Putting together a slideshow

Don McGillivray Slideshow Competition

This annual slide show competition is named after Don McGillivray. In 1970, he was one of the founding members (along with Fred Chapman) of the Burnaby Camera Club, later called the Burnaby Photographic Society, or BPS. Don and Fred started this club because, after attending a night school photography class, they decided that they could do a better job of learning about photography if they met with a group of other passionate photographers to discuss their images, as well as the methods and equipment used to create them.

In the 1990s, Don became interested in presenting his images through the use of slide shows accompanied by music, and he eventually gained a reputation for high-quality shows. To create his slide shows, Don embraced the emerging technology of the era -- a system that included two Kodak projectors, dual carousels, a dissolving unit to fade images back and forth between projectors, and music played from a cassette tape recorder. The creation of these shows demanded patience, precision, and a love of the craft. It was a far more involved process than today’s digital workflows.

Don was an active member of BPS until his passing on July 26, 1996. His wife donated a trophy to the club to be used for an annual slide show competition in his name. Thus, in the spring of 1997, BPS honoured his legacy by introducing the Don McGillivray Memorial Trophy for Excellence in Photographic Essays. Shows were originally up to 15 minutes in length, but later it was decided to reduce the durations of shows to a maximum of four minutes. Each spring since 1997, members have created slide shows set to music in hopes of earning the trophy. What began with carousel projectors and cassette tapes eventually transitioned to digital format in 2005, but the spirit of Don’s vision and dedication remains at the heart of the competition.

Putting together a slide show

Many photographers find that making a short slide show of still photos put to music allows them to apply their photographic creativity in new and exciting ways. Try it out!

BPS has seven documents to help members create slide shows put to music. They describe a range of available software, sources of music, technical guidelines, and general tips for making engaging shows. These documents will be sent to BPS members a few months before each year's Don McGillivray Slide Show competition:

01-Tips for making excellent Shows for Showcase.pdf

02-BPSGuidelinesForShowcaseShows-30March2015.pdf

03-CreatingASlideShow-JohnWilson'sNotes-10Nov2014.pdf

04-Sparrow, Paul-Creating a Great AV Show.PDF

05-Slide-show-making software other than ProShow.pdf

06-Publishing ProShow Projects to match the projector's aspect ratio.pdf

07-Music Sources for Slideshows.pdf

Presentation guidelines

Detailed guidelines for the Don McGillivray competition are given in the documents listed above, but here are some key general points.

  • The main feature of successful slide shows, besides presenting your great photos, is that they keep the audience's attention for the show's duration. To do that, shows might tell a story, educate the audience, or create a mood or emotion.

  • Slide shows are usually about 2-3 minutes long with a maximum duration of 4 minutes.

  • All images must be your own.

  • Strong slides at the start of the show set the mood for the entire show.

  • Carefully order the sequence of slides.

  • Show each image for about 3-4 seconds, although title and credits slides may need longer screen time (6-8 seconds).

  • Keep transitions between slides short (1-2 seconds) and keep zooms, panning and other special effects to a minimum.

  • Short shows can often be stronger, more interesting, and more memorable than long ones.

  • This is your opportunity to try something a bit more creative and unique.

Music

Slide shows are normally set to music.

Our document, "Music Sources for Slideshows.pdf", suggests various sources of free or licensed music.

Make sure your music selection complements the images with an appropriate tempo and mood.

For some shows, you might want to synchronize the image transitions with the music's rhythm.

Use of Video

Short segments of video embedded in a slide show can add interest.

Technical

Slide show resolution should be either 1400 x 1050 or 1920 x 1080 pixels. Our document "Publishing ProShow Projects to match ...pdf" describes how to achieve this.

Please use a common video format like .mp4 or .mov. Also, ProShow.exe files are acceptable.