Recording Poetry Is Hard

Today, I recorded my poem to begin the multi screen typography production. I found writing the poem was quite easy because it kind of came naturally to me. However, reading it for development is really hard. I didn’t think of how many things I would need to consider. Clarity of sound, background noise, noise gain etc. It’s not as easy as I thought it would be. I managed to get into one of the radio suits around the campus to record the sound, however there were quite a few obstacles. The air conditioner made quite a lot of noise, and even after I turned it off, the fan continued to produce irritating sounds that could be picked up on the recorder. The poem needed to be read from a computer screen and the fans from the Mac seemed to ricochet off the walls. I managed to fix this problem with a less sufficient Apple product. An Ipad. After I fixed all the noise and finally had silence, I began to go through sound checks. The recording itself went quite well, it took quite a few tries as I tripped over my words a lot, but I got there in the end.

Video Art typography – Update

I’ve recently been making a Typography video for the poem I wrote last week. The inspiration was struck when I typed ‘Video Art’ into Google images and found a photograph of an exhibition. My poems inspiration came from the news. Recently, close to home, there was a tragic accident. A dog killed a newborn baby and the dog was destroyed on scene. Since the media thrive of story’s like this there have been a lot more reports of ‘dangerous dogs’ attacking people and more dogs are being destroyed from childish propaganda. I hate the fact that people can live to talk about the people they have killed but dogs can’t. What makes them so different? Where are their rights? This is what my poem is about.

I recorded the poem on my phone to start, just to hear what it sounds like. The quality was terrible so I planned to record it properly using the facilities on campus. I also typed out the poem in Adobe Premiere CS6 to order them in three different sequences once I recorded the poem properly.

Example of Multi Screen Typography

Video Art and Typography

I recently wrote about how I felt typography was a lazy form of motion graphics, I still believe this but I thing there is a better way of doing it. Using multiple screens. I wrote a poem which I also posted about the euthanising of dangerous dogs and the rights that they should have. I plan on making a small typography piece using a recording of that poem.

Rights

You talk about your rights as though you deserve them,

But where are his?

Why is it that murdering is wrong but murdering murderers is wronger?

You can take the life of an innocent to justify YOUR actions,

But I won’t stand for this any longer!

Why is HE inferior enough for you to play God and decide HIS fate?

You can smile as your plan unfolds,

But I’d rather YOU take his place!

Why are we so caught up on sexism and racism or any other hate varieties?

You can say that you aren’t racist,

But real hate hates animals.

You talk about your rights as though you deserve them,

But where are his?

Where are hers?

What gives YOU the right to stop their tails from wagging?

When people like Charles Manson eat three meals a day in a prison cell mansion!

You talk about your rights as though you deserve them,

But how hypocritical of you to claim your rights when they have none.

Typography

I have always thought of typography as a lazy way of making motion graphics. It’s boring, easy and takes a lot of time, but zero skill. It’s not my thing. However, I think it could have a different effect when using multiple screens. You could even use photographs in between the screens or words. This would be great for poetry.

The Final Time I Ever Want To Hear The Word ‘Shisha’ Again.

It’s quite ironic how the advert that I put the least amount of time in turned out to be the best. I certainly didn’t rush it, but the concept was so simple it really didn’t take very long. This was all planned, written, shot, edited and altered in less than a day. And I could not be happier with the outcome.

This is a rough version of the final shisha advert. FINALLY! The first thing we did was come up with this little concept. It was the first and only idea that was put across by one of the production members. Then we discussed ways to expand on the idea. When we were happy with a final concept, we each sat down and helped write the screenplay. A few alterations and we were in theory ready to shoot.

We booked out a CANON XA10 and a tripod, then recorded the screenplay on a portable voice recorder. The quality wasn’t that great, but it fit well with the concept. Then we shot the advert in a classroom we booked. I took a few establishing shots of the classroom full of ‘bad students’ and the clock to symbolism boredom. Simple, easy and very effective. I then shot the actress nodding to the voice over. Done.

We then took it to edit where we had a small technical issue with the continuity. It was easily fixed though. To fix it we decided to shoot another layer to hide the error. We did this by drawing a ‘Hookah’ on the white board and having the good old ‘John’ pretend to draw it. In the edit we sped this up and placed it over the error.

I then colour corrected the footage manually to make it look older, I also added some noise to give that extra effect, and it worked. I kind of did the same thing with the voice over. I used Adobe Audition and created a multi-track. I downloaded a royalty free vinyl crack sound effect and layered it under the voice over. I also added an effect to make it sound vintage. I added an FFT Equalizer effect and raised the DB. It sounded great.

I plan on adding some music when I get the time, but other than that, it is pretty much done. And I am really proud of it.

Video Art

I was looking at different types of video art on Youtube and this managed to catch my attention. The grotesque image of a melting face and moments of passion are played on a screen in the background. I’m not sure what I take from this, I feel it has a range of meanings. Jealousy, anger, hatred? The whole thing is black and white, however the blood dripping from the deformed, angry face is coloured red. It makes me feel quite angry when I look at it and this intrigues me.

Why I Am Not A …

Why I Am Not A Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
“Sit down and have a drink” he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. “You have SARDINES in it.”
“Yes, it needed something there.”
“Oh.” I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. “Where’s SARDINES?”
All that’s left is just
letters, “It was too much,” Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven’t mentioned
orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike’s painting, called SARDINES.

Frank O’Hara

This is one of my favorite poems. I first came across this poem when flicking through a book on post-modern American poetry and I think it fits well with video art.

Shisha Ad – Take Three

So the re-re-shoot of the shisha advert went quite well. We booked out the studio again and re-used some of the props. However this time we had a working blender. This made a HUGE difference in terms of visuals and especially sound. For this shoot, I took the role of floor manager as we all felt that everyone should get a chance at different roles. Especially because we have had to re-shoot this three times already. I took direction from the director and passed it onto the studio floor. Camera’s, producer, actor etc.

The first major difference between Cooking With John: Take One and Two, is the dialogue and the performance of our actor Tom. Tom did really well the first time as his personality carried the production, however he isn’t an actor and improvising was quite difficult. This time however, he had time to read through the script and become more comfortable in front of the camera. He did a great job. Not only was the actor better, the crew was more accustomed to the equipment in the studio. The first thing we did was create the set, and then we adjusted the lights. Once we were happy, we made a start.

The shoot went really well and quite smoothly too. We had no major issues with lights, sound or the script. It was a lot of fun to work on and not as stressful. We all noticed our skill level has increased through practice and I felt it showed. We were a lot more prepared for the shoot as we decided it would be better if we shot it in scenes.  This made the shoot go far more smoothly as we could re-take any scene if we wanted. It didn’t have to be continuous and by the end of the shoot we were all happy.

 However, it wouldn’t be a shisha advert by Blackburn College students if there wasn’t a huge technical problem which changed the fate of the production. When we got to editing, a lot of things were wrong with the clips. Some of the clips had no sound, which we fixed quite easily by locating the sound file and pairing the sound with the video. This wasn’t the huge technical issue I am talking about though. File 52, was missing. It wasn’t missing, it was just corrupt. We got less than a second of footage. We couldn’t re-shoot that scene because it was the most important scene in the whole advert. The description of the products and the blending. There was no hope for this production. Abandon all hope.

Photo of the set from the podium.

These are from in between takes.

From inside the podium.