I did my 5 slides PowerPoint on one of my favorite bands –the Foo Fighters. The entire project took around 10 hours despite looking simple and only being one minute long. The title’s slide although time consuming was pretty basic. The only hard part of the first slide was the sound. We needed to insert an .mp3 one-minute loop of a 30 second segment of a song from our band. This was done using iTunes, audacity and selecting an option in PowerPoint. The real pain came with timing each slide perfectly so the viewer could see the contents and all the effects could come in properly while keeping the 5 slides to the one minute time frame to work with the one minute song loop. First off, it is mandatory to set every slide and effect to ‘run after previous’ which is found in the custom animation tab. Also, clicking a slide then pushing transitions tab > options button, it allowed me to change the time for each slide if I picked run automatically after a select amount of seconds. I constantly found myself trying to tweak each slide by seconds trying to make it work.
So first off the full song, “The Pretender” was in iTunes already as an .mp3. I then dragged the song into audacity, which is used to edit music and made the 30-second loop. In audacity I selected part of the song that made up 30 seconds, I then copied it and opened a new window and pasted it twice side by side to make up one minute (it flowed smoothly). I then exported the loop from audacity as a .wav file > dragged into iTunes > and converted it into mp3 (under advanced tab > create mp3 version). In the title slide I inserted the sound. This was done by inserting sound > select the loop mp3 > slideshow tab > custom animation > media options > under stop playing pick after 5 slides (that way the song plays through the entire PowerPoint).
Now for slide two – the fun facts. I searched a bunch of websites for interesting or just general facts about the band that perhaps the commoner wouldn’t know. I then limited each bullet to no more then 10 words, no complete sentences or anything to overwhelm the viewer. I changed the bullets by right clicking the slide > bullets and numbering then selected a more appealing one. The font and the picture in the background was a trial and error process. I believe I went through at least 5 different font combinations for the title and the content until it looked aesthetically appealing (title font = Papyrus, content font = Tekton Pro), while trying to keep the title font the same for all the slides. Same goes for the picture, I actually ended up searching for ‘Foo Fighter desktop wallpaper.’ The results were good quality pictures that could be expanded without stretching the image out of proportion. I sent the image behind the text by selecting the picture > right clicking the picture > arrange > send to back. Now lets get into effects because there are a lot of them (entrance effects which can be found under custom animation). The title ‘Fun Facts’ had a spinner effect, the content had a bounce effect and after each bullet the font would gray out. The graying out effect was achieved by selecting font > custom animation > more effect options > after animation > picked grey as the color.
The third slide had to have an album cover from the band on one side with the album’s songs and their time lengths next to it. I went to slide layout’s tab and picked content with caption layout. I found the album cover Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, and dragged it into the layouts right box, I than for the title on the left hand side put the album’s name and underneath inserted the names and time lengths of the song. This looks easier then it seems. I went to alignment and spacing > horizontal > distributed > I then needed to hit the space bar before the time to fix the spacing. The album font was Papyrus in italics and the content font was Bembo Std. I tried to add numerous effects to spice it up while keeping in mind the time constraints and the viewer. First the album name appears with a fade effect, than the picture fades in as well. The song names and time lengths come in with a fly in effect at a perfect pace, making it easy to read and aesthetically pleasing.
The fourth slide was by far the hardest. It dealt with making a chart comparing 4 different aspects of the band. At first I used a table template but then realized I couldn’t manipulate the words in each box, only the table as a whole as if it was a merged layer. Therefore, I needed to insert > shape, from there I picked the square shape and stretched it out to 4 box lengths and I did that 4 times on top of each other. I then changed each row to be aesthetically pleasing with a white-black alteration. This was pleasing but also a pain because later I needed to individually select each box and change the font (white font on a black box, or black font on a white box). I then picked a line shape and made 3 lines down the boxes to divide them up vertically, the color of the boxes divided them horizontally. Okay so now for what I exactly compared. I compared four songs from the Foo Fighters using their duration, year released and the album they come from. So I used the text box button and inserted the information manually in every box trying to make it as even as possible. The title font was Papyrus and the box font was Bembo Std. I then found another wallpaper of the Foo Fighters > right clicked picture > arrange > send to back to make it more appealing. The effects are where this slide really shines – over 25 effects used. Because I manually made the chart, I made the boxes come in first with ‘light speed’, than the lines ‘peek in’, row 1 had all different effects, row 2 and 3 used ‘dissolve in’ and lastly, row used ‘spinner’. I tried to keep all the fonts and their sizes similar. All in all, I think it’s my best slide and the most aesthetically pleasing.
The last slide (5) was the most fun – it had to be a collage of the band. The title was again consistent (Papyrus – “The Best of the Best”). I found eleven pictures of the band, and inserted them into the slide one at a time, each having a unique effect and position. At the end of the wonderful sequence I inserted a picture I made myself following some of the rules from the collage project. Basically, I used Photoshop and merged photos together by manipulating layers of 6 or so pictures, cropping heads of the band members from several different pictures onto their bodies from one picture and then a album picture and the lead singer on the sides. I then changed the saturation and hue a little bit to get a cool color scheme. It worked out amazingly, the collage made a ripple like effect because some of the pictures in the collage were used alone in the before sequence. After all the picture effects were over, I had the hyperlink of the band appear, which was done by right clicking the slide > hyperlink > I put in the Foo fighters main website and under display I wrote “Visit the official Foo Fighters site – click here!” The hyperlink appeared just as the song ended and after the picture/collage sequence.
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