OpenTZT Rocks Brighton(UK) Tsunami Fundraiser

[VGA]

Just did a gig for an event raising cash for the tsunami fund. We ran two lappies each running OpenTZT feeding into beamers at each end of the top floor of the Albert pub in Brighton. People went mental. People flocked to the VJs.
People demanded to know just what the hell was going on. Sit yourself down, see that key? Press it. Press that button. Now press that one. Got it? Not yet you ain't but your up and running and loving it.
Run your fingers up and down the keys and bash the buttons to the beat.
Bam! Take your time hit it hard, it responds.
Amazing software, even on my P3 750MHz with 512mb ram it ran at 25fps with full effects and hammering of the keys. Probably my laptop has about a week left in it after running TZT for 4 hours straight but who cares.
People respond to TZT like nothing else, and I would like to say thank you to everyone involved in bringing this software to a pub near me.
Makes Arkaos look like Fisher Price and Resolume look like it was programmed in visual basic, and don't even mention any of the comedy software to be found on the mac.
Where do I send the money?

your humble vj,

VGA
Brighton

[matthecat]

hy howz it going?

tzt should send you money with a review like that :D

[sleepytom]

cool - glad to see you inspired a load more people to become VJs in brighton (just what the town needs) ;)

on the subject of tsuniami bennifits - were doiing one at the corn exchange on sat if anyone fancys it.

(tzt should be fast as its working at 320x240 16bit - makes tzt look like it was made by fishertechnic)

[Rovastar]

The gig reported seemed to be more about TZt that the gig. :);)

I would like to know what clips you played for a tsunami benifit gig.

Do/Did you play footage of waves washing people away? :confused:

[sleepytom]

what would you play at a tsunami bennifit then rova?
should we play images of the disaster or would that be tasteless?

[Rovastar]

I wan't being critical just curious. I expect anti war footage at a peace gig etc. I sort of expect footage of the disater at a gig like this but I wondered if you wanted to use it/how much is used, etc.

I imagine it will be mixed with normal stuff.

My sutff as you know Tom is computer based and I don't use clips so I imagine for this sort of gig I would simpily use a normal set but where the club logos/advertising would be used the charity orginisation but it would be difficult for me do much else tbh.

[sleepytom]

sorry i wasn't meaning to come across as agressive - its actually a genuine question as we have a big bennifit at the weekend and i don't know how people feel about showing disaster footage?

personally i'm tempted to avoid it totally although i suppose a loop with charitys logos on a background of wave footage could be aproprate.

[matthecat]

big wave surfing footage?

[Rovastar]

Yeah it is a difficult one. Maybe ask the promoters opinion as well.

As a punter. Like I said I would sort of expect it like I expect most people would but I do not know if I would feel comfortable with it.

But look at the TV adverts that used to be on about this they showed the aftermath of it.

Maybe you could show some with the 'you can make a difference' message plastered over it.

Also maybe get some factual info about how the money is used like "50p buys medical jabs for xyz" text with a picture of a needle or if brave show the clips of the medical tents from the news, etc., "?5 buys food for x weeks" or "?50 get a temp housing for x families" and show devolpemt work, aid trucks, etc

It depends on how muchwork you want to do, I suppose I feel that is a more tasteful way of doing it.

Maybe make it like the Comic Relief/Children in Need telethon things with 30 minutes of cool normal footage taht you play spliced with 3 minutes of messages etc.

*shrug*

I hope there a few ideas for you there. Good luck.

DJ's/Rock stars do not have these problem like VJ's do. :)

[holly]

You Guys!
...do NOT show suffering people at a party!

Call the Thai Embassy and tell them you are involved in a Tsunami relief event, then ask for a promotional video of Thialand "because you want people to see what a paradise it is..., to start healing with beautiful imagery..." etc etc etc.

Don't show people drowning! ...unless maybe it's an Atlantis party.

...or a cruise.

Then you only show that for maybe an hour anyway and then back to the regular programming.

[charlielangridge]

Tom> was gonna PM u this, but your inbox is full, but i've got some good footage I shot in Sri Lanka during the summer, which u are welcome to copies of :)

[Pesh]

in my opinon clips of the disaster would be a bit over the top for some of the benefits going on at the moment, but in the right context could work, but i think i'd probably be offended by clips of surfers riding huge waves, i'm sure the people of the affected areas have had enough of big waves at the moment.

Hollys idea of showing the beauty the affected areas sounds about right, as does Rovas financial messages idea

[VGA]

Rereading the post it does seem a bit TZT biased, possibly because loads of people asked, I even had a C++ coder coming up and asking where he could get the source :D , plus I was pretty hyped and rather drunk when I wrote it .

No, we didn't play any clips of the disaster.

I would agree with Rovastar about what to play in terms of 'your money goes to help this', but data about where the money is actually going is scarce.
Hollys suggestion of scenes of the affected areas was something I also thought about and didn't really want to do, seeing the ruins of Galle in Sri Lanka on tv brings me to tears everytime, and I think seeing images of before would be wallowing in nostalgia.

Anyhow.
We had two laptops running two different sets of material.

The first one was mainly running some ambient / trippy kind of stuff and mainly had lots of messages like "Every penny raised gets doubled by Telegen" ( a local company who sponsored the event) and similar messages asking people to donate their cash. You can see how well we did here Cut Loose Website (http://www.cut-loose.org)

he other footage we used did actually feature a bit of sealife : shots of Brighton beach, a few sea gooseberrys and cephalapods, sharks and that kind of thing. Nothing that would directly remind you of the disaster anyway.

Other than that we had in no particular order lots of Parkour stuff (always goes down a treat), Star Wars Tie and X-Wing rips (Lucas can feck off), loads of high speed / slow motion stuff of all sorts ( I *love* thngs shot at 10,000fps and above), lots of cheesy dancing people with flashing lights and all sorts of stuff which had nothing to do with the disaster.

Our aim was to enterain and raise cash, and that we did. :D

Thanks for the comments!

VGA

PS Hi Matthecat, give us a ring I have a gig tomorrow (thurday 19th) for CheckoutDjs (http://www.checkoutdjs.co.uk)
at The Jazz Place, bring your laptop if you fancy a set ;-)

PPS sleepytom, where are all the Brighton VJ's hiding?
I once saw some fool at the Concord 2 (Slackers Convention I think) who had about one wobbly loop of stills and a camera pointed continously at the dj, but apart from that...maybe I am going to the wrong nights? Stompaphunk the other night was showing a 2minute DVD....ack, and I had my laptop in the bag too...

[carpetbelly]

Gutted I missed this, heard it was good!

Just finished downloading TZT and getting to grips with it so prepare (in how ever many months time lol) to have another VJ on the brighton scene... :yep:

[VGA]

We did another good gig here a couple of weeks ago, two projectors, one vj, maximum boost!

We are going to be doing last sunday every month at Hectors House from 4pm and will have a couple of projectors going ;-) and *all* Brighton VJs are invited to come and play. Bring your laptop!

Sunday Roasted (http://www.cut-loose.org/sundayroasted)

big up Brighton VJ massive!
big down Brighton VJ grumpies!

vga

YouKnowsIt!

[Esotic]

If you really want to donate some cash you can do so on the SourceForge OpenTZT site.

http://opentzt.sourceforge.net/

;)

Thanks for all the kind words. The person to be thanked first and foremost is Triplet (the original coder), then MoRpH (would helped organize the purchase of the code), Pete Warden (who contributed a substantial amount of money), and then me (who writes buches of effects and gives them away for free).

:D

Jens (from beatsurfers) has also been kicking much butt at getting OpenTZT running HiRes, but we still have a ways to go with that.

I do love OpenTZT so. I would really love to see what your doing with it more than I think we need the cash. Some more programmers would be nice too (so give that C++ guy my email address or send him to my website).

Cheers,

-Esotic

[VGA]

Hi Esotic,

many thanx for the plugins and plugging tzt so much.
I am afraid the C++ programmer has disappeared into the ether, maybe he will pop up again some time, if he does I doubt I will recognise him as I was a litte pie eyed at the time.
what sort of data do you need to help development?
I have a little page here http://www.cut-loose.org/vgagraphics thats just starting to document my vj activities.
I use both the old TZT and the latest OpenTZT with a combination of an old pack of your plugins, the native plugins from Pete Warden / MoRpH and a lot of Composite Station plugins.
I've had a little trouble with your video scratch plug killing TZT when I select it.
I will document all this a little better from now on and let you know my experiences.

easy