ShowLogicâ„¢ - Excite.Engage.Involve - an extemely versatile presentation tool
Wow! - It's been a busy month for our litigation support team here in Video Resources! We clarified and presented a video in a ten year old murder retrial that resulted in me having to appear as an Expert Witness to explain the "how's and why's" of video forensics to an unenlightened jury ("ie, This is NOT CSI!).
The following week we quickly changed gears when we were called into a new case involving FUNGUS! We now now more about water damaged homes than we ever thought we would or ever cared too.
However, this case is interesting because we are working with a law firm who has NEVER dealt with using ANY hi tech presentation services - EVER. We were recommended to them as a source for editing their clients insurance video for their lawsuit and wound up presenting their opening argument (via the video) for them in the smallest court room available in Orange County (Calif) Central Division. (Seriously.. Dept. 56 is the tiniest court room I've ever had to work in).
The firm that retained our services insisted that we do the presentation for them, no matter how simple, because they'd witnessed enough "multi-media meltdowns" in court to want NO PART of running their own presentation.
The opposing counsel consisting of (three separate law firms) showed up "loaded for bear"; they had their projector, their "portable" 8 foot by 8 foot screen, their DVD player(s) , their ELMO , their Sanction Legal Presentation Software, their PowerPoint program and their Anchor Systems amplification system. They had a top notch presentation group from Los Angeles which acted swiftly and efficiently running all manner of cables hither and fro while trying to avoid us while we attempted to hook up our 2 power cords and our plasma screen.
Yeah, for all of our prowess in preparing and presenting magnificent presentations, all we had was a DVD player and a plasma screen.
But hey.. sometimes... just sometimes,... less is more!
The trial started - the opposing counsel dismissed (rather rudely, I might add) their presentation team because one of their attorneys "knew all about how to present this stuff". (You know what's coming, right?)
We went first and 30 minutes later our little video was complete and our work for the day was done.
The opposition began their opening statement and then restarted their opening statement and then asked for 5 minutes to "sort something out" and then started again. Things went well for about 6 minutes when their PowerPoint presentation switched from a chart to a time-line to a series of photos- all without explanation - so, after a little fumbling and weak jokes about technology they skipped that part of the opening and they next jumped to their DVD which didn't fare much better because the audio didn't work and then the DVD flat out quit. (I can't make this stuff up!) Finally, the judge, sensing a total meltdown, called for an early lunch break so the entertainment committee could get their presentation back on track. (I fought back the urge to stand up and applaud the judge's wise decision).
Which brings me, in my roundabout fashion, to ShowLogic™...
The website for ShowLogic™ software has an opening title that reads:
"Introducing ShowLogic™. It’s everything you never thought you could have in a presentation platform."
And it really is.
I was given a chance to try out the ShowLogic™ program which has several available modules which can be added separately depending on your specific needs. My specific need is court room presentation and this program leans more to corporate/sales presentations so the basic program worked just fine, and the platform is so versatile that it's easily adapted to ANY presentation needs.
Here's the really neat part (for me at least) in working with this program: it supports a whole array of programs that many of us use throughout a case...
- Adobe Flash (.SWF)
- Microsoft PowerPoint slides and presentations (.PPT, .PPTX)
- Microsoft WORD documents (.DOC)
- Adobe Acrobat files (.PDF)
- Text Files (.TXT)
- Graphics: .JPG, GIF, .BMP, .PNG
- Microsoft Windows Media (.AVI, .ASF, .WMV)
- Adobe Flash Video (.FLV)
- .MPEG.. MPEG2, .MP4, .DIVX
- Web Files: .HTM, .HTML
... and puts them into ONE tidy little package.
The "trick" to applying any or all of these to a case is that you need to edit all of your files ahead of time before loading them into the "Administrator" which is where you'll designate the order of your presentation. The "Administrator" allows you the flexibility of making changes in your presentation (of the pre edited files) "on the fly".
A second unit of the program is dubbed the "Presenter" which is designed (I assume) for marketing and sales departments to have a pre-defined presentation that cannot be manipulated/changed by the presenter. For my purpose this was something I probably wouldn't use for court purpose for the obvious reason that changes, invariably, seem to be needed (and expected) to be made at the drop of a hat.
I encourage anyone dealing with the pressure cooker of presenting a successful multi-media opening statement to go to the ShowLogic™ web site (http://showlogic.catevo.net) and get a demo of the program and put it through its paces and see for yourself.. I really think you'll be impressed as much as I am!
So - back to my original story of the "know it all attorney" and his courtroom adventure into the unknown that went awry; IF they had made the meager investment into a program like ShowLogic™ their opening statement would have run seamlessly and with a much lower degree of embarrassment and a much higher degree of impact and left the jurors with a much better impression of the merits of their argument.
But... I don't know.. you can always tell an attorney.. but not very much!
