ThanksLittle_John wrote:What a load of big 'eads! But seriously, interesting effect that worked very well and was quite comical because it was so well photo-shopped. What did you use to produce the film?
I was impressed by the way the crescendo was timed to coincide with the sudden rush of water into the lock. Lovely choice of music, excellent photography - loved the colours in the videos but it reminded me of a cine film rather than digital. Was that old rotten plank of wood in one of the shots ever actually used as a gang plank?
Nice one. And congratulations to the volunteers - and to Simon, of course, for organising it.
I used Paint.net to create the "big'eads", simple enough, use the ellipse select tool around the area to be expanded, Copy and Paste into a new layer then drag the reference points on the ellipse until the area has reached the desired size. Finally Merge Layer down. I used a similar process to add the text to the pictures.
I used Videopad to create the vid itself. Originally I was using the free version but you only get the ability to save to mp4 for a couple of weeks so I purchased the home use version for around £30. I tried MovieMaker but it didn't have enough facilities for what I wanted and I looked at Lightworks but it was too technical and I wanted a result quickly so didn't have the time to learn it.
I haven't adjusted any of the clips or stills apart from some resizing of some stills so the photography is down to the camera operators. No CGI or special digital effects, I don't have the knowledge or the time.
The music was found by googling for English Idylls Music and following links from what that threw up although I did already know the pieces and the timing is pure skill luck (actually I did adjust some of the timings of earlier shots and didn't include a couple of nice shots I would have liked to use to get to that point).
Regarding the plank, it wasn't actually rotten but wasn't used whilst we were aboard as they have full metal ramps and we only stopped where there was a quay to easily cross onto. I imagine the plank is for those who book the boat for a week so they can moor at places where there's no quay.