In October 2008, my Grandpa and I traveled from Glentworth, Saskatchewan to New York City. This film documents the places and some of the many stories my Grandpa told throughout the journey.
Tracks of a Cowboy
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Category Archives: 2008
Inspiring Expiring
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Museum and Prison
I did these videos for Vidtionary, the video dictionary site that I am working on. I post them here as some of my first examples of exploring the 3D space of the Motion software, which only lets you 2D shapes in the 3D space. I created the walls and floors of these spaces by searching for textures online, and then inserted in royalty-free objects and animations. See also the incomplete video I’ve been working on for Visions Creeping by local Kamloops band Sleeps With Matches.
Putting these two videos together makes me wonder what a museum and prison have in common. Quite a lot, I think. Both have walls and cells which contain things to be gazed upon.
The 3D software is particularly well-suited for creating a prison, as you can really quickly replicate the cells. Next, I want to do a video for “office.”
Visions Creeping
This is a music video for the song “Visions Creeping” by the Kamloops band Sleeps With Matches (myspace.com/sleepswithmatches) … note that the video is unfinished, as it kind of peters out about a third of the way in. It’s the first thing I’ve ever tried to make using 3D software (well, 2D objects in a 3D space – using the software called Motion), and my idea certainly exceeded my abilities – but that’s part of the fun of the video, I think. A few of the animated elements, such as the rat, the lizard, the helicopter, and the radio, were downloaded from animationfactory.com, where I had a membership at the time. The plan for the rest of the video was to leave the house, then venture down a wasteland highway, passing by all sorts of weird characters and distant factories, then enter into a nuclear factory where there’s a spill, and finally to pass through a smokestack into the sky, and drift through stars, looking back at earth.
I’ve been working lately on two other videos for Sleeps With Matches. Check out Forgot Your Face and Inspiring Expiring.
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I submitted this video for the KISS Contest, the Kamloops Independent Short Short film competition on May 15, 2008. It is the most recent example of my experiments with my portable projector connected to my video iPod. The video shows images of animals that used to live where I now live projected into different spaces of the house. Then, projected videos of youtube into nature, hoping the animals in the shadows might enjoy them.
Spring at the Warehouse
These are some excerpts from the Skir party at the warehouse – March 29th, 2008. A month earlier I had VJed at the Tempest party, for which I’d prepared a bunch of bad weather visuals, so with the weather warming up, I thought I’d prepare with a spring theme for my visuals for this party. I dug up all the flowery footage I could from times when I was in Okinawa or Seoul, and also downloaded a bunch of spring-related clips at animationfactory.com
Again, I was using the Arkaos VJ software with the Kaoss Krossfour mixer and Korg Kaoss Entrancer video effector. I had a lot of fun at this party, filming the crowd and mixing in that footage. Jump ahead to about 1:58 to see what I’m talking about.
The setup was great again, with screens everywhere. The organizers made a giant butterfly hung from the ceiling – but somehow I didn’t get that on my video tape.
Anyway, the party got shut down around 4 AM after a bit of a disturbance.
This party was in a warehouse in the Mount Paul industrial park. Thanks to Vinny Franchesco for the chance to VJ, Graham (How Sound) for the sound, Kyle for the lights, and all the DJs: Smurf Logic, Sean Gunn, Danger Dan, and there were others but not listed on the flyer (as I’m writing this well after the fact, I can’t recall who was there).
Here’s the flyer:
Tempest Party at the Warehouse
This video presents some excerpts from the Tempest party at the warehouse – March 1st, 2008. I just taped together a bunch of 10-15 second clips in an attempt to leave behind a document from the night. It was freezing cold that night. In the last minute of this clip, I added in the footage of a guy named Ryan doing some wicked fire spinning outside. In the background, you might be able to see the white glow of Mount Paul.
The set-up was great again. There were four big screens – two showing my visuals, and two showing automatic visualizer content. Also, take note of the awesome mandala behind the stage.
Thanks to Vinny Franchesco for the chance to VJ, Graham (How Sound) for the sound, Kyle for the lights, and all the DJs (as listed on the flyer: Danger Dan, Dope Tito, Myshell, Sean Gunn, Smurf Logic, and Wandalicious).
By the way, since this party had a Tempest theme, I tried to track down a bunch of stormy visuals: lots of lightning, flooded streets, blizzard scenes, and trees being blown over.
Again, I used the Arkaos VJ software, in conjunction with the Korg Krossfour mixer and the Kaoss Entrancer video effector.
Here’s the flyer from the party:
Also, here’s a youtube clip recorded by Sean (DJ Herbal Vegas) of DJ MyShell’s setup, which captures the party in all its wicked energy. Some of my visuals appear in this clip, but I want to mention that some of the visuals seen in the background of this particular sequence come from some automatically generated visualization software that the lights guy Kyle set up that night – I found myself switching back and forth to that, just cause my own stuff is not as timed with the music and a bit thin at this point to make it through 6-7 hours straight.
North Pacific Gyre
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This video has become my most watched video on the Internet, but it’s funny because it’s not even uploaded in my own YouTube account – somebody I don’t even know uploaded it to their YouTube account, but I don’t mind, cause it’s spreading the message. As I write this, it has about 25,000 views, a 4.5 star rating, and about 25 comments. This isn’t a popularity contest, but results like this should encourage me to make more videos along these lines.
Original Video Description: I just heard recently for the first time of the North Pacific Gyre. Apparently, it is a huge collection of floating garbage covering twice the surface area of the state of Texas. It floats in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between Hawaii and California. All the garbage there is said to weigh more than 3.5 million tonnes. The thought that something like this might exist first came to me on an isolated beach on a small island named Ikema. Ikema Island is in the island chain of Okinawa. This island chain traces a line from the southern tip of Japan to the island of Taiwan. Directly north of Ikema Island is the peninsula of Korea. Further south is the Philippines …