Monday, December 28, 2015

"The Sanctuary Song" - Validation of Full Run of the Video

"The End of the World in Fort Worth" is the story from which "The Sanctuary Song" evolves.  The video captures from tonight were merged and that result was then merged with the primary song to get the first end-to-end run of it.

This is not a teaser but a critique as the video won't be uploaded because it needs another pass at recording the song.


Yevette watched the first run and I appreciated it because I want to be sure the story logically follows, that it's not just a bunch of twisted sci-fi and then a song happens.  This was the A Number One biggest deal about the validation and she said it follows just fine.


Prior to recording, I dropped the volume on the vocal to force myself to push it harder but that didn't work.  That alone is a scratch because the singing has to be a clear presence and it wasn't loud enough to live up to that.

The action cam was pointed into outer space or some such.  Unknown for sure where it was looking but it damn sure wasn't looking at the fingerboard of the Galaxy Guitar.  This was just a stupid mistake and another thing which needs to be in the checklist.  Aiming that thing correctly is only going to work by doing it in a mirror since that's the only way I could get it right previously.

The drums were too loud and that might be ok if it were not a drum machine but not otherwise.  This is also an easy fix since it's only a matter of changing the sliders on the mixer.


Something Yevette hated was the blue laser shooting straight at the camera.  That one is a little bit more hassle to fix since I have to get up higher for the light stand to tighten the mount for it.  This part also isn't difficult, just a hassle.


Musically I was fairly well pleased with it as there were no stupid mistakes in sequencing the phrases and the Galaxy Guitar was sounding sweet ... but ... there was more spurious guitar noise than is permissible.  That one is the most difficult of all because the guitar is lit up so hot it will make sound probably even if you just breathe on it.


Highly pleased with the result since it definitely gives the proof of concept.  That there were deficiencies in it doesn't bother me, they just mean do it again.  It will deliver what I want it to be but it isn't quite there yet.  It's more than poof as the lasers can easily overwhelm you and it would suck if I alienate you from my tune with lights rather than the music.  Fair enough if you just don't like the song but that would really suck if I put you off it with lights.


As to the annihilation of self aspect, that was mixed success.  From one camera, there's no chance of identifying the guitarist and this is how I want it.  From another camera it's not so difficult and what to do about that still pends but, like the rest, it's ok.  The action cam has no self because it isn't even capable of looking at me.

It's a hard trick to pull in annihilating the guitarist while still watching him play.  Doing it with a distortion routine in Final Cut after the fact isn't an acceptable solution.  It's an important part of the design for everything to be really what happened even if, as I hope, it's highly surreal to watch.

Having the fo' real time of my life with this and it's so damn close.  Definitely diggin' it.

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