2007 5th Grade DVD Postmortem
Another year has past, and another memories DVD is
finished for our outgoing fifth graders. This year's
video project followed very much the same workflow as
past years', and the entire process was very smooth.
Keynote Pro's Barcelona theme and Keynote's own shape drawing capabilities came in handy. The drawing tools in Keynote enabled me to create "tabs" that helped make photographs in the video look mounted as if in a scrapbook. Barcelona helped create a very unique feel for the slides about a class trip, and I'll definitely be inclined to purchase additional themes from Keynote Pro in the future.
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Finally, Lemkesoft's GraphicConverter gave me a good alternative to PhotoShop Elements (which is not yet a Universal Binary for Intel Macs). I was impressed with this software overall, but I may still get a new copy of PS Elements whenever a Universal Binary is released.
I also have to continually remind myself that the transitions Push Up, Push Down, Grid Left, and Grid Right do not export to video correctly and should be avoided when building the slideshow in Keynote.
If you want to see a more detailed description of how I put these slideshow videos together, read this post on my Simply Presentation page: From Keynote to iDVD.
The Good
The new MacBook Pro performed like a champ except for when I was overtaxing memory. I think it's already time to add a couple of gigs, but I only experienced one application (iDVD) hang throughout the entire process. Also, after burning 110 copies of the video, only one coaster was produced that I know of. Again, the results were good overall.Keynote Pro's Barcelona theme and Keynote's own shape drawing capabilities came in handy. The drawing tools in Keynote enabled me to create "tabs" that helped make photographs in the video look mounted as if in a scrapbook. Barcelona helped create a very unique feel for the slides about a class trip, and I'll definitely be inclined to purchase additional themes from Keynote Pro in the future.
x
Finally, Lemkesoft's GraphicConverter gave me a good alternative to PhotoShop Elements (which is not yet a Universal Binary for Intel Macs). I was impressed with this software overall, but I may still get a new copy of PS Elements whenever a Universal Binary is released.
The Less Than Good
I wanted to use a song our children recorded as the background music to the video, but the sound quality of the recording was so poor, it really wasn't an option. The only other complaint I have is that a second Keynote theme I purchased, called Rounded Corners by PagesUser, wasn't as useful as I had hoped. (Also, the purchasing experience was pretty poor.)I also have to continually remind myself that the transitions Push Up, Push Down, Grid Left, and Grid Right do not export to video correctly and should be avoided when building the slideshow in Keynote.
Final Note
This year's project was done with the same versions of iWork and iLife as last year, so everything went about the same. The better hardware smoothed out the process, but this year was really a refinement of last year's techniques. Hopefully, new versions of iWork and iLife will come along about the same time as Leopard, and I'll have some new features to play with for next time.If you want to see a more detailed description of how I put these slideshow videos together, read this post on my Simply Presentation page: From Keynote to iDVD.