen Monkey can not handle a DVD with chapter menus, so consquently comercial DVDs are prone to fail.

Make sure you arrive for your tech time with a finished DVD, rushed editing at the last minute will certainly fail!


Preparing your Power Point
The PCs in the Performance Gym and the Arts Centre run Windows XP and Powerpoint 2002 (standard across the university) so if you create your presentation at home on a Windows Vista machine you may need to 'save as' 2002 format as some of the animation feature may get lost.

Make sure you put a blank slide with a black background at the begining and end of your slideshow this stops the 'end of slide show message coming up on the screen.

Avoid embedding sound or video in powerpoint - bring sound and video seperately.


Getting Help
If you still need extra advice talk to:

Corin Pritchard, Media Training Technician 01962 827685
David Buss, Senior Theatre Technician 01962 827527
Sebastiane Brewer/Jon Morgan, Theatre Technician 01962 827684