Movie making, Mac style. (contains related articles on Clip Sounds and VideoWorks Interactive) (evaluation)

Movie making, Mac style While it isn't likely that we'll be seeing any feature-length Video Works movies in the near future, more than a few companies have opted to use the very theatrical approach to business presentation that VideoWorks II offers. Modeled after conventional theatrical production, VideoWorks II uses both terminology and visual tools that are designed to make a traditional movie maker fell right at home.

For example, the moving objects and characters that appear in Video Works movies are called the cast. The movements in a particular segment are collectively called a scene; all of the scenes together are called the score. Each time a particular segment is recorded, it is called a take.

If you have seen the guided tour supplied with the Mac II, Aldus FreeHand, Microsoft Write or Nashoba's FileMaker 4, you've already seen some VideoWorks movies.

Making a movie

VideoWorks II will work on almost any Macintosh, from a 512K to a Mac II. Of course, the bigger the Mac, the more it is capable of doing.

VideoWorks II creates two kinds of documents: Overview documents and VideoWorks documents. VideoWorks documents are animated segments that may include an assortment of characters and backgrounds. Overview documents, on the other hand, are more like slide shows. They display stored images for specified periods of time. However, unlike slide shows, Overviews may include still images, animated VideoWorks segments and sound. In essence, Overview is a sequencer, playing back every item it contains, whether that item is a still picture, moving picture, sound segment or some combination of the three.

Producing a movie using Overview consists of placing the appropriate items into an Overview window. The items are placed from left to right in the order they are to appear. Overview documents can display MacPaint and MacDraw format files, VideoWorks II animated documents, or anything that can be printed by Glue from solutions Inc. of Montpelier, Vt.