Motorola live visuals award

[devonmiles]

so, just came back from this "top event" and still dont know what to think about it. I posted a review in german on vjforum.de:

http://web65.hosting10.magicalworks.com/vjforum/read.php?TID=412

and will translate it for this thread later the day. meanwhile everyone who had been there too is invited to leave his impressions here.

[fALk]

Just as I have always said.... Motorola is not here to be benificial to the vj scene at large. They are here for gaining more hip market power. They have absolutely no idea of the scene and I would like to know from Flora&Fauna where they think they got the expertise to judge good visuals. There is no way to judge. The styles are to diverse the ideas to far reaching as to say "this is good". Its 80% personal style. There are some technics that you learn but THOSE CAN NOT BE JUDGED BY A PRERECORDED TAPE. And this event is the best proof for all that ? thank you :)

A corporate sponsored VJ event and they have one shitty beamer? And again a lineup that puts the Djs in the middle and the Vj is an add on. Just what we need! Surprises me that they actually invited the VJ and not just played his demo.

We will have a discussion round at AVIT^C3 about the corporate sponsored VJ scene (with a special emphasis on motorola and their damage to the berlin scene already).

I personally still think motorola is on the long search for the ultimate content to sell on their mobile phones here in europe. Dollar signs in their eyes imagining people sitting in the train listening to some radio station with blinking visuals people paying 2 bucks a second for this.

Everyone who is doing the Vj thing knows that that is NOT going to work. Smaller screens will not save us. I am completely with steve the mighty jobs on this that its silly to believe hundred-thousands of people will enjoy films on 2-4 inch screens. To have an emotional impact (on their own) visuals need to be big or surrounding (emerging the viewer in different place).

I think motorola slowly realizes this and giving the less then strong showing in FFM I think they are already pulling out as fast as possible. VJs are not selling them even one more phone in the foreseeable future. Nor are VJs hip enough yet to capitalize on them in a commercial (like they did with Paul van Dyk who now only employs motorola sponsored vjs as of contract btw ).

Its another thing that reminds me of past adventures in the early nineties techno scene. There have been numerous big corporations trying to enter the electronic music scene in berlin. All have pulled out in less then two years. (remember camel move someone?). You just can not capitalize directly. People want no commercial shit in clubs over here. LoveParade is fading away just because they did not understand this main thinking of their own scene. Commercialism kills the scene and when its killed at some point its just raising from the dead on another. The big corpos are to slow to follow and to lazy to follow and its not a new trend.
I think the electronic music evening is developing into a save haven for people sick of all the kapitalistik shit going on around them. Once they see it they run away.

Big stinking finger to motorola and all its supporting VJs....

[devonmiles]

yo falk, thats the brutal truth. sad enough to imagine what an outstanding event it could have been, with the right people at the right places and the money spend for the right things.

now to let the english speaking world take part, heres my review:

"strange enough that this event doesnt took place at a fashionable hip venue like the tresor or the wmf berlin, but in an old cinema in frankfurt. when I arrived there I even was able to find a parking lot near the entrance. ( I supposed the streets being messed up with motorolas representatives cars, av rental trucks, broadcasting vans, but there was only a small crowd of punters gathering at the cash desk)

the entrance fee of 12 euro was average for frankfurt and not too much for the expected show with remarkable dj line up (loco dice, m?rtini br?s, tom novy and deery, all accompanied by a vj set)

when I entered the Royal, a converted old cinema with old plushy furniture and a really huge screen very suitable for vj related events, I was really shocked by the disgustingly poor quality of the beamer ( yeah, just ONE !!!)
It was their old house beamer of everyday use which had seen better days, forced to throw onto 12 x 20 meters of opaque screen (what is clearly a job for a 30000 $ barco. someone should consider calling standard & poors to set motorolas stock ratings to bbb, just for not being able to pay for a pro beamer)

the media installations announced in the newspapers consisted mainly of slide projektions of the motorola logo all over the wall, sometimes that out of focus that it looked liked the batman sign from the movie.

the winner of the ward, vj shiftpitcher had had the hounor to do the opening set with dj loco dice.
(taken them literally, this award was dedicated explicitely to newcomer vjs, and the quality of the impression we now saw gave the impression the jury board had taken this premise seriously)

shiftpitcher is a vj, this can be proved. he does live mixing, another plus. one was able to follow his intended aesthetic concept over the 3 hour set and could see that he tried to develope his personal style but was lacking live experience, skillz and routine sometimes.

there were no proper work with effects,and the first 40 minutes were just a mess of red mud sometimes emanating simple geometric forms supposed to match the beat but mostly doesnt.

the stage cam was holy shit: a static capture of some of the punters at the bar, blurry red keyed in.

after 20 minutes watching we were quite irritated because the visuals tended to disappear suddenly within some tracks. we stared confused at the dark screen wondering what could have happened: hit the wrong key button? someone tumbled over the cable? chained the beamer with the strobos?

after an hour only bearable with a couple of cigarettes and drinks he changed to fast moving overlayed abstract patterns combined with animated numbers and text snippets and sparsely keyed in real-life-footage like flowers, time lapse clouds, distorted adverts mixed with good ol? grid-of-diamonds effect.

it was all okay but generally he wasnt really able to react on changes in the music quick enough, which is a real flaw, especially in a progressive house set theres plenty of time from the first beats of the new track faded in, to the arrival of the techno hymn several minutes later, which should be celebrated with some fresh crushing visuals just in time.
but he even failed to match the speed of the music quite often.

I dont know which vj soft he used, sitting behind his new won powerbook it might be jitter or some of the usuals suspects, but its always a problem when you vj and cant see the screen.

and now for some details:
the shiftpitcher logo was animated well, though mixed in with minor sense for timing. same with that porn thing. porn is okay, but not longer than 5 minutes.
did I mentioned the grid-of-diamonds effect?
the text announcements: yeah, this is a club, and in a club usually theres a floor. no need to mention it in CAPITAL LETTERS. dear vj, if you feel the urge to say something, pleeeeeaaze take care that it is of public interest.

In summary I would say shiftpitcher is a newcomer vj who probably knows what to do with his software, has some sense for color, will develope his own style and needs to gig a lot more to gain skillz and timing.

I cant judge if he deserved the price, because I havent seen any of the other contributors. even the 2nd to 10th winners werent screened, albeit of what was announced in the press. there was just no way to compare.
Compared to other events with big name sponsors involved, the wohle thing left an unpleasant feeling in mind, just as falk stated. a company which afforded a paul van dyck to create their corporate jingle just has to offer more to gather the hip crowd.

lets say total costs of this were about 50000 bucks, for the awards concept, the prices, the public relations, the coffee at the weekly meetings, the website, mtv advertising, venue rent, line up, sound system, catering, security, documentation, travel expenses, salary for everyone involved down to the cleaning women.
and the only conclusion is, add another 100000 for more beamers, tv sets, professional light show, a stretch limo, vip lounge, free tickets for the first 100 callers offered on mtv, some stars and starlets, free drinks for the chosen few, gimmicks for the masses, promo cigarettes, interviews, dvd releases, backstage coke for the press, sushi, gogo dancers, shorter dj sets and more vjs.
did I forget something? ...uhm... ah ! creativity. yes, of course.

[brain]

god, sounds like it really sucked.

the weak announcements made me suspicious anyway, so good that i did not went there and saved the 12 euros at the door (for a corporate event!)

[holly]

Falk and e'Shroeder, thanks for saying some of these things. It is not suprising to hear the reaction of corporate logo-ism on the tekno crowd, but even more interesting to hear the (lack of) production values of the event! Cinemas are sterile places for live events. Not meant for it at all. I'd be surprised to hear if even a great VJ could entertain for 3 hours straight to a crowd sitting patiently in their chairs. VJing (imo) is best when it is PART of the spectacle, not the only specticle (ahh I don't know how to spell :rolleyes: ). VJs push the energy but they shouldn't have to carry the whole event, or even try.

It seems even if the top 3 VJs from the contest each took an hour it would have been more interesting and positive. Don't we believe in "opening acts"?

[hamageddon]

the royale isn't a bad place for beams, in fact it mite be the best in frankfurt if the technical conditions were accordingly. most
of the chairs have been removed, there's lots of space to move
and dance....

see the picture gallery round there
http://www.royal-frankfurt.de/

[brain]

the royal was one beautiful cinema in frankfurt before it was turned into a temporary club. it looks something like this plus gallery and foyer. so IF you use a good beamer you can really rock...

[devonmiles]

actually in most cities there are just few cool places really suitable for both beaming AND clubbing. the cafe royal has some red velvet lounge flair but is far far away from the ultracool hippness of, say, the tresor berlin or the wmf or the maria am ufer. which are, on the other side, not really optimised for vjs. maybe just sven v?ths new 10.000.000 euro cocoon club with !200! beamers could have offered what motorola gained for.

by the way it was really a strange experience to sit there with all the others for severall hours staring at the huge screen and follow the intentions of vj and dj. you would have feared to disturb the contemplation when you had started to dance. (which someone did at 2?clock in the morning )

(and now we stop that frankfurt bashing. I really like to live here)

[devonmiles]

Originally posted by hamageddon

see the picture gallery round there
http://www.royal-frankfurt.de/ [/B]

oh my god! the green and blue ccd chip of my 3 ccd cam were blast to oblivion...

[vxg]

Hi,

I did a video for this event, which was more like an advertisement (i'm sorry, i had to do this to get the license for the software) for the software i use called smode (there's some topic about it on this forum).

So if you want to see one of the video of the contest go to eptv.epitech.net, on the main page you'll find smode.avi


But i more proudly present :
www.gropita.com/vxg

here you'll find a video called
second hand mix.

This video was done live using 2 pc and video mixing table.

I'm quite new in the VJ world, but an old fan of demomaking.

I'd like any comment about it.

++
VXG
-Don't buy Smode, crack it !

[24/11/2004]
I'm sorry i meant
-Don't crack it, buy it ! (and if you say that you know me, you've got 15% off)


-----------------------------------------------
VJF/VJC Do not condone the practice of cracking. As it happens, this user did not crack the software, but rather was given a copy by the developer for marketing reasons. But, as a moderator for this forum I must re-state (for future generations of VJs):

Cracking is evil, wrong and posting details of cracks/supporting cracking is against our TOS.

Thanks,
Alan Geering
-----------------------------------------------

PS : at this time the video is still uploading ...
[24.11]
now it's here.

[many2]

Originally posted by vxg

-Don't buy Smode, crack it !


You mean someone gave you software and now you are inviting people to crack it instead of supporting its hard-working developers ? Giving you something looks like a bad move.

[hamageddon]

Originally posted by elektroschroeder
actually in most cities there are just few cool places really suitable for both beaming AND clubbing. the cafe royal has some red velvet lounge flair but is far far away from the ultracool hippness of, say, the tresor berlin or the wmf or the maria am ufer. which are, on the other side, not really optimised for vjs. maybe just sven v?ths new 10.000.000 euro cocoon club with !200! beamers could have offered what motorola gained for.

by the way it was really a strange experience to sit there with all the others for severall hours staring at the huge screen and follow the intentions of vj and dj. you would have feared to disturb the contemplation when you had started to dance. (which someone did at 2?clock in the morning )

(and now we stop that frankfurt bashing. I really like to live here)

afaik, the cocoon club's is running an automated visual system
which leaves no space for live vjs. doesn't sound like the right place for a live visuals award to me.

i don't think the royal is missing the "hipness" of berlin clubs
it's pretty low-tec on the visual-side, but nobody seems to care...

[fluchtpunkt]

Originally posted by elektroschroeder
actually in most cities there are just few cool places really suitable for both beaming AND clubbing.

can't really understand where you are coming from.

as far as i'm concerned: as soon as a room has a minimum height of 4 meters and allows for ~5meters projector throwing distance there is hardly any excuse of it not being suitable for beaming. as for making a video installation fit into a room aesthetically (instead of merely technically) ...i consider that to be an important part of the challenge and fun of vjing and more often than not take care of it myself. finally, tayloring your content to the aesthetics of the room with the installation as well as the vibe of an event is very important.
i love to define spaces with my visuals in abandoned industrial sites just as much as the 'out of the box solutions' for vjing that are theaters or concert halls (chairs removed) transformed into clubs after midnight (...quite popular here these days).

[devonmiles]

I mean: where can you just walk in with your pair of shuttles, plug-in and play and everything is crisp and clear? where do you have a vj vj booth with big preview screens ready for you and not just a waggy table near the toilet? where dont you have to complain with the light guy to have gobos, strobos and scanners away from screen? dont have to look up for that damn idiot who set the fog machine to full power? wheres your name on the flyer and the free drinks in an extra fridge? where dont you need to dismount at 5?in the morning? take care of the wiring? have no weirdo noise when you try to get sound from the dj into your laptop? wheres someone to your hand if there are any problems AND really knows what to do?

[brain]

plus decent money :cool:

[devonmiles]

I am completely confused: not only that shiftpitcher arent the first price winners but just the third (1st price went to some spanish vj team or so) they are no newcomers at all but seem to have a whole bunch of gigs and a visual company running.

see: www.shiftpitcher.de

keeping this in mind their whole performance looks a lot different to me. for gods sake, when they are professionals why did they deliver such a bad show?
I thought it would be okay for a beginner who just started juggling with visuals maybe for a year or two, but now as it seems they have experience and routine, I think its totally inacceptable.

its a real shame and I can understand people who say vjing can be done by putting some dvds in a player, when they were used to shows like this only.

I am not embarassed, it just made me sad. I think we need more behind-the-scene information to know what went wrong with the whole thing.

[hamageddon]

looks more like graphic designers than vjs to me.
no webdesigners either :rolleyes:
nevertheless their graphic showreel looks pretty
good to me.

very strange, that only the 3rd winner did a showcase at the royal. no budget for getting the others to frankfurt?