NYT Studio asked me if I would put together class graphics for display during the spring recital. I had done the same project for them last year, so had a pretty good idea of the process and workload. Overall, the goal was to put together a quality set of images at the correct resolution (1920 x 1080) for display. Some of the images would be ones that individual teachers had provided, while the rest were images that I created based on a short description from the teacher or possibly a link (“something like this image”). I also knew the song name, so could do some additional research there if needed (and I had the time).
For images provided by instructors, I had to make sure they were cropped to the right aspect ratio (16:9) and were the correct resolution. Some were pretty small and had to be scaled up to the correct size. For this I used Topas Gigapixel, a tool that uses AI to scale up the resolution of images.
For all of the images, I also had to provide the titles. This was a combination of a number of factors, including: scrolling through a lot of fonts to find one that I felt matched the picture, determining where on the picture to have the title, choosing a color for the font (typically sampled from a color on the image that contrasted with the background), and then applying one or more effects to make the font stand out (3D effects, shadow, glow, etc).
With images that I created, I tried to supply the instructors with 4 images to choose from that fit the description. This was a challenge, as I wanted the four images to be distinctly different from each other, rather than four slight variations on a theme. This often took quite a bit of pondering, imagining (what do I want this to look like) wording changes and image creation. In the end, most classes had four to choose from, a couple only had three and some got five when I got carried away with it. My goal was to provide such good sets of images that it would be hard for them to choose. I don’t know if that ended up being the case, but it was a motivation for me.
Once everything had been decided on (this might have been the night before the recital, but I’ve conveniently forgotten now), it was time to pull it all together for the production. Renaming the files by recital order was key to keeping them organized, as there was 39 class performances. I saved them all to a thumb drive (but also had my computer along for backup and last minute changes) to take to the recital. At the church, we used their projection system and software (Pro Presenter) and loaded in the songs. I got to hang out in the tech booth and run the slideshow, determining when to turn the next one on (generally as soon as the dancers were all on the stage, hopefully just about in position), and then fading out when songs ended.
With the projection screens are on either side of the stage, I felt that it added a fun environment and context to the dance and vocal numbers. The focus was on the kids, but the graphics (I felt) added a sense of professionalism and imagination to the recital. If you get asked to do this project next year, give yourself a lot of time and try and stay organized.
Here are the rest of the images that I put together.
