Manically busy day making a new video for China Syndrome. First, I did my regular computer backups, as it's the first of August, then updated Prometheus to fix a bug in the exact sample calculation of certain timing events. Details unimportant but song events that might manipulate the tempo need to be processed to calculate timing, I have a feature that can calculate the exact output sample of a particular part in the song, if, for example, I wanted to do very specific edit or something. Anyway, these calculations are much more complex than they appear, as most songs vary in tempo.
After that I exported a list of frame numbers for major sections of a new edit of China Syndrome, then exported a list of frame number for the main lead notes. Then I made up some 320x320 pixel images and processed each one by hand, making them fade to darkness over 11 images, saving these out as still images that can be animated. Then I animated these in AviSynth, each in time with the notes in the song. This took until lunch; a record tome as this took me a couple of days the first time I used this technique.
In the afternoon I knew I had to film sections. First I made a small recording of the chorus of an electronic tunnel zoom effect; I'll superimpose myself over this at some point, then set up various rooms to record different verse scenes, and changed outfits three times and filmed each scene, with the music playing for later synchronisation.
The final scene involved playing two synths.
After all of the filming and conversion, I decided that the chorus that leads up the finale was too long and, perhaps stupidly, re-edited the music! This made everything out of time, and also means that I don't have enough filmed material to fit into the song, so more is needed.
The whole process has taken 12 hours, more or less without breaks. If I had thought about the music first, I could have been more efficient. As it stands, I might have to move lots of furniture and wall hangings again (as each scene needed) and re-film some parts. One take was out of focus too. There are many downsides to filming and acting alone; these can be overcome with quick tests, makers to know where to stand, autofocus etc., but the chance of being out of focus or not in the middle of the shot is much higher. It's amazing how much I can achieve alone. These words would probably make a suitable epitaph (of course, nobody would read it!).
I expect this will take another day or two to complete. Tomorrow, I'm off to the Williamson Art Gallery, which is hopefully not flooded, to attend the opening of the Wirral Society of Arts exhibition.
