Any skilled VJs around here?
 

If yes, I'd need a helping hand.

I need a visual projection for my gigs to accompany me while I'm playing my live music. As some of you may know, I play ambient music, so a visual is something that might take the whole experience into a whole new level and, other than that, distract the people from staring at me :)

Anyone interested and capable of making a +/- 30minute visual set for me? It could be anything: collages from cut images, live graphics, 3D vectors, psychedelic stuff, just anything that comes to mind. the more creative/non-cliche, the better.

If anyone was interested, I'd be happy to send snippets of my audio set for you to understand the general mood of the music.

Thanks!

i noticed this didn't get a lot of responses and i think why-- it's a lot of work

(well there's plenty of source material) yeah, good skill in a good soft.

i've made videos for a living. currently on hiatus.

the main job here is to gather the source material wherever it may be available and make it conform to your desired format.

so you need to start from the end

i.e. figure out if you're going to be projecting SD or HD or 4K then work backwards.

there are also various aspect ratios like 1.33, 1.66, 1.78, 1.85 etc (that's the shape of your frame)

always start from the end. which really is your projector. why make a 4K widescreen movie if it's going out through an old VGA port with on a 4x3 screen.

as for free open source clips you might want to start here:

https://archive.org/details/movies

i can send you pointers if you wanna do the labor

A fairly simple way, I imagine, would be to create some video feedback with a video cam live feed into a monitor/tv screen. You could then put it together afterwards in an editing software.

like this:
https://youtu.be/-XDnC0DxoEg

Never tried it myself though, but it looks like you can get pretty interesting results.

I've been meaning to look into 3d modelling / animation, but god damned there's lot to learn before you can even do anything useful.

speaking of animations, plips makes some pretty great ones, and is always looking for work...

As Bernard stated this is a lot of work. Probably the most realistic thing is to do it yourself on iMovie our some similar software. At 30 mins long even a modest abstract film is potentially weeks of work.

what soft. do you use? just curious..

nice one.

slavo why not to use Stan's Brakhage ones. he got some nice ones. like this for example.

Dog Star (1:14:45) - no sound
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAoTHILzheo

or

Anticipation Of The Night (40:32) - no sound
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV7tNfkD8EA

I don't know, what is the story with copyright when you get originals. can you screen them publicly (ah feck it, no one is going to find out :-)

my favorite is AVID but more recently i used Premiere Pro due to it compatibility w/ the whole Adobe suite. Avid media management can't be beat though. never had an "offline media" problem with it. and rock solid, no weird crashes, etc. if you get the right hardware, and have the money for plugins etc, which is quite significant, AVID rules all.

these days you can rent AVID for a month i think for $50. for the same price you can rent the whole Adobe Creative suite which includes... eeeeeeevertying.

still have a copy of FCP7. did not like fcX aka "imovie pro". premier was based off FCP or developed in parallel so they are pretty much the same except adobe is not abandonware. FCPX would be good for a project like this one though.

thanks for response everyone.

oh, indeed it looks like it's a lot of work to be done. I didn't quite realize that. damn.

seems like I'd have to learn some of the aforementioned tools myself...

I like the Anticipation one more than the other one.

Do you have any video editing experience? I've never used Avid or Premier Pro but I use FCP on a daily basis and it's not intuitive and also may more complex than you probably need to make something like a what you're doing. I used to make abstract arty videos on iMovie when I was a student and it's easy, intuitive and perfectly serviceable. I'm saying this as I think you might save yourself time and a headache by going to something like iMovie first then moving on to something at a professional level later if you need to.

learn just one and make sure it's simple.

the challenge of your project is not editing per se. you likely don't need effects or compositing or even color correction.

splicing clips together and adding some transitions is a piece of cake.

the difficulty here is the labor involved in:

a) getting a nice collection of clips, which is librarian work

b) conforming all your clips to the same format-- cropping, resizing, etc.-- so that they fit in the same timeline. these are, technically, "effects", but they are so common nearly every app has them. still, there will be some trial and error and waiting around.

learning is easy if you go step by step.

here's an easy article on aspect ratios

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_%28image%29

that's the #1 thing you have to understand. there's a bit of technical stuff on how different video codecs achieve those aspect ratios (as pixels *also* have aspect ratios in themselves, ha ha) but if you get that basic framework then all the rest will make more sense.

--

ps-- what software do you use to make music? what OS?


that would be great for something like this project if he has a mac-- you can make a normal regular movie in imovie.

the natural upgrade would be final cut X-- reviled by editors but great for prosumers-- "imovie with pro features". but i suspect highly unnecessary unless he's ready to get crafty.

===

appears current version is shit and people are complaining:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/imov...434?mt=12&ls=1

forget about it.

i have this painter friend who made a whole art movie (animated paintings) with imovie HD and got pissed at apple when they discontinued that version, which was great. so yeah. current version is too stupid/useless/fuckit.

maybe check ADOBE PREMIERE ELEMENTS? i believe it's platform agnostic. i use the pro version which is overcomplicated and at times glitchy (used to be worse but it's improved tons) but plays nice with photoshop, adobe audition, etc.

"b) conforming all your clips to the same format-- cropping, resizing, etc.-- so that they fit in the same timeline. these are, technically, "effects", but they are so common nearly every app has them. still, there will be some trial and error and waiting around."

Another thing to look out for is whether your footage is interlaced or progressive

oh, holy shit, yes, i had forgotten that annoying problem. capturing footage from old VHS/Beta/U-matic tapes is a nightmare on its own-- best done with a DV bridge, which not sure are still made? but otherwise can be recorded on a camera with cable inputs. otherwise, a non-issue with already digitized footage. even if poorly deinterlaced, it makes for a nice old-timey look (kinda like max headroom or videodrome). time base correction becomes a non-issue since no need for audio sync.

dammit, it's a nice project to think about, this video background. it's the execution that's a pain!

exactly

I don't know, poorly deinterlaced footage makes me feel like my retinas are being scratched out

holy shit, by "poorly deinterlaced" i meant some unavoidable combing, not THAT broken eyesore, which is the first time i ever witness. that's not poor that's bankrupt.

really deinterlacing on a progressive timeline/display is pretty much impossible. there will always be lines. you can reduce them but never get rid of them completely, particularly with fast motion... unless you use an old CRT TV where interlacing operates as it should.

maybe this is a roundabout way to say most footage this days should be conformed to progressive... since computers and HDTVs are progressive in nature... but of course there's still 1080i broadcast TV, ha ha ha ha-- just to give us headaches. but HDTVs can handle that with some electronic wizardry that's utterly beyond my comprehension.

Yes, and it will be a fun process. Sure the first time will be a total pain in the ass and likely take four times longer than it really should BUT you'll

(a) have the satisfaction as an artist in producing your OWN art to accompany your music

and

(b) develop a new artistic skill which you can continue to use with your performances and as you get improved at making them, you will enjoy it all the more.

If that fails, try trolling your local university art department find a bored college kid who will collaborate with you and do it for the fun of it ;)

that is strongly reminiscent of some kind of Datura high..

that looks incredible??

uFf.

the problem is that I am a family man now and the only thing that I am truly lacking is free time.
hell, I have a gig coming up and I don't even have enough time for practice.

at your next show, find an art/film student who wants to make your project for their video class

students are the only people with "free" time (as long as they get academic credit). the retired also have free time but it would be harder to find one with the skills & inclination

for now just put any thoughts of video out of your mind and-- practice when you can

if you MUST have some sort of video just hook up a live camera and point it at the audience, ha ha

(or maybe at your general work area/hands/machines)

yeah just put a tripod at the side, slightly behind you like one of your photos, & let people watch you work-- if you have a photographer friend let them set it up for you in a good spot-- or get someone skilled to operate/move around

There's a DVD available on Pseudoarcana where the maker went on YouTube and did a search for something like Christchurch black and white movies and used what he found as video to go with the music. Maybe you could try something similar with your home town? Actually, thinking about if, I saw a Fennesz performance a few years ago where a film camera was set up filming out of the front of a car as it drove around some country roads, it was quite cool especially since I recognised some of the places.

Or could you film your baby doing whatever it is that it does all day and play that in slow motion to accompany your music? Perhaps you could get your other half to do the filming?

i thought about suggesting that but i thought about exposing that holy creature before a throng of intoxicated strangers. pictures steal the soul!

but yes it could be beautiful.

actually they could film her reactions while he practices

that is actually achievable with something like imovie-- would just be a home movie, from the same camera, no codec/frame adjustments

don't know if it would end up looking like the teletubbies though ha ha

I had to look this up.. brilliant.

by the way, does anyone know Mark Leckey (British artist, working with collage art, music and video. his found art and found footage pieces span several videos, most notably Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (1999))? just discovered him today. that Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore film would be cool as well. not really abstract, but funny. cool funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dS2McPYzEE

yeah, listening to your stuff on soundcloud slavo leckey's work was one of the first things that came to mind, similar in that it coheres into a sort of hypnogogic haze, albeit a very complex one. while he has a lot of this material in the vein of vaporwave etc. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X1QkseVjIY , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rH5Ew_fOTk), fiorucci would make more sense in considering your use of certain dance signifiers ('lush padz', stifled breakbeats) and your ruining of them.

leckey also just put out a bonkers record on PAN with florian hecker for anyone interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYM9x_B_yEk

agreed!

PAN
(and
Hospital Productions). yay!