A bunch of video related notes / things that’ve helped me over time.
I think you’ll already know most of these, think of the notes more as friendly reminders,
things to keep in mind while exploring and creating video.
I look forward to seeing your future video projects!
Attention to Detail
As with music production, details, both creative and technical, matter.
Good habits to maintain:
– consistent naming of files, in whatever naming convention that works for you
– consistent project organisation ( eg folder structures, naming + organising within those )
Opening up a project in 6 months to extract something you need, should be easy.
Ultimately this gives you more freedom in creating.
-Make it part of your process to pay strong attention to delivery formats and sizes needed, when starting anything.
– Any time spent refining 2D assets (cleaning edges properly, thinking about how they’ll be used and visually adjusting to suit)
will be paid back several times over, when those assets are being moved around on the screen.
Wellmade assets, per project, should also become part of a library for future project use.
Thinking in Sequences
Just as a DJ will always think ahead, about how to leave one track and move into another..
it’s worth thinking about how different visual scenes can be joined together.
Instead of thinking only – what’s good for this scene, think also – how can changes in this be choreographed over time, how will it start (+what came before it), how can be be gradually revealed in an interesting way, and how will it end (+what comes after it).
A related trigger for remembering this: 1+1 = 3 (aka aside from individual scenes, the relationship between them also matters)
which is also known as the Kuleshov effect in editing.
A DJ might have stems or extend one part of a track to help transition…
An animator might think about which elements, can help the transition…
Thinking in this way, means that you think about how the elements might be needed for the transition, not just for their scene.
Eg the lovely painted tree in the kingfisher scene worked well for its scene, but because it was all cut-off on one side, it didnt enable easy integration with the scene before it.
Eg If you want to focus on a visual area, but move into it, what sizes do elements + backgrounds have to be, to enable moving across them?
You have strong visual instincts for creating scenes. Adding over time, an ability to create scenes and elements that can transition well, will give you lots of opportunities for exploring, and keeping your storytelling going.
Recommend: grabbing a copy of the book Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud – although its about comics, his explorations and ideas are relevant to any artists working in any form of media, throws up lots of questions, but especially about images in sequence.
Storyboarding
A few reasons, this is a very useful habit to develop and strengthen over time:
– helps provide clarity for collaborators*
– helps get past some of the language traps (different interpretations of the same word)
– it gives you an overview of your trajectory, helps see big picture patterns
– helps you think through sequences, and what might be needed in a scene, to get to the next one
– helps free you up by putting it down externally, so you dont have to juggle it all in your head, can use as reference
– helps visualise final version desired, so helps with editing and animating
– helps you start to think visually about scenes, movements, etc
Animation can be incredibly time consuming – although it can seem counterintuitive spending time on paper to put sketches down, this ultimately can save sooooo much time in the long run, by helping understand what’s actually needed, or whats actually going to work, and minimising the time spent on things that arent going to work or are going to cause problems.
*Storyboarding is also very worthwhile for helping organise your own thoughts, not just for helping collaborators understand a vision.
Thinking In Systems
Beyond thinking in isolated ways for creating elements / footage / fx etc – think about your overall process and workflow,
and think about how the different steps relate, and think about how you can set things up to repeat processes later, or explore variations. When exploring tools, find ways to save settings, presets, preset variations, find shortcuts for avoiding having to get to build from scratch everytime, and find ways to get to the sweet spots more easily.
Before a new project, tune your system , prep it for what you’ll need.
After a project, find where the gaps were, see if you can plug them up for the next project.
Each project should build your toolkit and system, not just create a piece of media.
Using Your Time Proportionately
Worth keeping in mind, while exploring visuals and music… for your projects, and within your overall practice –
is thinking about how you structure your time.
As well as the fun parts (experimenting, exploring, pushing the bits you enjoy)
accept that a percentage of your time will be spent outside the purely creative.
Any project and practice – includes –
– project admin (planning, taking + organising notes, liason tech/client/venue etc )
– research (for project related details, for aesthetic inspiration, for software techniques etc)
– asset + library material sorting, refining, labelling, organising
Figure out what proportions honestly work for you, grow comfortable with that – and when not in creative headspace, use your energy to do some of the non-creative things, that will help you later, when you need to be creative and pull things together.
Making that a habit over time, will help – especially with larger projects.
Do your ‘chores’ when your energy suits that, and your future creative self will benefit lots when exploration time arrives.
Research and learning needs to be an ongoing percentage of your time, and any dedicated foundational learning will repay rewards multiple times over.
Finding a Visual Environment to Edit + Composite In
Having some kind of home base to compile and blend your experiments – will give you much more control and flexibility in presenting your work, variations of your work, exporting for different platforms, installations, etc
Learn, build systems, then over time feed your work through it, and deliver what you need.
For Image Editing – Master detailed masking, colour control, layering, blending modes, formats + sizing
For Video Editing – Master timing + all of the above.
Recommend: Davinci Resolve – do basic editing tutorials, to gain control over your final exports.
Over time, learn basics of colour grading to get best quality imagery.
Learn how to do basic animated movements in the edit page
Over time, learn how to use the Fusion Page to do more advanced editing.
Other Animation Options – motion graphics – Apple Motion, Cavalry.
Blender’s 2.5d / Grease Pencil options, as well as 3D
Unity / Unreal might give you some 3D capacity for being where you combine things…
Touch Designer can also be this, though these 3 have a lot of quirks and tech details to get to that stage,
compared with editing / compositing software.
If they havent already learnt it, i mostly recommend people avoid the adobe suite these days, and shift their learning into the above tools instead, rather than living in subscription land.
And Finally….. while we Poorneeted, random Links Flagged Over Time, …
… as SK Related
Integration of unrealengine + touchdesigner – NDI+OSC signals to control multiple environment lights, cameras + media textures.
Infinite – A visual notebook where sound, art and geometry connect.Infinite is an all-in-one creative playground for Mac and Windows. You wire ideas together on a single boundless page where every element reacts in real time.
Bernie Krause (author, field recordist) – sound recordings of ecosystems, looking at spectrograms to show their health
( interview ) (Books by Bernie Krause)
And visualising audio related – Noise Canvas is a tool for doing spectral sound design. It loads audio files, shows them as spectrograms, and lets you paint transformations and effects directly onto the sound in beats and semitones.
“..uncanny messages from the animal world” – audio installation at substation.
A dude playing frog sounds back to frogs
🐸😅
OK WAIT, There’s more – other Useful Video Related Links
Aka various video links pulled from video workshop pages I’ve done:
Programmer’s Guide to Video Systems – explains why video systems have so many quirks!
Video protocols for real-time sending video between apps – NDI, Syphon, Spout
Super helpful reference articles by Blair Neal:
Survey of Alternative Displays (2022 Update)
A Creative Technology Taxonomy
How to make an installation stay up 4evr (MacOS)
Guide to Projectors for Interactive Installations
Guide to Cameras For Interactive Installations
What is a video codec? (What’s the difference between a codec + container?)
File formats? eg mp4
Video resolutions?
Aspect ratio?
Video colour science (Aka learn colour settings for each stage of capture, editing, and exporting, so that colours are accurate, skintones are preserved, maximum quality… )
How to create transparency in video? (What is an Alpha channel in video?)
Worth a look : VDMX (mac) (See: The VDMX manual and the tutorial series of ‘Video fundamentals’ )
Other Inspirations
The Light Surgeons (UK) – Super Everything (animated, multi-layered projections)
Tala Schlossberg (US) Animates in creative ways. (insta) (music video)
Lucky People Centre International (eng subs), (espanol subs) – Feature film with interesting AV layering.
Sculpture UK AV duo
Soda Jerk – collage artists extraordinaire. Latest feature film – Hello Dankness, and their earlier work.
What is motion design? Motion Plus Design – have a nice 9 min video answer for this, and they are hoping to “found the world’s first Centre dedicated to the world of motion design”.
Thinking about motion graphic design over time? See The Art of film titles (Esp. A Brief History of Title Design + their list of film title analysis examples )
Nathalie Miebach’s Sculptural storms
Center for Visual Music – history of visual music
The Visual Music Archive – a collection of inspirational works from the ever expanding field of Visual Music.
Synaesthesia: Music Notation – “Colour and music synaesthesia is a condition where individuals see colours in response to music stimuli.”
People Animating in Interesting Ways
RunWrake – animator and master at mixing media. RIP (site / YT videos / (insta)
Len Lye NZ – kinetic sculptor, scratch film artist / motion obsessive. (Free Radicals / A Colour Box / website. Len Lye Foundation.
Bjorn Calleja (Philipines) : (animates with paintings)
Anna Malina (Ukraine) : https://linktr.ee/annaxmalina
Bjorn Calleja (Philipines) (animates with paintings) (animated work) (weebly) (X)
Erik Winkowski (US) : Animates in creative ways with everyday objects (substack) (insta) (example)
Animated Projection Mapping Examples
Icebook theatre (mapping video onto paper models)
Max Cooper (live concert mapped onto Acropolis)
VJ Suave (projections onto environments, and travelling through a city)
Installations by Yannick Jacquet (Legoman)
Installations by Romain Tardy (including this botanic gardens projection in Mexico)
Shadow Spirit: First Peoples Exhibition – Melbourne – great example of blended projections.