tagged: vj

after a month with a heavy dose of xcode on the side, its up to newcastle clutching two fledgling applications to marry with newcastle library’s digitised photo archive, a bunch of iMacs clustered around a 1080P plasma screen, and the memories of the visiting public. it was a heavy weekend of being there with the installation by day and further coding by night, but out of this a very real and user tested photobank has been born.

as the latest manifestation of my personal practice, and something that will very likely become part of my PhD research, there is much more to say than a quick diary post can stretch to. so the full project page will come, i guess in the meantime its easiest to point the lineage to kinetxt which was - with novak - my first attempt at creating an environment where layers of interpretation are encouraged, and they in turn add up to something interesting and unexpected. photobank tries to address this in a more focussed and repeatable way, starting with a base of media archive, and ending with a flow of illustrated short verse.

at the nuts and bolts level, its a full screen photo browsing and annotation application that can be run on many computers for mass interaction by the public, which are networked to a central computer holding the photo archive and running the central display, which acts as both an attractor for the public, animating through the archive and latest annotatations, and as the writer’s tool for creating and showing mini-narratives by selecting six photos and their annotations, and handwriting short verse around them. all written as native mac osx applications using objective-c/cocoa and quartz composer.

diary | 01 nov 2009 | tagged: quartz composer · photobank · *spark · vj · code
- mac os

well… the word is officially out, and rippling around the internet. never seen so many twitter mentions or positive adjectives next to my name - which is nice - but the real deal is are there enough people out there who want one to make a limited production run from the prototype: its not about interest, it will be about orders. http://tobyz.net/project/dvi-mixer

is amazed from this example of userGeneratedProduct: 1° #DVI #Mixer supporting Matrox/Hd. @tobyspark http://tinyurl.com/yfnt4vh Support!

• Davide Gomba, http://twitter.com/VonGomben/status/5041067954

Nice! Compact DVI mixer. http://sparkav.co.uk/dvimixer (via @tobyspark + @_vade ) Make sure to read the direct impetus for its creation!

• Andrew Lovett-Barron, http://twitter.com/ReadyWater/status/5025800435

the amazing @tobyspark has put together the first affordable DVI mixer. you know you all want one! sign up for it now!

• jasper cook, http://twitter.com/VJzoo/status/5010721582

yes you, person who has repeatedly complained about the lack of “affordable” or “digital” mixers, you’re about to get both. So head on over to the *Spark D-Fuser project page, read all of the juicy details, and then hit Toby’s expression of interest form.

• jaymis, http://createdigitalmotion.com/2009/10/20/community-led-entry-to-the-digital-video-mixer-era-spark-d-fuser-approaches/

So now it is here. Not quite. Its really up to you now to go over to his page and put your money where it counts and order one of these things, custom built just for you. Your support will drive this device into demand.

• ilan katin, http://www.modul8.us/2009/10/dvi-mixer-finally-someone-has-done-it.html

diary | 21 oct 2009 | tagged: vj · video-out · dvi-mixer

a sunset to end, aaah. lucky with the weather for our filming day!

diary | 02 oct 2009 | tagged: vj · dfuse

and here we go, leading into the bridges

diary | 02 oct 2009 | tagged: vj · dfuse

coming into newcastle, but can’t shake the oil rigs yet, just too good.

diary | 02 oct 2009 | tagged: vj · dfuse

two screengrabs of output featuring footage andrew shot at tynemouth. oil rigs, beaches and a bleaching sun.

diary | 02 oct 2009 | tagged: vj · dfuse

the title should really be ‘live at sea’ by the looks of this clip. not to mention the setup looked a bit like the bow of a ship.

the performance had some really beautiful moments, and clips made to pan across the full triplehead work so well in that triangular setup, making lighthouse beams in the space. in my opinion we let ourselves down by not having time for a full run through beforehand, the to and fro between ‘particle-as-is plus a newcastle bit’, or ‘newcastle-in-the-style-of-particle’, resolving itself live and as a factor of SSD drive capacities.

diary | 02 oct 2009 | tagged: vj · dfuse · live cinema

the performance was to be the newly transformed great north museum’s event space, a big, white, and empty room. standard two layer ‘proscenium arch’ presentation not so suitable, mike came up with a triangular staging.

diary | 02 oct 2009 | tagged: vj · video-out · dfuse

up to newcastle with d-fuse for a performance of particle as part of reinventing the city. we collaborated with locals novak for a day of filming and a day of performance/prep. nice to be out with them with a camera on a glorious day rather than worrying about wiimotes and audience interaction.

geordie hospitality really can be great. me and andrew were just scoping out an alleyway in byker that got the sunset over the city centre, and literally at the moment we turned around and saw a balcony above a house’s garage perfectly positioned for the shot, when the owner rocked up and offered to take us up there. cups of tea and all.

(and excuse the contrast pump on the shot, couldn’t help myself)

diary | 01 oct 2009 | tagged: vj · dfuse · reinventing the city

and if chase & status wasn’t enough to be getting on with, there was also a long awaited project with moving brands, of which neither i nor they can talk about beyond saying i sat behind a mac and xcode for a week.

diary | 22 sep 2009 | tagged: vj · code · mac os · moving brands

saxon was a straight 2D after effects mission, animating up the cover artwork and compositing into it carnival soundsystem footage. its a heavy dubstep track, and i spent some time making the visuals really follow the bass… looping keyframe expressions ahoy. i’ll upload videos once the tour is over.

diary | 20 sep 2009 | tagged: vj · light surgeons · chase+status

in many ways, this is my favourite video. they wanted the vocalists up on the screen, and this certainly delivers but taking it into chris cunningham territory. the magic was shooting with two cameras simultaneously, one recording crystal clear HD and the other super contrasty nightshot, while flicking the lights around. just compositing the two straight gave a crazy shifting ghost effect, and after some audioreactive magic and graphics passes the effect is really intricate. and with barely a manual keyframe, to boot.

i’ve made a 4-up frame to try and give an idea, but in retrospect it should have been a filmstrip of adjacent frames, the representation of takura flickering around.

diary | 20 sep 2009 | tagged: vj · light surgeons · chase+status

chase and status delivery time: here’s a still from against all odds. this was a nice one to make, splicing together with a good dose of graphical sensibility the card-game-in-a-smoky-nightclub promo video c&s had already with the vocalist shoot we did at the beginning of the project.

diary | 20 sep 2009 | tagged: vj · light surgeons · chase+status

and to answer the title of the first post, here is the best i can do, courtesy of the freestate photographer.

of course, you’re missing six of the satellite screens, two facing in just out of sight offset at the far end, and the four to mirror that end behind the camera’s position. buts the nature of the beast: you can’t watch a 11,000px quicktime, you can’t watch a 3200x1080 crop alongside four 768x768 crops, you can’t get everything in with the viewing angle of the unaided eye even in the stand. thats what immersive, or certainly surround, means.

i hope we can pitch again next year, impressive as it all was i really want to break away from these big white walls…

diary | 03 sep 2009 | tagged: vj · video-out · dfuse

having spent a day documenting our work, i can say this steadycam rig may look the part but is the most awful thing to actually try and use. makes you realise why the film-grade ones are basically terminator suits.

diary | 03 sep 2009 | tagged: vj · video-in · dfuse

a tribute to fellow frequent d-fuser paul mumford: its pretty tough: you’ve been holed up for weeks on end with the impossible brief of this video environment; master of after effects or no, a 11,000px canvas is going to hurt, and you’re finally seeing the results… and you can’t even get a photo of it all, 'cos its wrapped around walls and towers surrounding you!

diary | 03 sep 2009 | tagged: vj · dfuse

from pitch and the day-long meetings to kick it off, its now three months later and i’m actually in the sony stand at ifa 2009. a non-disclosure agreement, a 11,000x1080px canvas in after effects, 15 full-bore mac pros compositing their slice of the 400GB drive image full of particle layers and product prisms, eight screens pixelmapped in surround across the stand’s towers… its been one of those projects of scary statistics, corporate reputations riding on the line and knowing there is no preview, the not-yet-there architecture is the output monitor.

to take a step back, d-fuse won the commission to create the video environment that forms the centrepiece of the stand. having contributed to what in effect were a series of brand films last year, this year was the real thing: together with andy visser’s sound design, creating an audio-visual environment to give a… well, how to describe: something between an emotional journey and a feeling of space to the stand. i like freestate’s vision for the stand, almost as parkland with scattered mini-booths of products, rather than the products! products! products! you find elsewhere.

so its a nice moment to see have mike, mr d-fuse, and adam, mr freestate, in-situ and discussing the finer points of trade-show land with smiles, looking at a stand that pretty much nailed what was discussed those months ago.

diary | 03 sep 2009 | tagged: vj · video-out · dfuse

while in berlin on d-fuse delivery duties, its the birthday of ilan katin. to mauer park with a bottle of fizz for sunset, booze and cake. in opposite order.

flux and lucy as acting masters of visual berlin merchandise surpassed themselves with a gold printed t-shirt for ilan based on his skype icon, how - i certainly - see him week by week. now we just need to make those eyes spin…

diary | 01 sep 2009 | tagged: vj

finally, its plan b for the rip-it-up pieces and their new single ‘end credits’, taken from the upcoming film harry brown. think gran turino but with michael caine instead of clint eastwood, but from the opening minute that i’ve seen, hard hitting would be an understatement.

diary | 28 aug 2009 | tagged: *spark · vj · light surgeons · chase+status

third up, takura for three tracks. we’re in double shoot mode here, flicking the lights and filming in HD and nightshot going for some frenetic cuts when it gets to post.

diary | 28 aug 2009 | tagged: *spark · vj · light surgeons · chase+status