Much of yesterday was spent on videos for The Modern Game, including a new video for 'Looking for a Lover', and improvements to most of the others. I found a bug in Argus, so fixed that too. When I find any bug in my software I won't rest until it's understood and fixed.
A super busy day today. Started with monthly backups, and other routine jobs which apply on the first day of each month. There were a few Christmas Tails sales to process.
Then charging into work on the video for 'The Trees'. Most of the videos for The Modern Game 4 are relatively simple placeholders with lyrics, but in several videos there are elements which play along to the music or make dramatic changes to follow the musical drama. 'The Trees' begins as a sort of drift through mist, a bit like the video to 'Ultramarine'. It then swirls dramatically when the musical drama hits. I also added a per-note ring for the piano notes. This is a common motif throughout this album.
At 13:30 I dashed out for a few hours of shopping, which included buying a new frame for the painting I want to enter into the Nantwich Museum Open this month; then back to work on the videos. I rendered the full videos for all tracks. This takes a lot of processing, though oddly, rendering and saving in Argus takes less time than the video creation and compression using FFMpeg. Then, I made up a few test videos, and prepared the FFMpeg scripts and YouTube text.
So, a first draft of all of the videos is now complete, including the 'Masculinity Two' single version and its B-Side.
There may be slight changes needed, but I haven't much time to tweak or change much. I remember taking weeks to make one music video, now I make 8 per day; but of course these animations are very simple. Content always takes time, and I focus my time on one or two showcase tracks and videos.
In contrast to a few days ago I find myself filled with enthusiasm and positive energy. I reminded myself that if we can't change something, we can always change our attitudes towards it. Swarms of ideas ran to my electric brain in the night, and I submitted my proposal for a regular art performance at Platform. I also proposed a Digital Cultural Archive, something I've already proposed to Nantwich Museum. I think that such an archive is really important for culture at the moment. So much cultural content is digital now, but so much of it insecure and easily lost due to the highly ephemeral nature of the internet.
I have many other ideas too... these can perhaps wait.
Onwards we charge.
