10/12/10 - Zoetrope Mapping

I did this little test a while ago but wasn't in a rush to put it up due to it's complete failure, but I reckon it's important to report on these things, if any progress is to be made :) I was attempting to match up the projection so it was constantly completely in line with the pieces of wood. Unfortunately it's very hard to actually get the projected animation and the spinning zoetrope to line up with each other in the first place, and even if you do manage it, the two gradually slip out of synch because the maths of the whole thing just isn't accurate enough...



It was worth a go though, and I think I'll continue with some projection experiments on future zoetropes, but with more general masking off of larger areas as opposed to precise, single frames.


30/11/10 - Ultrachip Vs Forest Closure

I did the artwork for this benefit compilation for Edinburgh venue The Forest, featuring contributions from every performer at 2010's Ultrachip chipmusic festival. Please buy it and help save this great free venue from closure!




29/10/10 - Focus Left

I'll be performing The Lyre Of Orpheus at Focus Left on Tuesday the 9th of November, at The Arches in Glasgow. Possibly with live accompaniment, but probably not :)

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11/10/10 - Zoetrope Beads Again

My latest zoetrope test. This one took bloody ages but I'm pretty happy with the result. Although I could probably have got some better footage if I wasn't so impatient. I really want to figure out how to exhibit these - they're much more impressive when you see them in the flesh. My next mission will be to combine some sort of zoetrope with the projection mapping technique. Could be interesting...







27/08/10 - Ultrachip

Some footage of my VJ set for Comptroller at the UK's first chip music festival, held at the Forest Cafe in Edinburgh. It were good fun :)




12/08/10 - Zoetrope Beads

Here's that bead test I said I'd do - and it worked! The next test is to try something a bit more complicated with it - I'm gonna have two beads on each thread in a spiral formation so that one set travels up and the other goes down. It will be fiddly :D




27/07/10 - Esperi @ Dexters

This will be the last kite mapping post until I do something drastically different with it, I promise. Which might be fairly soon actually, if our plans come together for a new music video with Esperi. This is the best footage we've got of the kite in action I think, so I wanted to share it on here - the song is 'Silo The Fire', hope you enjoy :)




23/07/10 - 3D Zoetrope Cloud Test

I was just looking through some old files and came across this failed attempt at a floating zoetrope. It's pretty close to working though, so I think my next test will be to use slightly heavier objects like beads or something to weigh the 'frames' down properly, and I'll need to adjust the lengths of the threads so that they come out to the correct circumference once it's spinning... I'll hopefully have something to show relatively soon.




16/06/10 - Orpheus At N_ilk

Here's another performance of Orpheus, this time at N_ilk which is a night put on at Drouthy Neebors in Dundee with live performances, both visual and aural. Also check out the new Live Music Videos page to have a look at previous performnces and any future videos I might do. I was supposed to be performing this again at Is This A Test? at the Roxy Arthouse in Edinburgh on the 26th of June, but I've been postponed until a more suitable line up can be sorted out for me to slot seamlessly into. A couple of my films will still be screened there though, and there's lots of other cool stuff happening, so come along if you can!




19/05/10 - More Esperi Gigs + RetchyvSmash

I've had a couple more Esperi gigs now and I seem to be coping with the setting up process a bit better these days. We're gonna try and get some momentum going with a bunch of gigs together in June, so I'll hopefully be able to improve the visuals with each performance and try out new stuff as well.

This is some unedited footage from our second gig at Pivo Pivo in Glasgow...



And here are a couple photos from the last gig at Dexters in Dundee - it was a really nice atmosphere there, with very low light which really allowed the visuals to shine :) Thanks to Petra for the photos :) - more on Facebook.





I also had a bit of a redesign and relaunch of the RetchyvSmash VJ website which we'll be making an effort to keep more up to date than in the past, although inevitably there will be a bit of crossover with this site in terms of content - especially with the Esperi stuff.

I should have some more Retchy only stuff in the next month or so though - I'm itching to get back into the 3D zoetrope experiments (just purchased a lovely new record player off ebay, as the last one was over abused), and I'll also have a new live music video to perform at the Roxy Art House on the 26th of June. I'm just trying to decide on a song at the moment...


13/04/10 - Esperi Gig

Me and my VJ buddy Garry met Esperi (aka Chris Lee-Marr) at one of our first gigs a few months ago and we decided to work together and have a go at doing some custom visuals for some of his gigs. I thought it'd be nice to try something a bit different so quickly put together a little test using a kite that my girlfriend Petra had given me for christmas (I had yet to actually fly it at this point :) and the projection mapping technique that I've talked about before.



This was all well and good as a test, but the real challenge would be to prepare all the different animations so that they could be quickly adapted to the new positions and angles that the kite and projector would end up in on the night of the gig - I'd have to re-align all of the animations in After Effects and render them all out again in the three hours I had at the venue before the gig started.

In order to be able to do this quickly and efficiently I had to create a separate parent composition in After Effects for each of the 24 triangles, which consisted of just solid, still, constant shapes. I then took these comps and combined, sequenced and animated them in new compositions so that I would only have to tweak the positions of the parent shapes and all the comps that used them would be automatically updated.

I needed to create various other parent compositions too that were slightly more compicated than the still triangles (for example the animations that manipulate the edges of the kite) but the same principals applied. Having to work like this was a bit of a strain on my tiny mind, and it presented quite a few limitations on the kind of animations I was able to produce in the time I had available, as I had to constantly go through the setting up process in my head and decide if I could afford the time it would take to tweak a whole new set of parent compositions on the night.

Here's an edit of the first gig at the Doghouse in Dundee - I couldn't use the live sound unfortunately as it was a bit of a poor quality recording, so I put together this semi music video to Takkat by Esperi himself.





Photo by Petra Scherer - more on Facebook.

I'll have some footage from our second gig together up soon with the actual audio. Also, have a look at my Central Station blog where I talk about the process and performance a bit more (perhaps more coherently, I'm not sure).


25/03/10 - Orpheus Take 2

The Orpheus gig went really well the other night - I had a great time, but still can't seem to get through the performance without screwing something up. The adrenaline (or blind panic) seems to just take over when I'm doing it in front of people and I end up throwing stuff out of sight that I need again later in the performance. All part of the fun though, and I'd love to do this more often so I can get used to all the excitement. In fact, I've been fantasizing about doing a whole VJ set with an OHP and a massive pile of drawings :D





I've been asked to perform this again at The Roxy Art House in Edinburgh on 26th June as part of a night of AV performances, as well as possibly another song that I haven't decided on yet. AND maybe some sort of 3D Zoetrope installation but I'm not sure I'll have time to do that...


18/03/10 - Gigs, Blog And Stuff

I've been working on some new projection mapping stuff for a gig this saturday at the Doghouse in Dundee, doing visuals for Esperi. Artist networking site Central Station have asked me to blog about my animation process during March (their Process Month), which includes some stuff about the Esperi gig - I'll post something on here about it soon too. And I'm also gonna be performing The Lyre Of Orpheus live music video at VideoLab in Edinburgh on the 23rd! Busy busy busy :D

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Also, please join my legion of three fans (including myself) on Facebook and follow me on Twitter! <-- Look! I even have the social network branding badges! I will try and update them with interesting things. I may fail.


23/02/10 - New Showreel And Some Publicity!

Just finished my new showreel. Take a look and please do get in touch if you'd like to work together, or have any questions about my work.




I received a lovely write up from Amid Amidi on the animation blog Cartoon Brew the other day -

"One of the most fulfilling aspects of blogging on Cartoon Brew is every so often discovering the young filmmaker who loves to experiment with the medium and isn’t bound by conventional notions of animation filmmaking. I’d venture to say that Dundee, Scotland-based Graeme Hawkins is one of these chaps..."

And I also got featured a couple of times on Glasgow based artists networking site CentralStation. They seem to like my projection mapping stuff the most...

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31/01/10 - 3D Zoetrope Mock-Ups

Some mock-ups of my next 3D Zoetrope tests (please view them in fullscreen so you can see them properly), you just need to imagine the whole videos printed out and joined end to end so they form cylinders. The first is based on a grid system - I split the length of the cylinder into the 33 frames required of the zortrope, then split them into equal parts, each frame being 6 squares in length (although I'm working on a version that'll be 12 per frame). Then I just used Photoshop to colour in the squares, and sequenced them in After Effects.



It's all a bit random and cheesey at the moment but I think it has potential, especially if I layer up a few more grids behind it and sort out the colours, maybe simplify the movements quite a bit. This next one is using multiple layers, and again will be printed out to form a cylinder. I was trying to keep this one simple, but I think I'll test out the grid one first cos it's a bit more interesting and less fiddly to put together...



These will hopefully lead to some sort of instllation in the near future, and l should have some footage of it in action soon.



   
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