Happy days...

[Lucidhouse]

it all sounds...or should we say sounds and looks great!
Dj's are starting to look over their shoulders...ie: towards the big screen that's pumping visuals behind them. Dj's are a dime a dozen, a lot of them are so overated anyway; but to remain competitive they and promoters will have to include top reactive visuals to their sets/shows...

dj->

[julez]

yeah...djs are gonna have to expand their performances if they want to stay ahead of the market. I suppose this means we can interact with the djs and tell them what we want played as well. Maybe then will we get a truly audio/visual performance.

[Rovastar]

Originally posted by Kriel

Point well taken, but how does the release of the BBC archive (and the existence of archive.org) change this? And who wants to sit in their studio all week making content and not play out, anyway?

Thoughts?

kx

Actually I prefer to make content than play out. I don't need the crowd to tell me something is good.

Originally posted by Kriel

My instincts about the Entrancer were confirmed by the VJs who came by the Korg booth. To quote one, "This IS going to radically shake-up the VJ scene."

I am annoyed I missed the PLASA thing. I still honest do not think any of these things in the next 2-3 years will radically change anything.

I mean a DVD mixer that mean ALL your content for you set should have to be DVD 'quality'. By that I mean people at home watching there DVD's get used to a level of quailty. Most of it coming out of film studios, tv, etc. Most VJ cannot manage 5 minutes of decent orginal quailty content. How may of your are like your showreels for a whole set. The stacks will be high but the content the same.

If you rape the TV footage from the BBC archive then what. Wow you get the cheap thrills of teh crowd reacting to Only Fools and Horses or something. You gotta love the professionalism.

Commerical purposes. Nuff said.

[Kriel]

Hi Rova

I really want to agree with you, and you know I'm very much for producing original content. However...

First, I think we're going to see a lot of people mixing and remixing music videos live & in the studio, and then playing them out -- just as we see mixes and remixes of tunes, which could be really interesting. There's a little of that going on now, but not on the scale to come once DJ-style DVD players & mixers are standard.

As for production quality, a whole range of qualities exist side-by-side at the moment. Low rez can always be delivered via hi rez media: witness the current deluge of 8-bit sound samples in electro-clash, not to mention Radiohead, etc. Timbre runs in cycles of fashion, and is the essence of pop-music. Timbres are indexical to the fashion currency of a pop record. The same easily applies to video, and many VJs are identifiable more through the "visual timbre" of their material than the content.

Regarding Only Fools and Horses, I don't know what that is, but I assume it's a British comedy show. It's not my style of VJing, but I'm sure it had it's place at one time. But I think we will see a lot of that kind of thing again, plus a lot more interesting video sampling. Particularly when vast online libraries are available to the public, and more DJs and musicians begin to realise just how damned easy it really is now to edit a video.

Editing a good video, of course, is another story. But accessibility of content, means of production and MEANS OF DELIVERY (pitchable DVD players for example) will bring about new styles and approaches that will influence more practiced and skilled artists. The context of VJing will change, bring about a change in the fundamentals of the medium.

[Lara]

Rova, what about all the wildlife/geography programmes made by the BBC that will now be made available for ab/use to vjs. Isn't that basically equivalent to using a stock footage house?

[Rovastar]

Although you are heavyly involved in the club scene i think you misunderstand the backward mentailty of DJ and teh dance culture.

Doing my regular rounds of the DJ/music mags this week (nice exposure btw in iDJ. Although maybe I am the only one to see the irony in the 'regular' VJ column (this month about the future of VJ'ing and how bright it is) and it is the last VJ column in the series. lol. The irony.) and there was a letter from a reader wanting to buy CD mixers. Now CD mixers have been around and decent for years now.

Now his question if I buy CD mixers instead of my 1210's can I got all the new stuff on CD. There response was that 95% of all the music they review in single (12") format is on record only. NO CD's. This is CD's for gawds sake. They have been around for 20 years. Do you really think video DVD's of the same stuff will be common place.

NOw I know the music industry is not the same as the VJ scene but we have to a degree follow there lead.

So for the MTV style mixing/scratching music videos live. FIrst they have to come out on CD THEN they have to have a music video made from them THEN out on DVD.

Sorry but only the biggest artists (Madonna, etc) will be able to command an audience share to do that. Not exactly what teh clubbers want to listen too.

Interesting point on "visual timbre" (I had to look that word up. ) but again I disagree. Visuals are different to the music medium in that they are far more technology driven. We are used to better and better techonology, special effects, etc. If visual effects from 20 years ago in the orginal Superman film for example where used in a new remake today it would be laughed at.

Occasionaly 'old' effects can be used but this is not the norm. Look at Disney cartoon films for example they are not draw by hand now-a-days they where strong defenders of having the hand draw effect in teh films but with Dreamworks, etc doing computer animated stuff they had to 'up there game' as teh public would not buy it.

I know we are from different sides of the fence with this about the 'style' but I do not mean full on computer graphics all the time.

Again look at Hollywood again. Forest Gump film won a oscar (I think won at least shortlisted) for special effects. There were no terminator 3 style effects in that film but subtle visual recreations that blended into the enviornment.

I don't think "visual timbre" is correct per sa as always new technology will increase the game not tweak an already comparativly exhausted medium (i.e. music).

Now I do love the whole new technology thing but the recent new technological 'breakthrough' are more a means of delivery than a increase/improvement in content/material.

I don't think we need new means of delivery as much for the scene for a increase/improvement in content/material.

Having one of these new bit of kit is not going to improve your set if you still use you outdated material that is avaialble as 'stock' footage now elsewhere.

I feel you missed my point on the BBC archive thing a serious professional VJ willl not use the material. You will get away with it in you smaller clubs but at big events (and I know you have doen a few) would you even risk having sampled footage?!?!?

(when I used you and your not related directly to you Charles just VJ's in general. )

[Rovastar]

Originally posted by Lara
Rova, what about all the wildlife/geography programmes made by the BBC that will now be made available for ab/use to vjs. Isn't that basically equivalent to using a stock footage house?

Sorry Lara but if you use any of there stuff for a paid VJ (or probably even not paid some legal stuff probably in there) it is still "commercial purposes".

SO I really don't see how this effects us directly. Esp not in the 'MIx COntent' categeory maybe under 'Inspiration'

Oh Kriel Only Fools & Horses is a comedy show.

[Kriel]

Rova

Thanks for the compliment on the iDJ piece. It was great of them to do it, and definitely won't be the last VJ piece they run. I know next month they have VJ pieces (I wrote one), and will be continuing their coverage of the VJ scene long term. They really believe in it.

Vinyl IS a problem. Although many of the major DJs use CDs for the most part, they still have to transfer a lot of vinyl to CD. Roger Sanchez has said he would use CDs exclusively if had time to transfer all his vinyl.

Transfer times are a hassle, and if you're heavily involved in production and performance, there's not always time. But I don't think that will stop things from moving forward to CD (or DVD). You can do things with the CD players you can't do with vinyl, and I know you'll be able to intuitively do things with the Pioneer you can't do with tape or easily with software at the moment. DVD recorders make transfers both easy & real-time.

And I like new means of delivery. It means an expanded vocabulary of performance options, which I can't imagine would be unwelcomed by any artist.

Concerning only big stars having videos, I would counter that House music is not the only dance music. And other dance genres have considerably higher sales for even their newest artists, and therefore have higher budgets.

On the archive, you're right. I wouldn't use found footage on a commercial gig of any size. As a general rule, one can't even use BBC archive material on a BBC gig, as there are many licensing considerations. Use of found video is a minefield, but if video sampling becomes common practice, then exchange systems for compensating the original artist will be put in place, eventually.

Finally, I take your point on Superman, but many contemporary films have used low-grade quality to tremendous effect: Zentropa (or Europa for the Europeans), Pi, The Idiots, Henry - Portrait of a Serial Killer, etc. But these are movies, and I thought the subject was video with music.

kx

[holly]

Oh-kaaay, ...not going up against Rova right now, just adding a few comments:

Prellinger (archive.org) is such a powerful resource when you need specific footage. I did a show for a band last night and they told us at the last minute they wanted "bugs fucking". This was obviously a bit of a joke, and they'd used visuals in the past but not really a VJ. I went to Prellinger and downloaded two movies about insects, cut them up in under an hour and had about 20 wiggly, icky bugs for their show. Before they went on they actually came up and asked to see the bugs! We popped them up on the screen and they were very happy. It didn't matter that the bugs didn't play a large part of the show, but we threw them up every so often. 1 hour work and I have a ton of bugs....

VJs who AVS instead of using Clips and Loops probably would have taken longer than an hour to cut the close-ups out of the boring educational movies. It's a skill that you learn..., but only AVSers complain about "wasting all that time making footage for a show". I'm not trying to be insulting to the different VJ techniques, but I could never sit down and memorize which keypress on an AVS app changes the waveform, which changes the colors, etc. I never get good results from an AVS, but I've seen people who do!

Rova's complaints about the BBC archive are unfounded. He's just in a bad mood. Maybe we have a giant oceanic-filter between the US and the UK, but the stuff we see coming from the BBC, documentaries and costume dramas just blow away anything produced in the States (visually). No one is saying we should all show sit-coms, any more than using Prellinger footage means showing "mental hygene" films of bland 1950s children. Diamonds and gold don't just sit on the surface for you to pick them up and take them home! If you want to mine for gems it takes a while to develop a process and an eye to make mining successful. Use your filters! You can't just sit down and use a video archive instantly, any more than I can show up at a gig with G-Force and perform sucessfully.

Before the bugs, I always bragged that I only had 2 samples in my whole VJ: both of women dancing, both from Prellinger. I used them last night and they always get compliments. People walk up afterwards and say "I love that lady dancing!" If I didn't get those compliments I wouldn't use them because I'm not really a sampler.... Use what works. That's what it's all about. It isn't VJ if you don't put some effort into it. I probably won't use the bugs too often, but if I ever need them I have plenty.

[holly]

Um, just one more thing about CD/DVD.

I've been using CDs in performances for about 8 or 10 years and I don't just go to the record store and buy Celine Dion to play! Duh. I edit my music and I edit my videos, THEN I burn them onto disc. I'm using my own loops, my own sequences, and my own footage on disc. Like Kriel says, there are things you can do with laser that you can't with vinyl. Using a commercial format doesn't mean you are limited to commercial products!

By that logic, Rova, I'd say you can't use a computer for VJ because who wants to see email and Tetris on the screens??!!