What an interesting challenge to navigate between sound and dance. I am wanting to tread lightly and not create something too fast or visually jarring because the majority of the focus should be on the dancers. I was thinking about costumes though and how their rich colors may very well stand out nicely amongst a grayscale backdrop. This whole video is/was in vivid saturated color until I accidentally dropped a desaturation layer on it and the happy accident meant a great deal of new texture and black and white elegance. For these reasons I have stayed mostly in the colorless domain save for a couple musical triggers that screamed out "color" to me, as well as the main flashing transition that comes along a little before 3 minutes.
I'm still very flexible if this animation is too demanding or flashy.
Also, I think the flowing Lava at the end of this video is too much of a giveaway. I was thinking long stringy Pele's hair particles aimating out over time?
Here is a new idea and process for abstraction of the literal. I am taking still photos and finding ways to explore the textures, colors and compositional qualities of these natural images as a way to generate a 3-dimensional landscape. Here is the first test. The image at the left is the source while the image at the right is a three-dimensional landscape derived from the source. Once in this 3d format, I can animate through it as well as change the qualities of the form, texture and lighting. This is a great new discovery for me.
Work Session 2:
After a couple of long and busy weeks of teaching, I have another chance to sit down and devote time to this project. It has actually been useful for me to drop in to the H.T. rehearsals sporadically and let different thoughts and ideas emerge at their own pace. This post will contain a handful of thoughts, tests and potential directions.
---------------------------------------------------------- Idea 1 - Dancer transforms in and out from Solid to Light and Gas:
After talking with Ruby and Brad, I'm becoming attracted to the idea of the massive heat, chemical reactions and elemental forces stemming from volcanic activity. The fact that an eruption can create weather systems of their own is enough to fuel my interests in how human bodies can represent this illusive (chemical) power. During the last rehearsal that I attended, I shot some footage of Jason doing his skittering dance along a black backdrop. Below is the source footage, followed by a version where the human form slips in and out of recognizability and into color, heat and light. How it might fit in...I'm not sure. Perhaps can talk about this as a possible avenue.
------------------------------------------- Idea 2 - Algorithmic Expression of Stage Dynamism
There will be times when we may want the level of motion on the stage to either sync up with, or be in stark contrast to the levels of visuals in the video projection. One way to achieve this is to record the performace with a video camera and (in real time) use Processing to do what's called differencing. This takes the pixels from one frame and compares it to the next. By doing so, we can gauge how much the dancers are moving and get a number value that essential equates to their dynamism. This number can be used to slow-down or speed up video (frame-rate), affect the exposure of a still or moving image in the background, etc.
The bulk of the processing code has been made open-source by programming Guru Golan Levin. If you are running Processing and a webcam, you can run the following code:
Orbital Shape Eruption from John park on Vimeo.
Purpose: find various ways to capture the gesture and motion of an eruption, while masking its obvious visual qualities and normal speed. Just tests....
Purpose: This video explores the connection of sound to visuals using Expressions within After Effects. This simple test takes the opacity level of a video and ties it to the amplitude of the audio (from the Hawaii samples).
