I seem to have settled into a routine of not starting work until about 11am, must avoid this. Yesterday my main job was creating 12 lyric reading videos of the lyrics for The Dusty Mirror songs. I experimented with camera placement and look, toying with the idea of duplicating the cover image in spoken form, but this proved difficult, I wasn't sure what I wanted, and the fact that I had to Photoshop in the mirror surface for the cover (I don't have a spare mirror) made it all complicated.
In the end I just recorded them on a plain black background. All but one are, annoyingly, a little out of focus, perhaps because the tripod was knocked a tiny amount (although I thought I had refocused after this) or perhaps because the camera was closer to me, so limited the depth of field. I moved the camera closer so it could capture the audio in an emergency, perhaps it is better to keep it distant. These videos use the standard Canon EF-S Zoom Lens 18mm-55mm, rather than the nicer looking 50mm lens we used for ArtSwarm, but for that I need to place the camera a long way away, close to the back wall, making it hard to operate myself.
Filming and editing took all day, and I sold a print in the afternoon too.
During file conversion I listened for the first time to a new purchase of David Bowie's Heathen, a very good album, and for me a partial inspiration are the production techniques which I analyzed immediately. On first listen I thought Sunday was/is an amazing track, and Slip Away, although I've not listened to it all yet. Listening to my tracks after, there wasn't that much of a contrast in general sound quality, a good sign. It made me think that, along with the Hazel O'Connor albums, I have a lot of Tony Visconti albums in my 'Top 100'. How music has changed in these 18 years.
