Another full day yesterday, and this morning, working on the Wonderland video projections. All 27 are now complete in a first draft. Blessed be Argus! Most would have been so difficult or impossible without it. Essentially the software places film clips, more often stills or sprites, at any 3D location on any frame like notes in a music sequencer. The position, alpha, size, frame can be easily modulated over time, so movements and flicker effects are easy. The Grim By Day video, for example, simply stabs poster images of Grimaldi on the screen every half a second or so, but these are randomly placed, and randomly sized, a scatter of images. To do that manually, one image at a time would take hours, but it was done quickly in Argus.
Some tracks, like Jabberwocky and Herr Kasperle vary musically in tone and pace so much that any video would really need to be synchronised. I designed some software last year to live 'video jam' - in case we ever get a third band member who would control images in real time, but for now the videos are more like asides to the music, not fitting with each part, a backdrop. For these complex tracks, the backdrop is simple; Jabberwocky is a glide through green mist.
One of the last was Clown Face. I simply resorted, in the end, to a long slow zoom out which reveals Max the clown. The first couple of minutes are an extreme close up, flickering and turning, almost an abstract shape.
Some videos use real film footage. Siamese Twin Domestic overlays two mirror images.
Barely time to pause. I'd like to improve these a little. We have a rehearsal this afternoon and another on Saturday. We've never rehearsed this much before.
How I'd like a new synth. This will, with luck, be the last show which includes my brilliant but heavy P105 piano. Bizarrely, Yamaha's latest model lacks any sound other than piano, so this one is still perhaps the best in its class. Though I love the heavy hammer action, the ultra-light keys on the Reface DX are so pleasing to use, they have a sort of pleasant spring. I'd now prefer a light keyboard to one of these weighted hammer action ones, for live play, though of course nothing beats the feeling and resonance of a real piano.
