Different styles ... Who does What ?

[dronkie]

Hello there...

This is a post with which I would like to get to know the different 'streams' in VJ-land. I mean like in the Art-world, where you have all different kinds of styles...
I Specially am interested to know that because I have been asked to take care of the content on a big event which takes place in Belgium. I know some people who do great things with video, but since the event is growing every year, we now have several halls with videoscreens. Therefor, I think you can't just put anyone anywhere. We don't put a techno-DJ in the Drum'n'bass-hall, so I am not going to put a Techno-VEEJAY in there neither. Everybody must have a specialty, I think, or a favorite kind of gig.
So, THis is a call to evryone ; who knows you might have to come over and play here in Belgium. I just want to know who does what. I'm not going to invite ten vj's and put them anywhere ...
If you have a specialty, let me know,Please...

Wouter
;)

[hamageddon]

me digs breakbeats/dnb

[fluchtpunkt]

i do mostly dnb, electronica & tech-house gigs (in that order).

my visual style is harder to describe (check out http://www.tiefglanz.tv/play.html & then click the cover for a small sample). the (video) stuff i sample from others is rather eclectic as to styles, though far east, urban, 1920's to 50's, experimental, & spacey footage play a major role. the soundreactive stuff & anims i add with the laptop tend to be bouncy, flashy (i.e. strobe style), spacey, trashy, abstract, minimal. live or recorded footage from cam. then the various elements get mixed together (or not). emphasis of the stuff i do is on the final (live) mix.

...hope this gives you somewhat an idea,

cheers

[syzygy]

I only do visuals for nights with music that I like (I used to do club lighting and grew _very_ tired of working at nights where I hated the music and the people)

Current styles of music I mix to:

Drum and Bass
Hip Hop / Breaks
Asian Influenced (a whole range but including lots of live drumming)

I'd do techno or psy trance given the chance.


My visuals style is based on 'real' footage. I don't really use 3D stuff or flash - I prefer the slightly 'dirtier' look of real world stuff. ( I like well executed 3D stuff though - I just can't do it well myself)

I do a lot of work on clips before the event - I very rarely use a clip in it's original form. For me, creating something unexpected is half of the fun.

In terms of the clips themselves, my stuff ranges all over the place - the nights I do stuff for have different themes and vibes so I need a lot of variety.

On the night itself, I use a midi keyboard to give me access to as many clips as possible, as quickly as posisble. That way, I can get to what I need to flow witth the music. I don't use any sound reactive stuff - I play the visuals to the music to get things in synch.

Recently, I've been experimenting with how to use split screens right (inspired by an old Stone Roses video and the series 24)

There currently isn't any narrative to what I do, but I'm working on some ideas for some more narrative-led sets.

SyZyGy

[BagheeraRC]

i'll jam to 'most anything. good jazz, real rock, and quality electronica are preferred (drum 'n' bass is a blast, so is jungle- crazy, heady beat patterns). jimi hendrix just feels right, the syck wailing guitar solos meshes well with video changes. i've done some work with a jazz group that would sample themselves live, and have a dj spin house beats of said samples over them jamming, really nice stuff. as to visual style....can be narrative based, but mostly improv. imagine three or four video streams, all playing at once. time-based effects on each of the streams triggered to the beat (manually, none of this audio-input beat-matching crap; more like an instrument). each of the streams are layered, and i prefer to fluidly change how the streams composite while playing with the basic image effects (also affects compositing).

end result? a video stream made up of video streams that flows with the music. total control over all aspects of video: i control what you see, how you see it, when you see it, and how it jives with everything else i'm showing you. in short, i'm trying like hell to make video as reactive and as flexible as any other musical instrument out there.

it is only after you understand something implicitly and have full mastery of it's capabilities as well as knowledge of it's limitations that human expression and art can begin to take form.

[Anyone]

hello dronkie,

i prefer doing visuals for house,
or anything that's funky and sexy.

but i am also comfortable with latin, diva-style, US house,
camp spectacular, anthems, big beats and glam.

NE1

[NickT]

I'm just a sucker for that ol' psychedelic hippy freaky madness.

[many2]

My stuff is very graphical, with strong contrasts, saturated colors, and geometric stuff blended with beatmatched archive video, animated stills and scientific visualization. I also use more and more real-time 3d, since this is where I come from, I used to be a technical director on many 3d games. What may seems strange when one see one of my shows is that there aren't many human figures in it : it has a very techno look, with machines, graphics and the like. I do have some characters I use, like a dancing man made with old radio lamps, or my serie of dancing japanes tin robots.

Favorite music to go with my visuals : Techno & Trance and everything in between. I really like to mix visuals on UK hardhouse and hard trance, but this music is only playing in raves here in Montreal, and raves are rare now !


Many-2

[hamageddon]

Originally posted by Anyone
but i am also comfortable with , diva-style,camp spectacular, anthems, glam
NE1
jessass, i musta have grown old. never heard of this.
pls enlighten me, Anyone, who r the key artists in this?

[Anyone]

Is this a trick question ?

glam : fisherspooner
anthems : big tracks from eric morillo, roger sanchez, tim deluxe ...
camp-spectacular, diva-style: junior vasquez...

hope you're not homophobic...

[Denimage]

Hi Dronky,

I'm independant movie-director, i love to mix and sample all the movies i love..
JLGodard,Cassavetes,Renoir,Felini..
I'm completly adict to 16mm images, i shot, i hand made process, sometimes i use to make experimentals treatment, and use found footage.
All this are my "rushes",
I performe with 3 or 4 16mm projectors, and a video projecteur with RCFuse.

Cordialement. :nod:

[hamageddon]

Originally posted by Anyone
Is this a trick question ?
hope you're not homophobic...

lol, anyone :)
nah, i just too tied up in dnb, that
i don't get all the hip names for the
"new" music-styles around.
but i'm reliefed, most of the names are known to me :)

[wellREDman]

i dont have a particular favourite type of music to mix to, but i do like variety, and really enjoy the challenge of a new music i havnt tried before.
playing with bands i find a thrill too, you get a bit of a heads up as to whats gonna happen, but you only get a coupla minutes in which to do yr thing b4 it's all change for the next song

[spark]

shit... i can only ditto many2 (respect!), but well i prefer the breaks / d'n'b scene... room for us both tee hee.

the blurb i give is: "The *spark style flows from the breakbeat and an urban tech aesthetic, fusing motion graphics, video and information overlay, channeled through cutting edge laptop live visual mash up technology. "

[wellREDman]

i dont have a particular favourite type of music to mix to, but i do like variety, and really enjoy the challenge of a new music i havnt tried before.
playing with bands i find a thrill too, you get a bit of a heads up as to whats gonna happen, but you only get a coupla minutes in which to do yr thing b4 it's all change for the next song

[Jorjo]

Originally posted by wellREDman
i dont have a particular favourite type of music to mix to, but i do like variety, and really enjoy the challenge of a new music i havnt tried before.
playing with bands i find a thrill too, you get a bit of a heads up as to whats gonna happen, but you only get a coupla minutes in which to do yr thing b4 it's all change for the next song

:)
Havin seen ya workin RED, I know exactly what yer sayin man. For a Band like the one you where tourin with 10 cams and 10 desks and a mainframe with 10 million loops would only be a start to having all eventualitys coverd,, Those guy are a rollercoster ride, VJ has to run in mid air.. BUT WAHT A BUZZ !!!

[Anyone]

Originally posted by hamageddon


lol, anyone :)
nah, i just too tied up in dnb, that
i don't get all the hip names for the
"new" music-styles around.
but i'm reliefed, most of the names are known to me :)

:D
cool Hama,
you know there's so many new styles commin' in and out of fashion,
that at the end of the day, you might as well create your own vocabulary of styles to keep up with the daily dose of new jargon ...

NE1

[eXhale]

How about creating visuals for movie soundtracks?

Sounds like reverse engineering to me :cool:

[xl8r]

I've been working recently with hard trance and hard nrg, but I have done some thechno gigs too. For the hard style parties I'd love to put up a set full of cyber related video and lots of flashin and fast videos.

[hamageddon]

reading all the posts taking visuals into account too, i'd like to add that i'm mostly
mixing abstract grafx with movie style too
but being a musican, i am trying to catch the music's feel on different levels/layers, not only strobe style 4 the beats but slow motion stuff for the textures too

preferably on breakbeat/dnb, but i guess u know that already :)

[komart663]

i do rather visual in hardcore and dnbass party ,but i had shows with ragga ,an other one with electronic contemporan ,as i do rather use poilitical messages ,body transformations ,military movies ,bw 20/30's movies ,shortcuts from anywhere ,propaganda films of Kissinger ,i can work for an event too ( as i think i'm still not very stable )

[vandeti]

dronkie .. what event in Belgium are you talking about
I live about 7 kilometers from you and I don't have a clue what your talking about

!! but hey .. we're interested !!

[Primebase3]

techno,house(soulful) and dnb : also very intrested!! :D

[townleybomb]

experimental, ambient, and downtempo (in that order)

yeah, i know, experimental is pretty vague. but it allows a lot of freedom in choosing clips. i work with a lot of 'found' video. thrift store stuff. kids birthday parties from 10 years ago, vacation videos, computer repair videos, and (the highlight of my collection, right now) 'video hypnosis' videos. occasionally the DJ/band will throw in the audio from the videos (think 25 kids singing/screaming 'happy birthday' off key while someone makes noise with a violin...and the shaky-ness of old home movies is wonderful.)

i'm mostly aiming for bars&galleries...no real aspirations to get into the club scene...(dont think i could afford a 'proper' vj setup either...)

guess i'm aiming for different crowds than a lot of people...anyone else into this sort of thing?

[krezrock]

jungle/dnb, 2step, breaks, hip hop, rock, industrial and can't forget broken beats and japanese noise music.

:zzz:

[fisheye]

So your gonna provide the content ... It's a small world...;-)
I very curious en very intrested..

Greetz

Fisheye

[LarryLightshow]

The Doors
best music to Visualize with...

[vjpixylight]

Originally posted by LarryLightshow
The Doors
best music to Visualize with...

now where talkin...

the snake was pale gold glazed and shrunken...we were afraid to touch it... the sheets were hot dead prisons...

I guess Jim M could describe my Vjing better than I...

I am into the visualz I see in my head when doing psychedelics...
i guess you call me a techno hippee....yippee...

[moon]

hi bad boys

in terms of music i get the kicks when vj-ing
to minimal electro [bitpop?!?] >> miss kittin, the hacker, tiga, ...
used to work at hard trance/techno, dnb and goa parties but never got a real buzz out of it. i did some unintended vj-ing for a slayer cover and it was a massive fun job as i had some hard core visuals [chris korda, WTC] to mix with and the crowd [bmx-boys] appeaared to me like a mass of cloned jackasses smashing cans on their heads, drinkin' liquid soap from dispensers -
lots of broken legs and arms that night ....

my visuals often look a bit trashy [love the 80's trash-e-punk]
but i started to insert HQ-excerpts from various source material.
quite often include some phrases or typo-animation aswell.
i guess dronkie was intending to get info on the visual style, ey?
fractals are the basic starting point but i have seen far to many people use them.
... later

[zeist]

ultra high contrast bold images
mainly people, always with a busy underlay though to keep your subconcious busy...


:nod: stataktision / zeist

fav is dnb

[Deebur]

I LOVE TECHNO


en jij begon erover...... ;)

[erikm]

i love idm

[MoRpH]

I love VARIETY !!!! oh and mint condition fairlight CVIs :D

[rossco]

we like and play:

Deliberate Animations- a fusion of psychedelic and organic nature laced visulas.

Most of the time we are pushing it out to trance or ambient world beats.

However, I also enjoy DUb, TecHno and the elctro thing that is happening now, but that is more for relaxation than for our 'serious' ;) Party mix's.



rossco :cool:

[disassembler]

Play for it all, as long as I have enough time to prepare for the theme.

I really have the most fun when I'm organized.

Bands have been some of my most challenging and enjoyable experiences.

[Fullscreen]

we travel trough a visual paradox, going from electro, tech-house to acid & breaks. It's quite inspiring to do lots of styles...
cheerz

[MoRpH]

I have to agree Fullscreen I find it a challange and an inspiration working with the full gammit of dance music as the basis for my work.