Masculinity Two Lyrics

While I am at it, here are the lyrics to Masculinity Two. I've realised that most of my art is about the battle between logical, emotionless, rational thought, and emotions; and this song is too. It's about a computer nerd, an emotionless, logical thinker, being unmoved by female advances. It is a critique that he can't be a rugged, animalistic male, yet as a result is unresponsive to affection.

Masculinity Two

You can blink at me slowly,
you can flicker your lips,
but it won't get to my,
metal heart.

You can signal me baby,
send me sex in your sips,
but it's ice in the soul,
of the dark.

Welcome to the new paradise,
what do you want to do?
Want to come and a play game with me tonight?

Masculinity two.

Welcome to the new paradise,
What do you want to do?
Want to come and a play game with me tonight?

Masculinity two.

This is what you all wanted.
This electro control.
This is love into fire,
into death.

So keep signalling baby,
I'll keep looking away,
as I drink as I die,
as I play.

The Glacier and the Swift

Another full days of working on the Masculinity Two video yesterday. Here is a screen grab.

I'm eager to get this over with! I've spent two months this year working on music videos. It odd though that I'm starting to enjoy the process, at last perhaps. I'm still growing and learning, and these short video poems can perhaps epitomise the best of cinema. They have the ability to convey beauty, narrative, drama, and lots, in a very short intense time.

I watched Three Colours: White a few days ago and it was a boring experience. Blue looked beautiful and colourful and had lots of feeling and inner complexity and links which made the film symphonic. By comparison, White, was a mish-mash. A simple story. The most interesting characters were the side characters, a strange man asks the homeless hero to kill a Polish man because the victim-to-be is afraid of suicide. An intriguing plot, which is then dumped and never mentioned again. This man was an interesting character, as was the protagonist's brother, as was an old farmer, yet these characters had few lines and little bearing on the empty plot. One minute of most music videos has more emotion, plot and startling imagery than this entire film.

In painting news, I've had a note from Art Fair Cheshire asking for details of greetings cards and prints (presumably limited edition reproductions; this ambiguity with the word 'print' is an annoyance to many artists, especially printmakers) for the exhibition. This is remarkable because I've not heard prints or cards mentioned at all. I'd have gladly offered some of my limited edition prints for sale. Yet, after over a year of working on this exhibition, they send an email on a bank holiday weekend and ask for these details within 48 hours. In such a short time, all I can offer is greetings cards. I am actually exhibiting some framed prints, and had I know about this would have shown the originals with the option of a print, which is certain to help sales.

I'm keen to get these videos finished and move on to new art and music. Every day I work on one type of art, I neglect another. There is so much I can do. I want to write symphonies and piano concertos, and practice piano more, paint new, larger paintings, my greatest ever, build the second Richard Dadd cabinet and a new sister for it, record new music, release and refurbish more of my old games; yet I must move one tiny, tiny step at a time. I must continue working on this music video, and perhaps others. Eventually I will have time for new art. I must move like a glacier, though I want to fly like a swift.

Full Video Day

A full day working on the Masculinity Two Video. I needed more footage for the choruses and I wasn't happy with the first take of Marius at the computer screen, so the first few hours were spent recording this footage. A lot of time is spent getting every aspect correct; the lighting, the costumes etc. The lighting, framing and camera focus are difficult when filming along. This scene took three full takes, and after reviewing, another two.

Lighting is especially complex because even slight changes can mean the difference between darkness or far too bright. Everything must be perfectly set. This is one aspect of filming I rather enjoy, the cinematography, perhaps this is the painter in me.

In the afternoon, the editing and converting. Frame by frame, note by note. I decided to have swiping transitions, sliding one scene over another, which involves a lot of maths in AviSynth, exact frame numbers etc. It's time consuming but not difficult beyond that. After a full day of this, the final video is perfectly timed, but, looking at the final result, it is less slick in parts as a result. The music is so rhythmic (thanks to my special mock-human drums, this music is not digitally regular) that sharp changes in the images seem to work best. The music itself has lots of contrast between loud and silent too, again intentionally, so the images must mirror this.

Here is a scene from the start. I wanted a flickery line effect and did this simply by using white noise, and expanding it from a mere 20 pixels or so to fill the screen width, creating darting bands of light and dark like a dancing barcode.

This video will take several more days. After five days work, I feel that I'm only halfway though, and lots of new footage is still needed. This is my last important creative hurdle though. After this is complete, I'll celebrate, schedule the single release, and get back to the album as a whole.

More Masculinity

More work on Masculinity Two today, lots of hard editing, and a new video recording of a ringmaster, to go with yesterday's recording of Marius at a computer screen. Both will need better retakes, and I probably won't use the ringmaster at all. Most of today was frame by frame effects; slides, lights, flickers. Very time consuming to experiment with what works best and the exact look and feel of the timing. Experimental animation is the most time consuming artform in the world. Progress is very slow, but steady.

I'm aching to do some more, new artwork on new, relevant and exciting projects and themes. I'm bursting with ideas and energy, but tied to this, tied to Marius for weeks or months. I toyed with scheduling the single release now, but it's best to complete the video first.

Onward on this slow track we push. On to the new pastures of art. On, as fast as I can, with as much power and mastery as I can. Onward to glory.

Masculinity Two

Another long sleep after a very busy day yesterday. I've completed a high quality render of the Fly in Amber video and scheduled this on the Mark Sheeky Music Channel for a Thursday night premiere. I spent a long time wondering what days and times might be best for video premieres; so now, painting talks will go live on Wednesdays at 8pm, art videos (usually ArtSwarm videos) will go live on Mondays at 8pm. ArtSwarm episodes, as ever, will go live on Fridays at 8pm, with the Premiere option, and now music videos will Premiere at 8pm on Thursdays, starting on this Thursday, August 22nd with the new A.I. video.

After that, some initial Masculinity Two filming and conversion, which was time consuming but necessary. This video is complex, and I decided that a look like the artwork would be nice, so I will try to match this look in live video. In the afternoon, shopping for a secret graphic project and in the evening, making the sculpture for this.

Have been working on a first draft of the Masculinity Two video today. This is so difficult, but my plan is to assemble lots of test images and make a full length video in draft quality, then modify and modify; sculpting it like a painting from rough to smooth.

I'm full of art ideas and the desire to create, although I know that my work is ignored and of interest only to me. I must remain stoic and faithful, aiming to produce the best I can while I am alive. I am Merlin, clinging to a staff on top of a mountain in a storm. I must proceed from Lear to Prospero, and in doing, so I understand Shakespeare.

The End of Dreams

A excited night, considering the new Masculinity Two video at 3am, working out possible strategies and scenes. After then sleeping I dreamed of art critic Andrew Graham Dixon, who sat and watched me paint an enormous canvas from a distance (it must have been about 3M by 2M). He called me 'that annoying artist' or something very similar, but liked my work and asked me to visit him at his Nantwich gallery the in the next week, which I considered a good thing. His gallery, which I walked past in the dream, was a posh high-street building with gold lettering, perhaps inspired by Clive Christian's shop there.

So, I woke late to a quieter morning. I recorded a piano tune which I played yesterday at 7am or so. It's a quiet piece in a reflective, Erik Satie sort of style which will form the soundtrack to my video for the next Children's Games ArtSwarm. I thought that I could put the music to a very slow video of children playing, and today made this too.

In the afternoon I recorded two more scenes for the Fly in Amber video, removing a few more too. This video has been my most time consuming so far. The quick (30 mins!) Children's Games one reminded me that I can make some simple videos. I had an idea for a video for the Let's Take a Walk in the Desert song from Tree of Keys. All I need is sand and a skull!

Onward I must push.

I've had the first invites to Art Fair Cheshire, in Macclesfield Town Hall, 26th September to 3rd October. This will be the closest thing I'll have this year to a solo exhibition. I'm disappointed that they didn't invite me to perform, when I made the offer and the suggestion of performances in the first place. However, performance is extra work, and this gives me time to meander and talk to other guests at the private view. My pianistic skills can wait for a better, and perhaps better paid, occasion.

I've also recorded a short poem to video for the FOLD collective this week. I've no idea when or if or how this will be used.

Filming Continues

A busy few days, focused with determination on filming, this difficult task. At times I've despised every moment of this time consuming and frustrating form of art, but it is a new country to explore, and I'm starting to appreciate the challenges and creative opportunities of filmmaking. These music videos, especially with music without words, are like visual poems. There is an element of mood, the music really affects the mood of the scene, but there is a lot of freedom too. It's often difficult to impose drama in the film if there is none in the music. The emotions must follow the music.

For the Time, Falling video I had a key scene of the bear falling at the dramatic peak of the music, the rest merely building to it. This was quite simple, but this Fly in Amber video is more complex because the music is two, almost identical, repeating sections. Initially I had some toys and puppets filmed in darkness, a king and queen character, myself playing the piano in daylight, and some scenes with Deborah. It felt a bit like a mish-mash and over complicated so I simplified to dividing scenes into day and night, with the real characters mostly in the day, and the toys mostly at night, but there needed to be some sort of journey or aspects of memory which are difficult to convey in characters that can barely move.

The most affecting scenes were the ones with main characters, with my hand acting as sort of god, placing characters which might move a little. This worked well but the plot needed to be worked and reworked to fit these. I've filmed and refilmed everything at least four times, including playing the full piece at a keyboard, which didn't work well enough to use. The video still isn't finished but I can see an end in sight.

I am learning new technical aspects with each film. This time I've made an adapter to fit the spotlights on tripods, essential for lighting. I've also extended their power cord to 5M and added a power switch.

I've also learned a new fade up technique, fading to white by boosting exposure. This was directly inspired by a similar effect in Three Colours: Blue which I watched last night and had a similar fade. Most digital fades to white look weak and pasty, like a white fog gently appearing, rather than the flash of glory I wanted.

Two full days of filming. More to do today. I need to film some playing cards. This is my first film that uses some computer graphics, a falling playing card. This is the first CGI I've used in years. An easy job with a rotating, moving plane. I can't match the shadows of the environment very easily, so the results look a bit fake, but not so bad. Even Avengers: Infinity War, which I watched yesterday, looked very fake in almost every shot. It had the emotion of a digital animation, rather than a real film with real actors, and yet this was still perhaps the most emotional of all of these Marvel spectacles.

Fly in Amber Filming

A good day of filming, many planned scenes from the Fly in Amber video filmed, but the video as a whole has a lot of problems. There are three narratives; myself playing piano, a toy king and a toy princess ('the pencil king'), and Deb and I playing parts which mirror the toys.

Each part has a different and disjointed thread. Each is filmed differently, so the colour and tone balancing is different, which makes the results look bit a disjointed. Also, I can't move the toys to make them act but I really need to tell some sort of story with them. Normally I'd locate a dramatic point and build to it, but with music this isn't always easy, there are two in the music itself.

I must keep working at it. Identify problems, and try solutions. Act more, think, act, think.

I've spent the evening watching Avengers: Age of Ultron. I noted the special effects overtly, made me think how easy they were, albeit time consuming (perhaps in the realm of decades). These Marvel films are the most popular artform on the planet at the moment yet the narrative is effectively from the 1950s and 1960s. Anything they say about the current era is coincidental and mainly due to the fact that the films are set now, rather than conceived as 21st century dramas. They are post-world-war-two escapism and nothing deeper.