I need critiques, please.

[Chris3jam]

This is a background for "The Messiah". The words will be in the middle. Too busy? Mixed media confusing? (I could not find Baroque paintings for everything I wanted to put on here). There is extra at the bottom, since that part will be covered up (our lighting limits our screen size, so we cannot use the whole screen for everything). Suggestions?

[Esoteric]

Looks too busy to me.

Mike

[tedanderson]

The words will be in the middle. Too busy? Mixed media confusing?

Yes. I can't tell what's going on there.

[Chris3jam]

Ok, how about this? It's hard to tell, but the blue at the bottom in the middle is Bethlehem.

[[Admin] osborn4]

I think that's better, although the lower left picture isn't real clear.

[Esoteric]

Still too much for me. I would either do just the sheet of music (as the whole graphic) or the blue orange color (as the whole graphic) or at the most the sheet music with the star of Bethleham in the upper right corner. If you are dying to use all 4 graphics then I would for sure stretch the sheet music to fit the space and then darken it more.

Mike

[[Admin] osborn4]

I like the idea of stretching the music, then making the background black/very dark.

I would be very tempted to just have one element at a time, but use a different element for each song, as you go through the Messiah.

A bit more work, but you've got a lot of it done already. Just save a set of backgrounds, rather than a single background.

[Gene]

I think Joel has a good idea. All on one slide it's too busy for a text background, but using the elements individually with the music as the basic background could work nicely. I'd put the different elements in the same place on each slide, so formatting the lyrics to fit would be easier but it will also be less jarring to have just the element (and the lyrics, of course) changing rather than having things move around.

[Chris3jam]

Ok, I'll work on it. I just got an idea from another PPT I saw once, where he had three or four pictures at the top, and three or four pictures at the bottom of a parchment-looking backdrop for the words. So, I thought I'd try something like it. Pastor wants the same background for the whole thing, and he wanted something sorta simple-ish. To me, The Messiah calls for something Baroque-ish and sorta classy, rather than modern, so I am trying for something like that, which also helps to tell the Christmas story.

[Esoteric]

I understand where you are coming from Chris, but sometimes style clashes with function and in this case (at least in my HO) function must win out. If it is too busy or too distracting from the lyrics, then you lose the function (like a beautiful lighting design where you can not see the actors). If you are going to do something very intricate you almost have to do something abstract and fade it deep into the background. Keep in mind also Baroque was about intricacy and not necessarily busyness. That sheet music as a background alone could be Baroque based on the intricacy and detail in it.

Just some thoughts.

Mike

[Chris3jam]

Ok, my last try at keeping some pictures. Otherwise, I'll probably just use the star in the corner. I moved everything over to the side, and just used 4 pictures -- well, 5 counting the star. I kept the Bethlehem pic., the wise men traveling pic, Mary laying Jesus in the manger pic. and the angel. I will darken the music backdrop more, for the words to show up better, but I thought I would run this by you all first, before I put too much work into it (again). Remember, that area at the bottom will not be showing on screen.

[Gene]

I think that works nicely. The wisemen will probably get lost since they're so much darker than the other images, but that's not necessarily a problem.