A full day, the last of 7 full days working on the Jabberwocky video. I think it's complete now. It's interesting to think back on the process. Initially I began inspired by Jim Henson's Storyteller, filming Deb on 6th December. Then I knew I needed some shots of myself by the 'Tum Tum Tree', and playing the synth, so these were recorded in a few hours on the morning of Christmas Eve; the only few hours with sun and without rain for weeks - fate was with us.
Most of the work started last week, with the first rough edit on Jan 2nd, but so much has changed since then, even if aspects of the basic structure remain as they were (of course, the mood must follow the music). I've added the Alice Liddell parts, and the Argus animation, the essential climax, with Hausu and The Shape of Water all helping along the way.
Today involved the most final of tweaks. At the end of an art project there comes a point when you're unsure of whether a change is better or worse, and in that situation either is fine. Among my last changes was to make the mermaid glitter-globe a cranberry red for it's third and final appearance; for love, or blood... it could be either. The last change was to blur my harmonica shots a little as these were too crisp. As well as tone, hue, size, speed; crispness and blurness of a shot can change the mood too... mood! Emotion! This is the key thing. What is actually happening is secondary (although, obviously, plot can create mood - this is the long term emotion vs. the short-term spectacle).
I sang a little too, managed a high D for the first time. My vocal muscles and throat are generally stable now. It's astonishing that it's taken about 8 weeks of usually daily practice to just get to this basic level, this start. The joy of singing, in many ways, is that it is all-consuming, requiring all of your body, a transformation of every expression into an instrument - it is like dance in that respect, yet a dance that can be recorded intimately and totally using a microphone. Every day, every training session, there are tiny changes, tiny improvements, yet any ultimate destination is miles, days, years away.
It's Jan 8th. A good year so far. On we run, down the rabbit-hole.
