Wow weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Ha! I did it!!! The presentation is complete!

I can't remember if I've talked about this here before or not, but on Thursday, I have to give a 20-minute presentation on Development Resettlement, the Chinese Governments program to deal with over 2 million people whose homes are suffering from a rather major case of damp as a result of the Three Gorges Dam (i.e. they're under 150 metres of water).

I jokingly asked my tutor, Chris Bramall, if I could just video myself giving a presentation, and show that instead of doing it in person.

"I don't see why not Comrade Tame! Yes, a splendid idea!"

Last week, when I mentioned that I'd decided not to do a video, he seemed somewhat disappointed. Thus, I resurrected my plan, and embarked upon a 40-hour project to create a 20 minute documentary presentation for class.

The whole weekend was spent searching for suitable clips and photos. Prior to that, I'd read numerous journal articles and 2 books on the 3 Gorges. Then, it was into production, Apple's Keynote '08 and iMovie HD (iMovie 08 can't handle soundtrack adjustments) my main production tools, with those special scenes in which I appear actually at the Three Gorges filmed by Photobooth.

It was a long process. I spent hours painstakingly applying subtitles to one particular sequence, only to find at the end that it was just too long - into the trash it went. Other scenes had to be filmed again and again, as I forgot my lines or the sun came out, destroying my magical blue screen effect that allowed me to be at the Three Gorges.

http://tamegoeswild.com/thedailymumble/2007/12/three_gorges_joseph.jpg
The final obstacle was adding narration and getting the timing right. I'd be fifteen minutes into a flawless recording, and then accidentally advance onto the next screen - back to the start I went.

[technical note: All this time I was suffering sudden system restarts - no kernal panic message, it just switched off. A bug in Keynote causes your system to suddenly restart when you click on the 'play' icon. I looked on the forums but no help there, called Apple and after an hour on the phone to 'Owen' was no closer to getting it sorted. Over time I realised that it only ever happened if I pressed play right after clicking on save, and it only seemed to happen with video-heavy presentations. Clearly, Keynote is not saving files as fast as it says it is, resulting in it trying to play a file that is halfway through being saved and thus causing a system restart, which can lead to all system preferences being reset, thus best avoided!]

Finally, about 50 minutes ago I managed a clear run through. The voice over's OK, the timing pretty much spot on. I quickly saved it on two different drives, and am now exporting it as a movie so I can just sit back and laugh at my own silliness when it's played on Thursday.

Whilst the end product is not a professional video, I am delighted to have completed the project. I don't think anyone will believe how much work went into it. I just hope that when marking it, Chris finds it in my heart for getting the name of that city wrong halfway through!

Caw, I love being 'creative'! And the sun's shining today. Oh, and just 13 days till I see my *Twinkle*!