colab. turntablissimo (and what r we then, DVDists? lappyists? V4ism??)

[littlecatalyst]

anyone doing stuff with turntablist djs? as the dmc championships are just around the corner, im starting to think about how much fun it would be to play with one of these cats.. anyone have this exp? what is different from doing a more drawn out set? did you find it pushed you a lot? did you practice much? was their set well rehearsed and replicable or was it almost 100% improv? tell me tell me!!

[juxta]

i've done kid koala a lot when he is in europe,
but i really have just done live camera mix
1 hand held 2 or 3 wide angle spy cam and odd angles
and sometimes a cam tight on thhe xfade

boring i know in vj terms but then again utterly compelling viewing and really adding to the show

(cos only so many 'spotters can be right up front)

[holly]

Originally posted by juxta
boring i know in vj terms....
I don't see what's boring about it. Using live cameras is as much VJing as using Resolume and a V-4. It sounds cool if you ask me!

[juxta]

thanks

it did look good -

just thought littlecatalyst was looking for stories of sync'd performances and finding specific content

[littlecatalyst]

dood you gotta be kidding! dontcha know a) youre already my hero. and b) that is way cool. *some* people around the forums may think that tbar is for whatever-- not me, i know theres a subtley and heavyosity that can go head to head with any computer (and in a turntablism way i think tbar is tha way to go anyway).

jxt i hope that at some point youll also have a cam on your tbar too

i think thats totally dope man, yeah im also wondering about using more images an creating a whole collabo thing, and where we're at with that. but like i said: h-e-r-o ((regardless of my occasional terrets))

[charlielangridge]

I've been mashing ideas together scratchy type peeps for a while no and have had some good stuff, some excellent stuff and some damn nasty stuff. One of the members of LRB is video scratchmonkey, and we've done some kewl stuff. As soon as we sit down and actually do some work (as opposed to messing arround for hours on end ;)), i'll post it.

[lotech]

We do alot of Hip Hop gigs, last year we did a few tours (A-Trak, Craze & Qbert) and all the ITF (International Turntabilist Federation) Comps. Turntabilsm is one of the best uses for cameras, DJs playing other forms are usually all good for silouettes or for their head bopping to the beat of the music but thats about it...
Ideally think of a few things - hands on the turntables, hands on the crossfader, body shot and a static shot of the stage (if there are MC's they will jump all over the show). Expect one shot to suck all night, either focus issues, bouncing around, badly directed - ideally spend at least an hour getting the cameras right - once the show is on you should have better things to do than fix angles.
And one other tip - 3 V4s (or 2 MX20s + a V4) are the best way of making the visuals look flawless - 1 V4 for cameras (4 inputs), 1 V4 for visuals and 1 V4 for the final mix....

[littlecatalyst]

kewel!

with all those cameras, do u guys get into much feedback?

[lotech]

Video feedback? or Punter/Promoter Feedback?

[syzygy]

We've worked with a fair few turntablists, because one of our residencies is a hip-hop night.



Tend to be that the better the DJ, the longer their pre-planned mini-sets are (I guess because the better DJs can hold it together for longer) The really good DJs (DMC world champ level) will have mini-sets of up to a minute or two worked out. The beginners will be able to do a sequence of a few scratches between two records that they've worked out, but they won't be able to maintain the scratching for longer than that.

All of the scratch DJs that we've worked with like to improvise at least some. The big names will tend to spend most of their set doing some 'light scratching' between records - I assume this is mostly improvised, but they will have a section fo a few minutes that includes a lot of stuff that is obviously pre worked out.

On the other hand, even the 'improvised stuff' is pretty much always prepared to some extent in advance - at the very least they will have identified a good scratch on a record and marked the start of it with a sticker on the record label (so that they can spin the record back exactly to the start of the scratch easily)

The most impressive stuff I've ever heard was Craze and Plus1 doing a turntabist drum and bass set - constructing whole new tunes out of other drum and bass tunes by cutting and scratching them scaryily fast. DJ Noize is also fantastic - he played at my first ever gig in 2000. He did a section where he butchered trance tunes into hip-hop on the fly.

The scratch DJ events are probably the ones where we get the most out our live cameras. We use tiny cameras that fit into mic stands so that we can get them right into the action on the decks and crossfader.

I don't tend to use the t-bar much, relying on the transform buttons (mmm I love those transform buttons) for instant cutting. I just don't think a video t-bar can keep up with a good scratch DJ who has a nice slick crossfader (if you look closely, they often aren't even holding the crossfader; they're flicking it back and forth)

Suggested camera shots:

* Directly above the mixer, out far enough to get the two decks in
* In close on the crossfader from in front
* close to one of the decks, looking down the table
* about a 45degree horizontal and vertical angle out from one of the decks, so you get the part of the deck they are scratching on and the crossfader in shot

We tend to keep all of our cameras in front of the decks, mostly for practical reasons but also so that the camera shots are from broadly the same direction as the audience is looking (same theory as the invisible line theory when shooting dialogue - don't confuse the audience too much...)

Holly is right that live camera stuff is just as much VJing as anything else (But holly, didn't you know that resolume does live video in and a V4 is the best mixer for cameras? Cameras, resolume and V4 are a great combination!)

Dan.

[littlecatalyst]

Originally posted by lotech
Video feedback? or Punter/Promoter Feedback?

video. (sorry for the late response) especially as that has it's own rhythm and speed so its polly a difficult trick to master... but curious!

BTW jusxta u coming to the North American leg of the Zen Tour

Originally posted by Syzygy
I don't tend to use the t-bar much, relying on the transform buttons (mmm I love those transform buttons) for instant cutting. I just don't think a video t-bar can keep up with a good scratch DJ who has a nice slick crossfader (if you look closely, they often aren't even holding the crossfader; they're flicking it back and forth)

thats a super interesting point dan, thanks, our faders arent thats good in comparison.... nice cam angles too (though I WISH someone started to also have a cam on the VJ4) curious about what ur saying about the invisible line; u think that'll be the case if you have say a 5 piece AV band with lots and lots of cams on stage? or only if its a single focus of turntablist?

[sleepytom]

the line theory is one for proper edits - i really like the effect of cutting ccross the line and mixing two shots of the same thing from opposing angles - i guess it depends on if you intend to give the audiance a better view of the performers or use the performaers as abstract objects in a visual mix (its perfectly possable to do both - and ultimatly using strange angles and non standard techneques makes the good clear shot stand out even more than it would on its own)

[holly]

Originally posted by syzygy
Holly is right that live camera stuff is just as much VJing as anything else (But holly, didn't you know that resolume does live video in and a V4 is the best mixer for cameras? Cameras, resolume and V4 are a great combination!)

Dan.

You're misinterpreting what I said, Dan. I just meant that Resolume and the V-4 are easily recognized as tools for a VJ. I intended to suggest that (contrary to the original post) cameras are also a common tool for VJs, not that one tool superceeds another. I've been on tour with a band using some static cams mounted on microphone stands, a V-4, and my standard DVD players. Well, 2 V-4s actually. The first takes 4 cam inputs and the second mixes the cams with my graphics....

[wellREDman]

so good you had o say it twice holly? :D

the above makes me really grateful that i'm partnered with a fantastic cameraman for all the band shows i do :)

he not only knows how to shoot-for-VJ with his handheld (which IS different to shooting for a vision mixer ) but his eye for setting up interesting static shots is priceless

[littlecatalyst]

Originally posted by sleepytom
i really like the effect of cutting ccross the line and mixing two shots of the same thing from opposing angles - i guess it depends on if you intend to give the audiance a better view of the performers or use the performaers as abstract objects in a visual mix (its perfectly possable to do both - and ultimatly using strange angles and non standard techneques makes the good clear shot stand out even more than it would on its own)

yeah totally ST, i guess the orientation loss is not really happening if you are going between two shots (especially repeated a few times) because its in a different dimention anyway. nice idea too of using that as a way to make the tighter stuff stand out