Please Let The Writing Be Over...

Right. Time to get my head straight. I've spent the last four days writing up projects - I'm sure you can imagine how mind numbing that can be. I've also got three days to finish my self negotiated project (the one with all the projection stuff) and I haven't been able to work on it for about six weeks (bar a couple of days the other week) because of various fuck-ups, the most recent being a useless bunch of fuckwits selling me something they "don't actually have sir, oooOOoo, it's virtual stock, you see". Honestly, I do despair sometimes.

Anyway, hopefully it'll arrive tomorrow morning (I've ordered it from another website now) just as I wake up, fresh for three days of stress. I'm going to really have to push it to get some decent results before the deadline. This project hasn't made me any the wiser as to how I'm going to apply this technique so far, so I need to try some decent stuff out so I can think about it over the break.

The plan is to try out the two most ambitious ideas I've had for the project, CONCENTRATE AND THINK ABOUT WHAT I'M DOING, be patient, and take my time to do some decent animations while I'm at the factory. The first one is the one that's storyboarded a couple of posts below - I've developed it a bit more in my head though. The other one will involve cubes hanging from the ceiling instead of triangles. Much more complicated and time consuming to sort out but, like i said, I need to push it.

On a side note, these three videos are really good. I want to combine all three styles, plus my work, in future. God knows how though.


ch'ien belgique from depart on Vimeo.


Etienne De Crecy Live 2007 Transmusicales de Rennes from Clement bournat on Vimeo.


Animal Collective - Leaf House from benjamin ramirez on Vimeo.

Sound Re-design - Finished

I heard this for the first time on the proper mixing sound room set up since I'd made quite a few changes the other day, and made the decision not to make any more changes to it. It's sounding good, I reckon. Certainly a lot better than I had anticipated being able to achieve. Here it is...


Sound Re-Design - Finished from Retchy on Vimeo.

Certainly a lot more subtle than previous versions, the changes from the last version I uploaded are probably too small to be noticeable on normal computer speakers though. The main change is in the sound of the repeating, throbbing noise - I've layered it up with two other sounds to soften it a bit, and automated the reverberation and volume settings for each in and out point of every pulse. I've also tidied up the end to make it slightly less unsure of itself, and sorted out the levels for the whole track, which makes a huge difference to the overall feel of the clip - everything just sits together so much more nicely, and the range of frequencies are much clearer now.

More Narrative Presentations

I got to sit and be entertained today and didn't have to worry about presenting stuff, which was nice. There was some really good presentations today, which made me a bit jealous cos I felt like I could have pushed myself a bit more and come up with something more interesting. Oh well. Anyway, Juliet's was dead good - she just had a table and a lamp set up, started some sort of campfire song playing, and proceeded to lay out a camping scene in front of us with little propped up, cut out drawings she'd made. A really random story about people with Goat skulls for heads ensued, but it just seemed to work with the music. The simple black and white ink drawings really stuck in my mind for some reason.

Who else was good? They were all good, but, shit I can't remember her name (Jackie?), she basically managed to make us all feel like we were four years old again. In a good way. She just told us a nice little story about an embroidery needle, and then revealed that the blanket that had been on her knee throughout was actually a kind of embroidered storyboard of the whole tale. Really simple, but extremely effective. I'm jealous of her grandchildren.

Sound Re-Design

Spent a good few hours cooped up in the sound booth today and managed to make quite a few improvements I think. You won't be able to hear the bass on here very well probably, but the mix is all wrong anyway. I'm just working on getting the flow of it right at the moment and I'll worry about the levels later.


Sound Re-Design - Work In Progress from Retchy on Vimeo.

I quite like the start with the tunnel effects as you're outside the car and the change to a warmer, more muffled sound as you join the character inside. That bit was completely underdeveloped until today. I've also taken out quite a few of the rumbles that happen as the lights flash - there was a noise for every single pulse before, and it was complete overkill. All the sounds are recorded from a transistor radio I've had since I was about 8 - it still has the original batteries in it! - and another old '70s one I got off ebay.

More Planning

Now that I've decided to spend all that money, I just want to bloody get on with it really, but I'll have to wait until the thing arrives now. I've set up Modul8 in preparation - I think this is how it will work - the DualHead2Go apparently fools the computer into thinking it has a reeeeeaaaalllllly wide (or double) screen resolution so you can span different outputs across it. I think. So I doubled the horizontal output of Modul8 so that it is 8:3 instead of the normal 4:3 aspect ratio. The left side of the screen will go to projector one while the right side will go to projector two. Again, I think.


Here's a storyboard for the test I'm going to do next week. Hopefully I'll be able to get someone to operate the camera for me, cos this is really a two man job. If you click the picture you'll be able to actually read it.

Quel Surprise, Une Probleme Technicale!

I was working on the assumption that I would be able to use two laptops in order to project both onto the hanging shapes and the wall behind. However, I'm not allowed to borrow the extra one from the college, cos I'm apparently not the right kind of student. I now have to spend money on a solution that probably won't work, or even more money on something that definitely will work. I won't bore you with the technicalities, but basically I need a gadget that will allow me to output two different sources from the same laptop.

The cheaper option will mean I have to have a setup like this, actually physically having to mask the projectors off with card or something, which will be virtually impossible to set up without me wanting to kill something...and I'm not even sure it's possible.


The expensive option would be sooooo much easier and would be guaranteed to work - Matrox DualHead2Go. I have a decision to make.

Edit: I just got my loan through. What's a hundred pounds these days, eh? I'll try and sell some more videogames to cover the cost. It better be worth it though...

Sound Re-Design

I had an interesting tutorial with a sound designer called Barnaby, whose surname I can't remember, today. We went through what I had already done on the project (not really very much), and picked apart what was and wasn't working. He pointed out that the beginning gets far too over the top, far too soon, and lacks the subtlety that is needed for it to contrast with the build up and climax of the rest of the track. I did kind of know this, but was ignoring the fact and distracting myself by tinkering with the minutiae of the project instead of concentrating on the overarching flow from start to finish. He talked a lot about orchestrating all the elements of the track, gradually introducing elements, pulling them back at certain points, synching with the images and then cutting off that relationship temporarily and so on...all really helpful points that have jolted me out of my blinkered focus and made me concentrate on the overall flow of the piece.

Up until now I've been reluctant to get stuck into this project for some reason. I've had the odd couple of hours here and there, but just ended up becoming really frustrated with the software we're using (Logic 7). I don't think I'm the only one either - David had his entire project deleted by the program the other day (!), and Catherine's always saying how much she despises it. I can see why now, it's just really temperamental and completely ILLogical most of the time. I'll have to get over it now though and get stuck into the project - I'm much more up for it after that tutorial...

I may upload what I've done so far next week sometime, so you can see what I'm on about.

Narrative Presentation

I presented Marvin to the class today, and got some feedback from them afterwards. They seemed to get it I think, after a bit of a painful pause before anyone actually said anything. David and another person however, put forward the idea that perhaps the film is a metaphor for ejaculation, the robot sewing his seed across the planet. Hmmmmm. Others thought the tornados were Marvin's "ideas". These are the kinds of things that come out of people's mouths when they've spent too much time at art college. They seemed a bit confused when I told them that it was just, you know, errrr, a whirlwind machine. I'm joking of course (!), it was nice to get other people's perspectives on it - I'm just relieved that they weren't completely bemused by the whole thing. It's a simple idea I suppose, so maybe people just naturally feel the need to read more into it...

Hand Drawn Mapping

Here are a couple of quick tests I did the this week up at the factory. It's really hard to avoid falling into the Tron aesthetic when you're doing this kind of stuff, which is exactly what I found myself doing at first, and being annoyed when it looked a bit shit. So I decided to quickly try out this idea instead, drawing out the projection map by hand.


Hand Drawn Mapping from Retchy on Vimeo.

I thought, although it's a bit rough, that this was a promising line of enquiry so I decided to give it a proper go the next day. Unfortunately I didn't have much time then either, so this is only marginally improved but much clearer I think. I'll have some full days there next week to try out more stuff, like doing some sort of transition from having the video footage in the background to isolating the outlined shapes by fading the background out or something. Or maybe doing some line drawn animation to project behind the triangles etc...


Hand Drawn Mapping - Slightly Better from Retchy on Vimeo.

I quite like the effect at the end when I moved the camera out of position, maybe I can develop that a bit more. I'm going to try and get my head around somehow filming it so that I can project the bit where I'm drawing the outlines away from the hanging shapes, so that it's more obvious what's going on, and then move the paper into position so it lines up with the hanging shapes. The shapes, and their shadows, are getting in the way a bit at the moment. This may involve doing it all backwards. My head hurts.

I'm also going to try filming with my Super 8 camera to see how it looks, and b) to find out if the camera actually works or not. I don't think I have time to try 16mm - maybe it's something to do next term.

Polygon Reprise

After, what, four weeks of fucking about trying to sort out various spaces I've finally settled back into this project and I'm getting excited about it again, which is good. The Perfect Space I thought of on Anglia Square was just a pain in the arse to get anywhere with - I found out I'd need the backing of a charitable organisation in order to get in there, but Outpost turned me down cos they only offer support to work that can be exhibited. This is something I might have been able to negotiate, but I was running out of time. Maybe it's something to bear in mind when I come to ideas for the Masters project. Suzie's been great though, running around for me trying to find somewhere else closer to college for me to work, whilst I've been busy with other stuff. She couldn't get anywhere in town but did however find me a different room in the factory, and I was up there today blacking it out so I can work during daylight hours.

I think it's going to work this time - I've set up a white screen with some big bits of chip board that happened to be there already, so I can do some cool feedback stuff, the ceiling is nice and low and not chicken wire, and it didn't appear to be nearly as cold in there today. Although that could have been me sweating from the bike ride up there.

Some footage tomorrow perhaps...