How can VJ's become more prominant on the club scene?

[akira_k]

Originally Posted by Bokonon

I would also disagree that one individual becoming popular would elevate the whole scene - Addictive TV are arguably popular, and at least 'known' in popular culture - yet the 'art' itself is not as well known.

They not only have raised their profile, but organize one of the most important VJ festivals in the scene, Optronica. Which at the same time gets boosted by their rising popularity (you can get more stuff if you become poppular, no? like sponsorship)

So their breakthrough has also helped the scene.

I agree with Holly, and Oli's list.

[dirty_henry]

I've recently concluded that VJs try too hard to get more prominant on the club scene and in most cases its not worth it.

Truth is in most cases clubbers go clubbing to dance and socialise. Music makes you dance, visuals don't. Music will always dominate over visuals at all clubnights but some nights lean themselves to a visual experiences than others.

No matter how much talent and equipment you have, some types of music attract crowds that will never look up at the screens, others induce the audience into a trance with their eyes fixated at them. Chin-stroking ambient music will definately make more of an impression than say, drum and bass.

[evomedia]

No matter how much talent and equipment you have, some types of music attract crowds that will never look up at the screens, others induce the audience into a trance with their eyes fixated at them. Chin-stroking ambient music will definately make more of an impression than say, drum and bass.

Totally disagree, visuals can compliment ANY music, hexstatic is all about Dance music and the visuals are as much a part of the show as the music, neither form of entertainment distracts from the other, not saying visuals will ever have the same sway as the music for the crowd, but I often have people come to purely say how much they love the visuals, and would never think to compliment the Dj in the same way. To say that no matter how much talent and equipment you have if you play to wrong crowds that will never look up at the screens just isn't true, if your truely talented, and produce amazing content, it will cross borders, will excite people you never think would care, it can be the highlight of peoples nights, all you have to do it immerse the viewer, draw them in, tell them stories, or play with their sense of humour, I really think most crowds switch off as the content is dull, doesn't change and after 5 minutes you may as well stop watching as their is nothing new to digest.

To say that at certain events attract crowds that will never look up at the screens just strikes me as rubbish, they will happily dance and look at the scenes as long as the content is exception. I've seen many VJ's however whose content has no Life to it, maybe thats why crowds switch off.

Saying that my set on saturday was the worst I've done for years lol, took the smallest setup I've taken out for years, and then suffered technical problems and power cuts which left gfx card drivers corrupted on a machine and blew a power supply, which left me with only 1 working computer, and no other source for the mixer, basically I felt like a VJ with his left arm cut off, the machine I had left started suffering from lag only on triggering for no apparent reason, so any type of beatmatching when out the window so I just played longer clips and left them run. Should have been a disaster but content saved me, so many people came over to say how much they liked the visuals.

[dirty_henry]

Simon, I'm sure you've played at some gigs where you notice a lot of the crowd watching your stuff and complimenting you, and other gigs (with the same amount of screen prominance) where you don't. I suppose it also depends on the time of night.
I completely agree that visuals compliment any music, but my point was some music leans itself to visuals more than others.

[dirty_henry]

... Saturday, Disco shed? I was there. Yeah thats always a bummer when the power goes!

[akira_k]

Henry, I think the screen setup is a key issue in this matter. Sometimes visuals can go unnoticed if the worng setup is chosen...

For example, I got 2 weekly residences at the same local club. They used to have a screen setup which was on a side of the dancefloor, and actually when the place got crowded, it meant that more than a half of the screen was useless. Not to mention that it was on a side oposite to the DJ. This usually led to atendees not even caring to watch a small portion of a screen. So in the crowded moments I rearranged everything to happen just in that bit of screen. Some content worked perfectly, and the screen was still noticed. There's even one guy that kept asking me for a certain clip every saturday (he said he really enjoyed dancing and watching it ).

Now the screen has become a wall of lowres LEDs where other work has to be done. Even if the screen is more prominent physically (I can fire up the floor with its luminosity), the low resolution is a big drawback to what I can do (and I mean really low res, 160x40 real res.).

The guy came to me last saturday and said "man, this is shit, you can't play that clip for me anymore.




Anther good example is one time when I VJed at a big event. The screens were SOO high above and with such shit projectors, that people after the event were claiming around forums "were there any visuals?".