JUST DANCE : Behind the Scenes

Melanie Chalk

The idea for Just Dance formed after viewing and processing a huge le of images, 1400, taken at a Creative Dance Workshop. This workshop provided beautiful young dancers, moving slowly and gracefully across the backdrop trailing gauzy materials and ribbons. When processing the photographs, I could visualise them oating dreamily across the screen, and an AV idea was germinating. Originally called Ballet, with thousands of oaty images in a folder, I revisited other images taken at a Sync Lighting Dance workshop and thought I could combine the two.

My way of approaching a new project is to get the soundtrack sorted. I settled on two pieces by Debussy. These tracks weren’t specically composed for ballet, but fullled my brief of being slow and dreamy and would make a good background for my images and voice over. I went in search of an orchestra tuning up, as my opening track. Then I went searching for poetry, to be slotted in between the music tracks. I have the sound track in place before I even think about the images in a denite way.

I continually try images, making minuscule adjustments, taking them back into Photoshop, adding, taking away, trying different blends until I am happy. The more formal images of the ballet dancer, taken at the RPS Workshop were overlaid with low opacity gauzy materials, sometimes in Photoshop or directly in PTE. Others were cut out and added to other images, even a lovely pink dahlia!

Just Dance: Behind the Scenes continued ...

My style is for subtle use of movement, and an attempt to create atmosphere for the viewer. I use ‘Objects and Animation’ for all my images and the ‘Key frame’ points are then plotted along the timeline, introducing other elements at varying opacities. In ‘Pan and Zoom’ I use ‘Slow Down’ to give my required smoothness, also enlarging some images and moving them slowly across the screen. I used portions of the blurred materials of the dancers over the top of many of the images to soften and also to change the colour tones and introduce another group of dancers, and to try to complete a seamless transition. There were 33 single images used along the timeline with a few more added as overlays.

I try to use symbolism or a suggestion of an image to tell my story rather than being too obvious. I wanted to show the curtains parting and rather than using an image of curtains, I eventually settled on the transition 'Gates' to give the effect of them opening.

This is how I work and how I have developed my style. For some it would seem my photography is not the strongest element and even sometimes not shown on the screen for long enough to be enjoyed fully but I believe that an Audio Visual is the combination of the three parts, music, voice and images. My aim is to create mood, add atmosphere and evoke some emotion in the viewer and be, just that bit different. Sometimes I am successful with the judges, sometimes with the audience, but ultimately, I myself am content with the endeavour, enjoy the creativity, and relish the research and quest for suitable music. My thousands of images are being utilised and I am learning processing skills along the way; satisfying but very time consuming.

The Northern Audio-Visual Group, https://thenorthernavgroup.co.uk, has just two events a year, one in March and one in October. Our mission is to provide an opportunity for AV workers from the whole of the North to meet for a day to see Attendees Sequences, to hear well respected speakers and to have an excellent lunch in good company. As a further and very useful addition to our day, we invite well known AV workers from other regions to provide recorded constructive comments on our attendees’ sequences.