The Northern Audio Visual Group

What Makes a Cracking Audio-Visual Programme?

If we believe the old saying – beauty is in the eye of the beholder – then our audio-visual programmes should tickle the fancy of our audience. Of course, that’s the dream, but let’s not turn into someone desperately seeking the nod from the camera club’s judge. Personally, I reckon our audio-visual extravaganzas should fulfil the ambitions of their creators, unfettered by stuffy rules and fussy regulations.

Pop along to any meeting of the Northern Audio-Visual Group and eavesdrop on the musings of the members. You’ll soon sense there are a handful of, let’s say, ‘guidelines’ that make our creations easier on the eye, but no one’s wielding a rule book with an iron fist. We encourage members to unleash their creativity and develop their own particular styles. Think of the parameters as more ‘friendly pointers’ and less ‘Ten Commandments’.

There are two main breeds of audio-visual programme – the first is pictures dancing to the rhythm of music (Photo Harmony), and the second is the full Monty: commentary, music, sound effects, pictures. Both can spin a yarn admirably, if you don’t go off-piste and ignore a few basic tips.

Here’s an easy one: stick to the same horizontal format for your pictures, nearly always the 16:9 widescreen. There’s nothing more visually taxing than watching a show with black borders popping up and down like an overeager Jack-in-the-box. Your audience came to be entertained, not to play ‘spot the difference’.

An audio-visual delight is basically storytelling with sound and pictures. It’s infinitely more watchable if the sights and sounds make sense together. Don’t feel you must illustrate every syllable or narrate the blindingly obvious – your viewers can spot a cat on a mat without you telling them. The audio, be it a voice-over or a recognisable tune, should shake hands with the images and not wrestle them to the ground.

There’s one ‘guideline’ that’s so important it’s practically a law: change images on the beat of the music. This is the legendary ‘cut to the beat’. Most viewers won’t even notice it – unless you get it wrong, in which case, they’ll sense something is off, even if they can’t put their finger on it. It’s like socks with sandals: you just know it’s not right.

Even though your show consists of a parade of images, don’t think of it as a jumble sale of random snaps. How you glide from one picture to the next is part of the magic. As your ‘show’ meanders along, the pictures should flow – like a conga line, not a rugby scrum. For example, if slide one is a girl in a white dress on a beach and slide two is a different girl in a red dress, try to keep them in the same area on the screen. Don’t make your audience’s eyes do laps around the screen.

A show is much more satisfying if it’s got that classic story structure – a beginning, a middle, and an end. If the ending answers the question that you posed at the start, or reveals a dazzling twist, you’ll have your viewers cheering for more (or at least awake until the credits roll). There’s nothing like giving your audience that ‘a-ha!’ moment.

None of this is rocket science, and if you’re keen to have your stories applauded (or, at the very least, politely tolerated) by your audience, put together a programme and bring it along to a Northern Audio-Visual Group meeting. You’ll get tips, tricks, and maybe even a biscuit. Or just pop by anyway to see what everyone else is up to – you’ll always get a hearty welcome. In the end – it’s you who puts the ‘good’ in a good audio-visual programme. (And maybe a dab of humour helps, too!)