How to VJ #3
Filed under: VJing | Tags: animation, gilles deleuze, How to VJ, layers, london, loops, motion graphics, Music, video editing, vj, VJing, zan lyons
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After How to VJ # 2, you’re now in the deep groove of pre-production.
Your footage is moving alright. But you’ve got to cut it correct in the edit, or you won’t be able to make it behave on the night.
You look ahead to that future in loops or lines.
Stop for a second. Listen to music you like - the kind of music you want to perform to. You have to understand that music.
Parts of it will be looping in regular and complete patterns. Parts of it won’t feel complete. They’ll be coming in at intervals and fading out, unfinished. They’ll be stabbing in, hard, jagged, irregular.
Your footage should use both if you want your live performance to be subtle and impressive. You’ll rely on loops to create layers and depth. You’ll need lines to give it surprise and character through manual control.
I’ll end this with Zan Lyons. I was lucky enough to work alongside him for London Poetry Systems this week. His layers, loops and lines reverberated through sound and image together and they explain this core thought much better than I can in words. Truly stunning.
Just watch closely what he’s doing, and turn your speakers up…
Bonus thought: Still not sure what’s meant by loops and lines? Look at the next Flash landing page you hit online. Is the load animation linear (like a load bar with a defined end point) or looping (like a circle going round continually until the page loads up)?
Recommended reading: Gilles Deleuze - Cinema 2: The Time-Image.
Previously: #1 What can you do?; #2 How can it dance?
Up next: #4 You know the type?
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