mandymushroom
13th April 2007, 12:41 PM
Hi I?d like to share the experience of how I got to do my first gig, if it?s of any interest-perhaps newbs mainly. I?ve been on the forums over a year now and been interested in vjing just a bit longer than that and last week I did me first gig!
When I first became interested in VJing I don?t think I fully comprehended the complexities that went into creating a VJ set, (let alone an AV set!) I saw visuals at an event I went to; infected mushroom in may2005 (which I think was inside-us-all). They had 2 huge round screens either side of the DJ?s. I wondered if it was just a dvd playing but when a guitar riff came in and the visuals showed a guitar being played, I concluded it was a live VJ (I had sort of heard about such people)! I also remember a circle of religious symbols rotating round the edge of the screen. To me this really enhanced the party because it gave the atmosphere a different edge, or a different voice. In the same way the music does but more subtly by using music as the queue for a new action. And it was something to focus on when you didn?t know where to look -it?s like another portal or dimension without being too wishy-washy! And in a way I thought it as an extension of cinema?..:inf:
So I finished uni that summer I thought that I?d really like to get into VJing. My mates were putting on a psytrance party about 200 capcity and I was going to VJ for them and had a time frame of a month or two to learn about vjing, get kit together, have content ready and mix/project the visuals- easy!:drums:
So first I needed a programme, I downloaded a free demo of arkaos and it seemed the most easy just to pick up play and use effects. I used the clips that came with it and listen to psy-trance radio for about 10mins-cool, easy, fun! Ok so I needed to get a second monitor working, hmm it came out black and white. And I can?t fix it! Then I realise I don?t really know my way round my computer and usually just get my mates to do it for me. So I took it round my mates and he said a needed the latest driver, Huh? What?s that? So I?ve probably got a bit more learning than I thought. So after this I take it home. :shrug:
My mates requested some dinosaur video for the psy-trance night because they were having a cave man theme. So cool, I thought I?ll just rip some DVD?s. So I looked into VJForums to find information on how to do this, and I found, a lot of discussion about the ethics of using other peoples work. This really made me think about content. It made me think what I am I trying to say? Am I just wanting to slap a load of visuals on the screen that look cool? What?s cool anyway?! :cool:
As I looked more into content creation I found a lot of information about, not only filming your own stuff and buying DVD?s but also all the open source freeware apps available, for use AND development whoa! 2D or 3D and a lot are free which means I won?t need to save for them I could start learning as soon as I wanted. This was really motivating as I imagined these kind of programmes beyond me. But first I need to get some clips. So I need to get video from mini-dv to arkaos. You need to know about codecs. Huh? Compression rates. Shit! I?m not learning quickly enough! Well, to be fair I was working on another big project at the time, but I didn?t make that psy-trance gig night by a long shot! Not as easy as I thought! :trashcomp
Then I saw an advert for a VJ class for one day in London with VJ Anyone. I?d not heard of him before and looked him up on the web he seemed to working a lot at big gigs and had professional looking video so I thought it would be really useful to go. I was working as a postie at the time so used my new pay-cheque to go.
It was actually a really inspiring day as a starting off point as I got to meet other people interested in VJing and actually got to see some equipment that?s used. I do think that meeting people and seeing equipment can occur at lots of places like festivals or nights but at the time I didn?t really know any nights where VJ?s would play. On the day Oli said to us each what kind of visuals do you want to do in terms of medium? I said that I wanted to do all of it! animation, video, computer generated etc. He said that it could be said that you might end up being ?a jack of all trades, a master of none?. Which I think is way of looking at it, although I?d also add that it is good to look into lot?s of different things you can learn, you might be surprised at what you can do, and you might find if you concentrate for ages on one thing for a longer time that you can make a more quality piece whether it be short animation or making a new piece of hardware. :robot:
Since then I took it a lot slower and got to see lot?s of really great acts including A.V acts the most memorable and that I?d recommend were in no particular order,
VJamm Allstars, Coldcut , Syzergy, hexstatic and all the great vj?s at Bloom festival/events. I also went to and recommend the A.V social event in London where they show loads of short films also.
I?d also recommend Live Drum and Bass night at the pressure point in Brighton quality music and quality visuals! I?ve had the privilege of knowing U.S.E who does visuals for the night, he?s a really great guy and a cool dude and brilliant inspiration and help for learning and when I did the visuals for a mates party.
:club:
Yeah so in the end I ended up exploring/playing with some stop motion animation, with modelling clay, which is a lot of fun! I also used tapes I had from a short film I made and video me and my friend shot at Stonehenge summer solstice one year. I found it?s cool to play with bits of video that incorporate your interests. I think vjing can make you look at the world in rhythms and I find it surprising and fun to get bits of video and manipulate them into different images and meanings. I?ve put some clips that I made and use for VJing onto archive.org under creative commons license.
http://www.archive.org/details/AmandaRabbettsVJclips (http://www.archive.org/details/AmandaRabbettsVJclips)
http://www.archive.org/details/AmandaRabbettsVJClips1 (http://www.archive.org/details/AmandaRabbettsVJClips1)
They are AVI?s to download compressed with indeo codec size: 320x240 for non-commercial, share-alike.
So we managed to get the first gig going and went pretty well.
Not too many hitches. I?d been creating a few clips prior to the gig with advice and help from U.S.E. I practised many evenings whilst listening to the music and learning Resolume. Resolume seems the best I?ve found for the way it layers; but there?s loads of programmes out there that you should defiantly try out ? I am hopefully. Over the past year I?d bought a Panasonic AVE 5 mixer, and Kaoss Pad Entrancer and used the PC I already had an AMDAthlon2700 NVidia GeForce 1and1/2gig of Ram, kinda old (3years)but works well.
At the psy trance I did manage to do last week; for the setup I was worried about the screen freezing as my computer tended to do that, so I used the mixer so if this happened we could cut straight to the live camera, (a sony mini-dv home video). I input the camera through the entrancer so we could have effects over the live video whilst the computer rebooted. (By the way this a lot to carry but I use a car so it helps but not the sort of rig you can take on a train!) Funnily enough, what I NEVER thought of happening, the MIXER FROZE! We turned it off an on again so there were a few seconds of blue screen!
Unfortunatly I forgot DV tapes so there was no recording of the night, just a picture of the setup, here..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34664386@N00/457604099/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/34664386@N00/457604099/)
We also used U.S.E?s laptop as another channel for some parts, mixing it with the PC I was using, layered using chroma key in the mixer, (there?s no luma key L) we didn?t use U.S.E?s midi controller in the end.
It was a fun and hot experience. Luckily they set the VJ next to DJ in the corner so well out the way of random punters drinks! The only thing was that my mates were there and it was difficult to mingle with them! It was really fun to put something back into parties, especially mates parties! (which is kind of why I wanted project visuals originally). I was very nervous before the gig and ended up forgetting a couple of bits n bobs. I forgot afew things like gaffa tape-there was enough to go around at the set up. And I forgot dv tapes to record the night +visuals, also the day before the gig I realised I didn?t have along enough s-vid cable,(which sent me into a slight panic, :terror:
luckily someone had one but in the end we were close to the projector and didn?t need it anyway!
here?s a mix I did at home using the content I created:
http://www.vimeo.com/clip:169103 (http://www.vimeo.com/clip:169103)
It has seemed like such a long journey just to get a gig set up and running but it?s been well fun! Without being too wishy-washy again, I feel like the process of Vjing has really helped me as a person,
To be more organised ? keeping clips organised and also in terms of learning and working around problems.
Courage- to do something I?ve never done before. Being responsible for being part of an environment and atmosphere for people to enjoy and feel comfortable in.
Inspiration and motivation- the development of technology is growing so fast it?s really exciting and all the great people that develop programmes and hardware and content that can be used in VJing and lots of other kinds of projects. :idea:
VJforums has played a massive role in this.
I?d like to say thank you very much to all the brilliant people on VJForums especially the moderators who keep the board fair and keep communication flowing. So many inspiring people and such individual, entertaining acts.
It?s a really great community and it seems if you respect the information you put out and receive you can learn a lot and meet cool people!:up:
Cheers, mandymushroom :D
When I first became interested in VJing I don?t think I fully comprehended the complexities that went into creating a VJ set, (let alone an AV set!) I saw visuals at an event I went to; infected mushroom in may2005 (which I think was inside-us-all). They had 2 huge round screens either side of the DJ?s. I wondered if it was just a dvd playing but when a guitar riff came in and the visuals showed a guitar being played, I concluded it was a live VJ (I had sort of heard about such people)! I also remember a circle of religious symbols rotating round the edge of the screen. To me this really enhanced the party because it gave the atmosphere a different edge, or a different voice. In the same way the music does but more subtly by using music as the queue for a new action. And it was something to focus on when you didn?t know where to look -it?s like another portal or dimension without being too wishy-washy! And in a way I thought it as an extension of cinema?..:inf:
So I finished uni that summer I thought that I?d really like to get into VJing. My mates were putting on a psytrance party about 200 capcity and I was going to VJ for them and had a time frame of a month or two to learn about vjing, get kit together, have content ready and mix/project the visuals- easy!:drums:
So first I needed a programme, I downloaded a free demo of arkaos and it seemed the most easy just to pick up play and use effects. I used the clips that came with it and listen to psy-trance radio for about 10mins-cool, easy, fun! Ok so I needed to get a second monitor working, hmm it came out black and white. And I can?t fix it! Then I realise I don?t really know my way round my computer and usually just get my mates to do it for me. So I took it round my mates and he said a needed the latest driver, Huh? What?s that? So I?ve probably got a bit more learning than I thought. So after this I take it home. :shrug:
My mates requested some dinosaur video for the psy-trance night because they were having a cave man theme. So cool, I thought I?ll just rip some DVD?s. So I looked into VJForums to find information on how to do this, and I found, a lot of discussion about the ethics of using other peoples work. This really made me think about content. It made me think what I am I trying to say? Am I just wanting to slap a load of visuals on the screen that look cool? What?s cool anyway?! :cool:
As I looked more into content creation I found a lot of information about, not only filming your own stuff and buying DVD?s but also all the open source freeware apps available, for use AND development whoa! 2D or 3D and a lot are free which means I won?t need to save for them I could start learning as soon as I wanted. This was really motivating as I imagined these kind of programmes beyond me. But first I need to get some clips. So I need to get video from mini-dv to arkaos. You need to know about codecs. Huh? Compression rates. Shit! I?m not learning quickly enough! Well, to be fair I was working on another big project at the time, but I didn?t make that psy-trance gig night by a long shot! Not as easy as I thought! :trashcomp
Then I saw an advert for a VJ class for one day in London with VJ Anyone. I?d not heard of him before and looked him up on the web he seemed to working a lot at big gigs and had professional looking video so I thought it would be really useful to go. I was working as a postie at the time so used my new pay-cheque to go.
It was actually a really inspiring day as a starting off point as I got to meet other people interested in VJing and actually got to see some equipment that?s used. I do think that meeting people and seeing equipment can occur at lots of places like festivals or nights but at the time I didn?t really know any nights where VJ?s would play. On the day Oli said to us each what kind of visuals do you want to do in terms of medium? I said that I wanted to do all of it! animation, video, computer generated etc. He said that it could be said that you might end up being ?a jack of all trades, a master of none?. Which I think is way of looking at it, although I?d also add that it is good to look into lot?s of different things you can learn, you might be surprised at what you can do, and you might find if you concentrate for ages on one thing for a longer time that you can make a more quality piece whether it be short animation or making a new piece of hardware. :robot:
Since then I took it a lot slower and got to see lot?s of really great acts including A.V acts the most memorable and that I?d recommend were in no particular order,
VJamm Allstars, Coldcut , Syzergy, hexstatic and all the great vj?s at Bloom festival/events. I also went to and recommend the A.V social event in London where they show loads of short films also.
I?d also recommend Live Drum and Bass night at the pressure point in Brighton quality music and quality visuals! I?ve had the privilege of knowing U.S.E who does visuals for the night, he?s a really great guy and a cool dude and brilliant inspiration and help for learning and when I did the visuals for a mates party.
:club:
Yeah so in the end I ended up exploring/playing with some stop motion animation, with modelling clay, which is a lot of fun! I also used tapes I had from a short film I made and video me and my friend shot at Stonehenge summer solstice one year. I found it?s cool to play with bits of video that incorporate your interests. I think vjing can make you look at the world in rhythms and I find it surprising and fun to get bits of video and manipulate them into different images and meanings. I?ve put some clips that I made and use for VJing onto archive.org under creative commons license.
http://www.archive.org/details/AmandaRabbettsVJclips (http://www.archive.org/details/AmandaRabbettsVJclips)
http://www.archive.org/details/AmandaRabbettsVJClips1 (http://www.archive.org/details/AmandaRabbettsVJClips1)
They are AVI?s to download compressed with indeo codec size: 320x240 for non-commercial, share-alike.
So we managed to get the first gig going and went pretty well.
Not too many hitches. I?d been creating a few clips prior to the gig with advice and help from U.S.E. I practised many evenings whilst listening to the music and learning Resolume. Resolume seems the best I?ve found for the way it layers; but there?s loads of programmes out there that you should defiantly try out ? I am hopefully. Over the past year I?d bought a Panasonic AVE 5 mixer, and Kaoss Pad Entrancer and used the PC I already had an AMDAthlon2700 NVidia GeForce 1and1/2gig of Ram, kinda old (3years)but works well.
At the psy trance I did manage to do last week; for the setup I was worried about the screen freezing as my computer tended to do that, so I used the mixer so if this happened we could cut straight to the live camera, (a sony mini-dv home video). I input the camera through the entrancer so we could have effects over the live video whilst the computer rebooted. (By the way this a lot to carry but I use a car so it helps but not the sort of rig you can take on a train!) Funnily enough, what I NEVER thought of happening, the MIXER FROZE! We turned it off an on again so there were a few seconds of blue screen!
Unfortunatly I forgot DV tapes so there was no recording of the night, just a picture of the setup, here..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34664386@N00/457604099/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/34664386@N00/457604099/)
We also used U.S.E?s laptop as another channel for some parts, mixing it with the PC I was using, layered using chroma key in the mixer, (there?s no luma key L) we didn?t use U.S.E?s midi controller in the end.
It was a fun and hot experience. Luckily they set the VJ next to DJ in the corner so well out the way of random punters drinks! The only thing was that my mates were there and it was difficult to mingle with them! It was really fun to put something back into parties, especially mates parties! (which is kind of why I wanted project visuals originally). I was very nervous before the gig and ended up forgetting a couple of bits n bobs. I forgot afew things like gaffa tape-there was enough to go around at the set up. And I forgot dv tapes to record the night +visuals, also the day before the gig I realised I didn?t have along enough s-vid cable,(which sent me into a slight panic, :terror:
luckily someone had one but in the end we were close to the projector and didn?t need it anyway!
here?s a mix I did at home using the content I created:
http://www.vimeo.com/clip:169103 (http://www.vimeo.com/clip:169103)
It has seemed like such a long journey just to get a gig set up and running but it?s been well fun! Without being too wishy-washy again, I feel like the process of Vjing has really helped me as a person,
To be more organised ? keeping clips organised and also in terms of learning and working around problems.
Courage- to do something I?ve never done before. Being responsible for being part of an environment and atmosphere for people to enjoy and feel comfortable in.
Inspiration and motivation- the development of technology is growing so fast it?s really exciting and all the great people that develop programmes and hardware and content that can be used in VJing and lots of other kinds of projects. :idea:
VJforums has played a massive role in this.
I?d like to say thank you very much to all the brilliant people on VJForums especially the moderators who keep the board fair and keep communication flowing. So many inspiring people and such individual, entertaining acts.
It?s a really great community and it seems if you respect the information you put out and receive you can learn a lot and meet cool people!:up:
Cheers, mandymushroom :D