COP Practical Outcome

I set myself a time limit to make the song, in order that I wouldn't be forever poring over tiny details or trying to re-record bits to perfection. Because of that it has the rough edges which I might otherwise have been tempted to smooth over. Even in the month or two since recording it my guitar playing has improved drastically and it has been hard to resist tweaking or even starting from scratch again. Originally I had planned to have some lyrics on the song, and wrote quite a lot in a sort of spoken word-y style - mostly they ended up being angry shouty tirades against everything from vain selfie culture to internet trolls, and in the end I never settled on anything that seemed to work with the content of the essay, or which I liked enough to record.

The video itself was fun to make, filming all the sections at home and then rotoscoping over with pastels. Originally I had intended to use a mixture of live footage, rotoscoping, compositing and straight ahead effects animation, but a few seconds in and I realised how nicely the pastel sections suited the music, and decided to scrap the other styles. I do feel that, even though it is only a minute and a half it does still get quite repetitive, and maybe could have done with a couple more loops for added variety. It was also nice to find a use for the 35mm texture that I made last year, keying that in on top of the animated figures to give a rougher noisier look to the last section of the song.

Altogether I am happy with the practical outcome, and enjoyed working to music which I haven't tried before. Although I doubt that Beer Garden will be releasing any more music anytime soon I am definitely open to making more music videos.

Reflections on the essay

I am pleased with the outcome of the essay up to a point. There are a number of issues which I would have liked to expand upon, and some which I had to completely ignore due to both time constraints and the word count. Ideally there would have been an entire section on the effects of education on the public's critical faculties, and how improved arts education for everybody is vital to keeping a level of quality in a media marketplace controlled by the viewership. Similarly the section on the informal media economies that are already in place, such as BitTorrent, could have been expanded upon. I also tried hard to maintain a neutral voice, where there was a distinct danger of the essay becoming a tirade against Google, and me just sounding like a total Trot.

As always I enjoyed all the reading I undertook in the research process and actually it was interesting to see my direction shift a number of times, even in the last two weeks swerving away from the essay described in my academic poster to a much broader look at the media.

Song Title...?

I have decided I probably won't end up recording any vocals. I haven't written anything I like enough yet, and also am a bit self conscious about it..

I am going to call the song 'Manifesto' as a tongue in cheek call to arms. I also like 'Beer Garden' for the artist name, as beer gardens across the country are often the location of some of the most engaging and heated political discussions I have witnessed and been a part of.

VIDEO IDEAS vol.2

I have begun to animate some little looping bits and pieces, which I intend to overlay on the live footage and rotoscoped footage. Some are random bits of imagery, but some are related to the lyrics I have been writing.

VIDEO IDEAS

I recently found the work of Ruffmercy on Vimeo. He is an animator who makes a lot of music videos, and he has a very distinctive style, mostly utilising rotoscoped movement and hand drawn visual effects overlaying video footage. I really like his video for Tom Misch and Loyle Carner;

Nice use of colours and textures on top of the live action footage.

I haven't done any rotoscoping for a long time so I think I will try making a video in a similar vein to this one. It will be a good excuse to practice setting up for shooting on a green-screen.

Track finished!

Stems ready to be sequenced

My track is finished! (unless I decide to add vocals...)
As it turns out Audacity is a nightmare to use, and is totally unsuitable for DAW work. Ended up being a total faff trying to keep tracks in time with each other, as there is no built in musical time function in the software, everything is measured in seconds, not beats!!

Somehow I overlooked this when I was fiddling around with the software previously, but as I dont have a computer at home, and you can't run your own programs at college, I actually had no other option but to use Audacity.

The track comes in at a cool one minute and 33 seconds, the perfect length for a pop song in my humble opinion (and also not too scary a proposition for an animator...)

To many musical ideas...

My Zoom mic arrived and I have been playing around sampling noises from around the house. Basically just hitting things with a drumstick and irritating the flatmates. Whilst I could definitely see myself doing a sample led track I think that maybe it would end up too abstract and arty, and the intention of making this song is not to get people stroking their chins, it is to show that any old idiot can make art.

Because of this I think I am actually going to strip production right down to guitar, bass and drums. Maybe I'll record some lyrics if I feel brave. Having begun layering up multiple tracks of audio in Audacity I realised that, because it isn't a proper DAW it will be really hard to mix the tracks nicely. Add to this the fact that I couldn't get anybody to commit to coming in and recording with me, I have decided to limit myself to 5 tracks;

1. Main guitar riff
2. Bassline
3. Drums
4. Overdrive/Fuzz guitar
5. Vocals (maybe)

I am also going to limit myself to two days (this Saturday and Sunday) to do all the writing and recording. I have a session at a rehearsal space in Kirkstall booked for Tuesday morning to record my drums, and I am giving myself until end of play Tuesday to finish sequencing everything up.