Audio visual techniques – Jan 2015

Our guest speakers on AV techniques in January 2015 were Tony and Jenny Byram from WAVES, Western Audio-Visual Enthusiasts.  WAVES was formed in 1996 and meets four times a year on Saturdays in Trowbridge, Wiltshire.   During the evening they showed us a selection of A-V sequences, some their own as well as some by other WAVES members to illustrate a variety of approaches and for different purposes.  Several had voice-overs that had been done very professionally.  The range of subject matter was quite wide, and ranged from humorous through to a commemoration of a former member.  One particularly impressive aspect was the quality and preparation that had gone into planning the original stand-alone images as well as the overall sequence.  AV as an art form is fully recognised by the photographic bodies and so it is possible to gain distinctions through this route.

In the second half of the evening, they briefly introduced the software they used, namely “Pictures to Exe” www.wnsoft.com which is available for a quite modest price of less than £50.

The WAVES website can be found at www.wavesav.co.uk.  There was quite some interest about the inevitable problems of copyright and licencing for the music part and Tony explained how these issues can be simply handled by annual membership of the Institute of Amateur Cinemaphographers www.theiac.org.uk (a registered charity) who can then help with low cost licences to cover four of the commercial and library music licensing bodies.  The IAC also has a Music Advisory Service to help source suitable music tracks.  The IAC website appears a first class and authoritive source of information and advice on what is otherwise normally regarded as an impenetrable minefield.

We were very grateful to both Tony and Jenny for coming to talk to us and giving us a much wider view of AV and how to approach the technical and licensing aspects with confidence.