Only Fools and Extras – customised DVD creation for an after dinner speaker

When Ron Golby retired as a leading commercial photographer, he signed up with an “extras” agency. Very soon he was appearing in TV commercials, leading TV shows and feature films, including two “Harry Potter” films.

I have known Ron for many years and he has always been an amazing raconteur, with a wealth of humorous anecdotes. His move into the world of “extras” merely produced even more and he decided to harness these, with “after dinner” type talks, along the way raising money for his chosen charity.

He had numerous video clips from his sometimes very fleeting appearances, with hilarious supporting  stories but no easy way of showing the clips to his audience. From the many options available to play the clips, I suggested customised DVD creation authored with “hold points”. These could be triggered during the presentation from a laptop or DVD player (unlike PowerPoint). The output could then be fed to either a TV or projector as available. Having undertaken similar projects, I was able to display the simplicity of this approach. After capturing and encoding the required clips, the DVD authoring was completed with Ron present to ensure that navigation between the segments met his requirements.

A relatively simple project to complete but a lot of fun to do. I hope in the months to come to hear one of Ron’s presentations in full.