Tell Your Story - Give great presentations

Hello, and welcome to Media Connexus Impression Studio, or simply Impression Studio. Impression Studio is a generational leap in presentation software. Gone are the days of static slides, childish animations, and lame effects ñ thatís all so 1990ís. With Impression Studio, anyone can create dynamic, integrated, and compelling presentations in minutes. With Impression Studio, you wonít be flipping through boring slides when you present ñ youíll be telling a story. In fact, since Impression Studio is so far ahead of any other presentation software out there, I would like you to keep the analogy of a story in mind. Letís get to work. This is Impression Studioís main workspace and where youíll be doing most of your story telling. This big white rectangle is our stage. Right now, our stage is empty. We need some set pieces and actors. Theyíre right over here in the Gallery tool bar. Letís call an actor to the stage. All I need to do is... ... grab him by the scruff of the neck and... ... drop him on the stage. Since Iím the director, I also need to show the actor his mark ñ the place where I want him to end up. There. Iíve got an actor on the stage and he knows where to go. Now, I want to show you something down here in the Sequence tool bar. Like any good actor, our actors have particular ways they enter the stage when the performance starts. They might swagger like John Wayne, or they might saunter like Marilyn Monroe. The Sequence tool bar shows us how long it takes for the actor to get from off stage to his mark. Letí*** the play button to see how our actor enters the stage. That looks good. More of an unassuming ***-Allenesque shuffle, but thatís what I wanted. But thereís a problem ñ our actor doesnít know his lines yet. Right now, heís just spouting gibberish (actors really are nothing without writers!) I just need to click in where his line is and give him a new one. Good, now he knows what to say. Thereís just one thing missing ñ a soundtrack. Letís call that actor to the stage. Since this actorís the orchestra, we can just leave him on the stage and heíll hide in the background. Heís still there, but we donít want him getting in the way of the other actors. Okay, letís run the scene and see how our storyís coming along. Not only does it look good, it sounds good, too! Letís move on to the next scene. We just click on this button... ... and voila! A new scene! I hope you notice something about our new scene... There are already actors on our stage! In fact, they are the same two actors from our last scene, and that makes perfect sense. Remember, you are the director ñ you tell the actors when to enter the stage and you tell them when to leave. We havenít told the actors on stage whether or not we need them for this scene. If we donít need them, we should tell them to leave. If we do need them, we should just leave them alone (actors get a little testy if we bug them too much). Letís do a little of both. Letís tell one actor to leave the stage and weíll keep the other. Click the actor so he knows weíre talking to him. Then up in our properties bar we have a tab for ìActionsî. This is where we tell the actor to leave. When we click on ìApply Remove Actor Actionî we get a new entry in our Sequence tool bar. Just as with the ìAdd Actorî action, the ìRemove Actorî action has a period of time associated with it. Not only do our actors swagger, saunter, or shuffle on to the stage, they also exit the stage in a particular way. Letís play our new scene and see how this actor leaves the stage. Cool! Weíll leave the orchestra playing so just leave him alone. Okay, Iím going to bring some more actors on to the stage... ... show them their marks. Now, notice in the Sequence tool bar we have five actors. Oneís leaving the stage, oneís been there since the last scene, and three others are entering the stage. Letís see how they work together. Oooh! Iím not sure I like that. Cut, cut, cut! Three actors walk out onto stage at the same time as one actor is leaving. It looks messy. I think our story would be better if we let the first actor get off the stage, then the others can sort of follow each other on. So, not only can we determine which actor we want, and where we want them to go, we can also tell them when we want them to come out. We can tell them what their cues are. Down here in the Sequence tool bar weíll just move our second actorís ìAdd Actorî action so that it starts after the first actor has left the stage. Just click and drag. Now, weíll tell the other actors to follow each other on. And weíll tell the third actor to start walking out when the second actor is almost to his mark. There. Letís see how that looks. Much better! But these actors need their lines. Places everyone, letís do a dress rehearsal! Excellent! Now, thatís a show! I think this scene has done its job and itís time for a new one. Click for a new scene. Again, notice how all our actors are still in this new scene, including the orchestra from the first scene. You see, Impression Studio is not about static images and text on a slide. Impression Studio is about creating dynamic, powerful, and engaging stories. You are the director, these are your actors. Your actors have particular behaviors and lifetimes on the stage. Itís your job to tell them when to enter the stage and where to go when they do. When theyíve done their job and delivered their particular part of your story, itís your job to tell them to leave. And you can be assured theyíll enter and leave the stage in a dramatic way (theyíre actors, they canít help but be dramatic!). In our last scene, Iím going to tell one to leave, then Iím going to tell him to come back with a different line. Set the scene, call your actors, and tell your story. Media Connexus Impression Studio is here to help.