Fun With Video

I'm working on a video trailer for Sweet Southern Boys. One of the most fascinating and enjoyable things about that is the possibilities for image manipulation to get what you need. Hiring a video production company is out of the question, budget-wise, and even free or low-cost digital images can rack up the fees for graphics editing ... but not if you're doing your own.

I'm doing my own because I want the images to reflect the story and characters as closely as possible Thus, I needed a picture of a Southern river at night. The image below right is available at http://www.freestockphotos.biz/stockphoto/14088 It's identified as a lake, but who's quibbling?

I made the image on the left from it, complete with a crescent moon (almanac sez there was a crescent moon the night of January 14, 1994 and a hazy cloud cover in south Georgia -- so I made a moon in Photo Deluxe and put a haze around it and a reflection below).

All in all, I'm pleased with the result. There will be tons of images in the video that will need to be processed this way to make them "match" the story.

Someday, maybe I'll post all the individual images it took to create this composite:

Meanwhile I'm also having fun with sound effects and music -- the latter of which took me on a detour from my work for a while yesterday. I'm scoring part of the trailer with some soulful saxophone riffs off a production library disc. One section brought to mind some song of the past, but I just couldn't place it -- and I wanted to, really bad. You know how a something like that will get stuck in your head....

I hummed a few bars for my husband and sister, but it rang no bells for them -- and I don't wonder why. The little snippet of music in my head was not singin' music (even if I could sing, which I can't) -- it was playin' music.

So, wondering whether I might recognize the title if I saw it, I started searching the "top hits of 19xx" websites, starting in 1960. I didn't think it was newer than 1962 but I didn't find it, so I went backwards into the 1950s.

In1956 there was a title that looked promising, although it really didn't ring any bells, either. Honky Tonk Parts I and II, by Bill Doggett.

Off to Youtube I went to check in it out. It wasn't Honky Tonk Part I -- but with Part II, I hit paydirt! The opening riff was exactly what I'd been hearing in my head all day!

And now, for your listening pleasure....


If you can listen to this without tapping your feet, you don't have a single calorie of soul....

Honky tonk, indeed....