Multimodal Poetry
Mentor Text: Poetry in Motion, in Movement, in Melody and in Imagery...
tinyurl.com/yyq8cknn
Top Tips
Video - Stock Footage Clips & Images
You will find 'stock footage' very useful, these are clips of things like people walking, waves crashing on a beach et cetera. The don't usually have sound, as it is assumed you will add that yourself in the edit separately.
Video
Many of the websites like pexels that host images you can use, also host stock video footage; all you need to do is filter the search results, here's an example from Pexels:
YouTube
You can find stock footage in YouTube, just add that to the search term, eg 'stock footage waves' then when you find a video you like, view it fullscreen (to get a better quality capture) the problem is there is no download option, so you will need to use QuickTime to record it.
Start recording before the section you need, and stop recording after, you trim it afterwards.
Add Audio Before you Edit Video
Before you edited together your sequence, of images, you need to ensure your narrative performance is recorded first, then you might want to add audio. This might be ambient sound effects (rain? a train? a heart beating?) or an appropriate musical accompaniment.
In iMovie you will need to have an image in the project first before it will allow you to do a voice recording, or you might want to record your audio track using QuickTime. Remember a good performance will probably require several attempts!
Sound Effects (thunder, walking, raindrops...)
Free music:
Audio, Music, and Video: https://mixkit.co/
I have collated more resources here with ways to access audio, including sites that host music/sound effects all of which can be downloaded free of charge.
If it's a professionally recorded song, you can always BUY it, it will only cost you a dollar.
Top Tips
Record the audio before you add or fine tune the images/video. It's much easier to edit the images/video to match the audio, than the other way round.
Remember, sometimes leaving a pause can be very effective, let the image/sound communicate the meaning and emotion for you...
Better Images
When searching for images in Google, look for images that are large, this means they need to be at least 1000 pixels in width if not more. To do this use the Google Search Tools:
Tools > Images > Size ...
Make sure you save the image, not just the thumbnail image!!!
For more better images and videos that do not have ugly watermarks, you can find great high resolution images on these sites, free for educational use:
Screen Record Video
For this project you don't need the sound, as you'll be adding that separately, so when you find a video you like, view it fullscreen (to get a better quality capture) and use QuickTime to record it.
Start recording before the section you need, and stop recording after, you trim it afterwards.
Fade out...
Remember to fade out the audio at the end to avoid an abrupt finish! Drag the little dot at the end of the audio clip to control the length of the fade out...
Top Tips
You can use QuickTime to screen record video, you don't need the audio.
When searching for video clips, try including 'stock' in the search to find stock footage you can use...
Select to effect, so click on the clip you want to work on, you'll see a highlighted outline.
Adjust the playback speed of video clips to suit the mood of the poem.
Sometimes silence for a few seconds can be effective, maybe be combined with a relevant sound effect?
Adjust the clip size and zoom level at different stages of the editing process, to suit the way you work.
Edit the Ken Burns cropping effect to make better use of images, eg zooming in to a certain point
Don't forget to fade the music out at the end, maybe add a fade to black transition as well?
Try to use images that are landscape to avoid 'letterboxing'.
Choose images that are more abstract not necessarily literal, eg that convey feeling/emotion...
Make sure your voice is nice and loud when you record, and lower the volume of the music so we can hear you!
You can find sound effects in the Audio section, look for iLife Sound Effects.
Examples
Note: always make sure you have the SafeSearch box ticked...
