this is the little video patch i’m working on for the new show. eventually it will do more fancy stuff like multiple layers, zoom, rotate etc. the live show will probably involve fewer aliens…. but more robots.
shot some aerial video over hallett cove’s seaside cliffs for the agnes kain clip two days ago. it’s the best weather i’ve taken the camera up in and also the first time i’ve flown it over the water. on the first flight there was a bit of a scary moment where the radio dropped out and the plane headed out, uncontrolled towards the open sea with my camera onboard. luckily control was returned and my camera avoided a bath which it probably wouldn’t have enjoyed. ended up with a lot of good footage which might make it’s way into other projects as well. more filming to be done over the weekend.
the last year or so i’ve been fooling around with getting a video camera to fly. you might think that’s about as likely as getting a pig to fly… but, if you think that, the variable you’re not taking into account is weight. pigs are heavier than cameras and thus requires more lift to get them airborne. and even if you do get pig airborne, what good’s it going to do? i suppose a whole lot of people who’ve carelessly used the phrase “when pigs might fly” may be forced to commit to verbal contracts they thought at the time they’d be able to disregard as they continue to wallow in their own crapulence. but pigs have already been flown around in planes so their wallowing must have been spoiled years ago! ok, back on track…
i’ve been using a radio controlled foam glider to carry a little HD video camera into the air and so far have had some moderate success. the plane flies well enough but to get usably stable footage is a challenge. the glider gets thrown around easily by the wind and also needs a good deal of space to get up and flying. on top of that, there are shot’s you just can’t get with a plane. from months of scouring forums about aerial photography (or AP as it’s abbreviated by people who’ve got nothing better to do [like me]) i’ve come to the conclusion a much better way to get a camera up into the air is a helicopter. further, an even better way to get a camera up is a tricopter. a tricopter is basically a tricycle with propellers instead of wheels. actually it’s nothing like that but the word “tricopter” is pretty self explanatory. sheesh. i’ve ordered parts to make something like this:
as a cool little demo of why flying cameras are so awesome i was going to embed blur’s clip for beetlebum but EMI in their omnipotence have disabled embedding. just one of the many signs that record companies have lost touch and are crumbling into the void. hooray for the internet. ok, no embeded beetlebum (that sounds like it requires surgery), here’s something else… people get really fancy and beam the video back down to the ground so they can fly from a first person view…
the technology’s just getting smaller and smaller, cheaper and cheaper. won’t be long ’til hovering cameras are the norm and they’ll be used on idol. maybe then they’ll give me a job and i can ‘accidently’ maim the competitors.
another new clip in the works. this one will involve aerial video and possibly toy cars… i’ll post a less foggy explanation soon, along with news on all the other stuff that’s in the pipeline: new album! midi guitar hero application! fun new merch! weeeee!
these are the birdman wings i made for this agnes kain clip. all heshen, bamboo and cable ties. the opacity of the heshen in a few silhouetted shots turned out real nice. and i’m seeing some unintentional parallels pop up with the cuba is japan clip. now i’m making a small cardboard set to double the aerial footage.
i’ve been plugging away at a new music video for melbourne/sydney band agnes kain. check ‘em out! they’re great. they’ve got a new album on the way (like me:) and this clip will be for the first single… i’m not sure if i can mention its name so i won’t. the concept involves a collection of 2 second video clips, aeriel video, toys and a birdman. it’s a mix of both animation and video – the first clip i’ve done that’s not purely animated. went location scouting today for this scene:
and found this:
which is just about perfect. i’m making the birdman’s wings out of bamboo and heshen tonight. then all that’s left to do is jump off the roof to check they work. if they don’t i’ll just have to jump off something higher.
late last year i picked up a second hand copy of the playstation2 music software “MTV music generator 2″. i was surprised by a few of the quirks i discovered, most importantly it’s ability to sample with a singstar mic(!). couple this with it’s nifty little sample editor that lets you trim, reverse, filter etc. and it’s stepped up to play a significant role in the recording of my next album. so i thought i’d tell you, the intertron, all about it and it’s glorious quirkiness.
so apparently this game had a usb sampling dongle you could buy to plug in your diskman or walkman or horse or what ever we were using back then. it was basically a usb audio interface for your playstation, which is pretty cool, but you’re unlikely to have one just lying around. lucky for us, the software confuses the singstar mic dongle for the sampling kit which turns your ps2 into a sampler sequencer… and a pretty capable one. Continue reading music gerneration station
i know i haven’t been gigging very much this year. and i could forgive you for thinking i’ve not been doing much on the live music front but you’d be wrong. so very wrong. i don’t want to make you feel bad or anything, it’s just the truth. this is my new guitar hero to midi max app i’ve been working on. it turns the guitar into a playable instrument while keeping all the control functionality of my previous patch. here’s the hastily thrown together blurb i slapped up on my youtube.
An app i’m working on called AXIS. it enables an xbox usb guitar hero controller to output midi to control ableton or any other software or hardware that eats midi.
it has two modes – play and control.
in control mode the buttons, whammy and 3 tilt sensors send out midi messages. this is intended for interfacing with software.
in play mode any musical scale can be superimposed over a guitar hero scale built on the first four buttons. the up pick can be offset to allow rapid playing of fifths or whatnot. the orange button acts as a modifier key allowing change of key and offset on the fly. the D-pad changes scale and the back and start keys change volume (velocity). the three tilt sensors and whammy send out MIDI CCs to control what ever. the tilt sensors on this guitar are particularly awesome, they sit on three different axes and you can make the guitar really expressive.
there’s a little HUD you can sit on top of what ever you’re controlling to monitor mode, key, volume, offset and scale.
i’m sorting out some documentation and then i’ll release it as a stand alone mac app. if a max-head out there want’s to help me port it over to windows that’d be ace. mac and windows interpret the guitar controller differently. once finished, i’ll release the source so people can modify it for other system’s guitars too. I went for an xbox guitar because it’s usb and the tilt sensors and whammy work which is a problem for ps2 guitars/adapters.
at the moment i’m building up my new live show utilizing the guitar to simultaneously shred, trigger samples and effects, control the rest of the track and control the accompanying video. see, i have been busy! and not just on this. i’ve got a whole album of new material which i’ll be relentlessly plugging through out the near future.
this post is little a bit of a tease, now i think of it. perhaps this video might make it appear more substantial.
you might have noticed footage from the cuba is japan clip. it’s the first time it’s graced the intertrons and it may actually be completed sometime in the near future. ooh, tantalising eh?
for something not so completely different… i’m playing in adelaide next saturday! poster:
this site is going to be revamped in preperation for the launch of the new album so prep those eyeballs for some amazement.
Zeal is 25 year-old Melbournite, Robert Jarvis. He makes indietronica in his bedroom studio and animated music videos about cats in space on his bedroom floor.
8 comments 
DIY, animation, excitement, music, video, vj 
DIY, excitement, max msp, midi, music, music video, software, space-time, video, VJing, zeal 
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