Christopher Maxwell

Performance Technology Student

[chrisatuni]

Vision Class 7&8: 30/5/2017 & 31/5/2017

In today’s class, we started to choose content for the visual poem, we first choice that we would use a grayscale colour scheme, with this we hoped to strip back the content and take away some detail and make it more unified from an artistic standpoint and form a technical one it meant we would not have to worry about the colour of the content we used as it would all be altered to suit. We picked out the best of the phrases we had picked out that we felt would not only create a visual narrative but that we could also easily find appropriate content without spilling into the world of the literal. We chose to use few different pieces of content with them playing for 20 to 30 seconds plus each allowing for the viewing to focus on the words more than the visuals meaning that they complemented each other as opposed to the visuals overpowering the words, which ultimately were the focus point of the poem.

As far as the actual content goes, we had several ideas and inevitably had to sort through the ideas we had and eliminate the content we felt was too literal for the abstract idea, and goal we had in mind. We ended up with 13 different bits of content we wanted to use, and we had the order we wanted to use, to each of them we linked them to a line that we wanted to activate them on as well as the lines that inspired them. The content was, Smoke, a Laughing face, a Dark figure, the laughing face again, a warp of the face, a second warp, a pause and rewind of the face, a dashboard time-lapse of a driving car, a screaming face, a spinning video, a dark raining street, more smoke and then a warp on the screaming face.

We felt that these choices related to the piece in each of their own way, all being an abstract idea that related to words and phrases in the text.

Smoke: We felt that starting with the smoke related initially because it emphasised the mystery are aura of the poem, one idea I held onto was that the person that did the voice over for out recoding reminded me of the idea of an old heavily bearded man smoking a pipe in a dark room speaking mysteries.

Laughing face: This linked to the phrase “destroyed by madness” the first though was to have a figure that was reminiscent of DC’s Joker and the pictures of him maniacally laughing. We felt this linked into the chaos of the world this poem is portraying and symbolising.

Dark Figure: This linked to the word “hallucinating”, the idea was to show content of a showy figure, as if you couldn’t tell if it was there or your eyes were just tricking you. We were unable to find the idea content and combined with some poorly done editing it lead to us having a video of someone walking around the empty halls of an abended building, we felt this worked in another way that linked to the poem in the sense that the poem likes the idea of mystery and being lost in the world.

Return to the laughing face: This linked to the word “terror”, this linked again because the face represented madness and we felt terror and madness are very similar ideas.

The first warp: This first warp was a making the content red and giving it a motion blur. This linked to the word “marijuana”.

The second warp: this is making the content have a time warp and its natural colour. This is linked to the word “nightmares”

Stop and rewind: This ended up being a pause and hold, it was linked to the phrase “Time between”

Dashboard time-laps: this was a clip of a car driving down a busy road sped up and linked to the phrase “endless ride”

Screaming face: This linked to the word “screaming” this was the most literal choice we made.

Spinning: this was content of us spinning with a camera in hand. It linked to the phrase “around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go”

Dark raining street: this linked to “smalltown rain”.

Smoke: this was the same video as the other smoke and linked to “narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism”.

Warp on screaming: this was making the content red and adding motion blur, it linked to the final line as we thought it was a powerful image to finish on.

We Chose to use QLAB as software to deliver this poem on as it allowed for us to fully automate the content without having to fully render a video and allowed us to easily edit without re-rendering.

[chrisatuni]

Vision Class 6: 29/5/2017

In today’s class, we continued to with our Brexit monologues for the last class. I had faced a big problem while making my content as Resolume Avenue 4 requires content to be in a very specific codex which you actually have to download onto your computer, while this isn’t an issue on Macs as once you have done so you can use Quicktime to convert it on PCs, like I have, you can’t do so as QuickTime is not up to the version which you can do that. Instedd I had to download a custom program that had been made to convert files for Resolume Avenue 4 which took about two hours to convert some of my videos. Once we had all finished we started to present them, it seems that many people liked mine as I had done some fun little tricks with my content.

Once everyone had presented we moved onto out assignment for the next two classes, which was to make a 6 minute visual poem to go with a poem called “Howl part 1” by Allen Ginsberg. I paired with Nathanael for this project and we quickly developed an idea around what we wanted to do.

[chrisatuni]

Here is a still from a news report that I am using in my content for the Brexit monologue 

[chrisatuni]

Vision Class 5: 175/2017

In today’s class, we were given a section of a monologue about Brexit. We were required to use on of the VJ software we used in the previous class and create about 5 minutes’ worth of content. We started by reading though the script and we discussed how we would have the setting for this piece, as we realised that the way in which the content would be delivered would affect the kind of content that could be used.

I decided on going for a pub theme, as it was based outside of one I would have the vision delivered from a tv screen within the pub that you could see through a window. I would use British sports coverage as landing content in-between more conceptual imagery.

I used Resolume Avenue 4 as the software to deliver the content, while this program was fantastic for what I was trying to do as I could easily layer two videos and I was also able to layer videos to help with transitions. Also due to the way the program imports in content I could switch between them very easily

[chrisatuni]

Vision Class 4: 16/5/2017

Today in class we were introduced to live vision mixing software, which is commonly known as VJ software. We were split into 4 groups and were each given a different software to use. I was given Arkaos Grandvj. It took a while for me to work out how to use this program and while I did enjoy using it once I found worked out how to use it suffered from many draw backs like the inability to cue up content, also all visual effects were in a scroll wheel menu that you had to scroll though the effects and as you scrolled though them it applied each of them which confused me as to why you would want that in a live situation.

We were then told that we were to make a 2 minute sequence of video to show for the class, while I was able to set it up some pre build things when I unplugged my laptop and plugged it into a main projector the program wouldn’t recognize the new output so I wasn’t actually able to present mine.

After this we were then paired up with another group and tasked with teaching the other group to use our software. The group I was paired with was using Resolume Avenue, which was a much better program as it was all quite simple to use and everything was quickly available. We then had a discussion about the programs and came to the conclusion that the best two software was Resolune Avenue and Modul8

[chrisatuni]

One of the coolest things from today's class was playing around with video loops.

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Vision class 3: 29/3/2017

In today’s class we were playing with live feeds and how they could be used and how they can create video loops. We started by having a look at how video loops worked and how to achieve them. We were then split into 4 groups and given a camera each, we were tasked with creating a mini show that used a video loop and also showcased an emotion that we were assigned. The emotion that my group was assigned was Joy. We spent a lot of time playing around with the effect you could cause in a video loop with light, however we had a lot of trouble finding something that would suit the theme of joy.

After much trial and error we finally settled on playing with the lighting effect and showing a person smiling in the camera with the loop behind them.

[chrisatuni]

This was the kind of video we would have used as a backdrop in our concept design

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Vision Class 2: 2/3/2017

In today’s class, we were split into 4 groups and each assigned a show and a budget we were tasked with creating a design concept and a system to go with it. The show my group was given to work on was a dance piece called “Fully grown” which was to take place in the Launceston Conservatory. The show centred around the concept of time and generations it contained dances of all ages for primary school students to much older dancers. The first issue we were faced with was that in the Conservatory most of the plants in the space could not be removed so space was an issue.

We decided that our system would consist of two projectors and a LED screen, the LED screen would function as a backdrop to the piece while the two projectors would be projection onto the ground. We couldn’t project onto the roof or walls at the roof was glass and the walls would have far to much interference due to the plants remaining in the space. Our concept revolved around the idea of how plants grew over time, we would have a tree as the backdrop slowly growing throughout the piece and finish with the floor being covered in projected grass that would grow from the outside in, as if it was coming from the plants in the space.

[chrisatuni]

We looked at this Performance today in class and it just blew my mind how much effort and technology would have been put into this project.

[chrisatuni]

Vision Class 1: 1/3/2017

Today we began our first vision class of the semester we had a lesion on the history of video and film. We were first shown a video of shadow puppetry in the form of Wayang Kulit, which is a traditional form of shadow puppetry from. We then moved onto Zoetropes and Muybridge which were the first examples of using quick sequential imagery to simulate movement, they used several images on a surface that quickly moved and though the movement made it seem that the image was moving. We then moved though the more abstract way film was used though the 1900s as during that period movies started to evolve and establish its own art form. We got to a point when we started seeing it be incorporated with live performances.

[chrisatuni]

In light of our failure in class to get timecode to output form Qlab into an lx desk I decided to look up how to do it.

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Sound Class 8: 23/5/2017

In today’s class we went though I depth how to use Qlab while I actually knew how to use Qlab quite well as I have been taught by Caidan and Sidney on my past placements it was good to have this class as I learnt how to use some of the types of cues I had never used before such as the goto cue and I also learnt how to do routing in Qlab.

The biggest challenge for me in this class was when we tried to set up timecode from Qlab into a Lighting desk, and after about half an hour of trying we ran out of time. I don’t understand why people would you timecode from Qlab as you can easily use OSC or MIDI which would serve the same purpose. Which was shattering when later in the Day I found out my LX designers for next semesters Frisk shows wanted to do just that.

[chrisatuni]

Sound designer for hit new Broadway musical comedy relies on large collection of the company’s mics to achieve pristine audio

After today’s class I looked into how Radio Mics are used in Broadway and found this artical about how Aladdin are using come custom equipment in there system.

[chrisatuni]

Sound Class 7: 22nd May

I todays class we looked at radio microphones, we briefly talked about how they worked but quickly moved onto setting up a system and practically working with them. We used the system to do a frequency scan and set a frequency for all of the microphones. We then moved onto fitting the Microphones, this was a fun thing to do at it was the first ever time I had to do so.

This proved to be harder then it looked as there are many things to think about when setting up them, you need to be sure that they are I the best position to pick up sound while also not being directly visible. Another issues with the microphones is that you need to be sure that the actors retain full capability of movement, both moving their head up and down and left to right, the best way to do this is have it in the over ear position, locating the mic right next to tragus, and running the cable along the back of the neck leaving the slack in the cord just before the tip of the spine. We also tried other ways of micing up actors such as the over-head, which while it is more subtle it is also harder to do and picks up less sound.

After packing up the system we briefly touched on Qlab but left most of it for the next lesson.

[chrisatuni]

After Today's class I felt determined to create a dual 3.5 to 4 pin adaptor cable for my headset at home so I could use it as a coms headset. While I know practically it wouldn’t have many allocations I feel that it would be a cool thing to do. So in light of that I looked up how these cables work and what pin does what so I could do so.

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Sound Class 6: 11/04/2017

In today’s class we finished off the last of the presentations from the previous class. It was very interesting to see  Noah and Jono’s system as it was for AC/DC who are notorious for having a purely analog system and how Jono and Noah had done to analog and digital conversion and just how it blew my mind.

We then moved onto talking about comms systems and cabling, coms systems work in one of 3 ways a partyline system, Full Duplex or 2 way system, the most common kind it the Partyline system. We also discussed other less commons systems such as digital partyline, matrix systems and we also discussed how wireless systems work.

We then set up the coms system in the lab, we started by troubleshooting to make sure all sets worked and all systems worked, we checked both the A and B lines we learnt how it is possible to join them at some base stations and why you would want to have multiple lines, we then talked about how when creating one ling line of coms they all can only actually go a certain length before the signal deteriorates and the coms no longer receive, we tested it out with about 6 headsets connected with 20 meter XLR cables each and surprisingly they all worked.