This is my old blog

For updated info on my activities, please refer to my new blog, "Maya Art - Web Log" at http://mayaandvisualmusic.blogspot.com/ - there is also a link to this blog on your right.

Thanks,
Maya

More Fish video pictures

Here's my an explanation the Fish Video and what went into making it:

Fish (Winter 2006/2007)
Watercolour animation.

Approx. 6 minutes

Intentions:

This video has a number of intentions. On a personal level this piece is to symbolize aspects of myself, my heritage and my training in the arts. I specify my heritage because both the video and music were influenced by Chinese painting and music. It symbolizes my training in the arts in that represents aspects of the progression of my artistic style. It begins with fairly standard western classical musical notation, which gradually evolves into a more personal notation. On another level it simply connects features of traditional Asian musical arts with Asian visual art and demonstrates how the animated action on the screen can be paralleled by the music.

The music itself also had its own unique intention. It was composed as a piano duet for six hands. It is a demonstration of computer/MIDI based music that is intended to present and capture two common characteristics of human musicians: music perception and rhythmic response. Fish, presents this by utilizing a computer to act as the performers. By using a computer it makes the performance of a traditional piano duet piece possible with out having more than one musician and instrument.

What went into making it?

The technique used to create this video is similar to what was used for the Inner-Outer Harmony video, with the exception of using several more canvases and watercolours instead of oil pastels. It involved photographing approximately 650 digital images.

Technology & Resources Used

For Music:

• Carleton University Sonic Design Studio; Macintosh G4
• Cubase SX2
• Yamaha EX7; MIDI keyboard/interface

For Video:

• Home Studio: Windows PC computer
• Remote Capture software
• Ulead Video Editor 8.0
• Canon Powershot G2
• Copy stand
• Florescent lighting

Visual Materials Used:

• Watercolour paper and Rice paper
• Watercolour paints and paint brushes

The first images of the fish video










The first 8-9 bars of music end up looking like this:

The Setup: Technologies/resources for Video portion of Fish:

• Home "studio":
• Windows XP PC computer
• Remot capture software
• Canon Powershot G2 (1/1.8-inch 4-megalpixel CCD)
  
• Copy stand
• Florescent lighting
• Ulead Video Editor

Artistic Mediums:

• Felt tip marker (black)
• Watercolour paints
• paintbrushes
• mix of plain white paper and rice paper

Visual inspiration:
Fish was mainly inspired by traditional Chinese folk tunes and much of the imagery that will accompany this composition is inspired by Asian visual arts.

Portfolio Update: Fish

I've been working on creating the visuals for a composition of mine called fish:

"Fish," is a piano duet for six hands I composed in 2006. It is a computer/MIDI based composition intended to present and attempt to capture two common characteristics of human musicians, that is, music perception and rhythmic response. This is evident in many instrumental duets, where each musician has to listen and interact to each other to execute the correct response. "Fish" presents this by utilizing a computer to act as the performers. By using a computer it makes the performance of a traditional piano duet piece possible with out having more than one human musician.

Technologies/Resources used:
1. Loeb A900 Sonic Design Studio:
- Macintosh (OS) computer with
- Cubase installed
- Yamaha EX7 / functioning MIDI interface
- Cubase manual
2. USB “mini-drive”
3. CD
4. Turandot (music notation package) for the preliminary work at home.

Inspirations from:

• Traditional Chinese folk tunes
• Steve Reich
• Phillip Glass
  

Way over a hundred photographs later.....
Inner outer harmony - morph is completed! but first...

How I got there:

At first I thought I could create something similar to what I previously explained was done by Mclaren by scanning a hand drawing onto the computer and adding differences to the drawing and then scan that...etc.

Thus, I experimented with this by drawing a circle and then gradually adding to the border of that circle. I then imported the images into a video editing program.

To create a smooth transition between each image I placed cross fades in between each of them. The result was quite promising.

However, there is a LARGE number of images to be drawn and scanned in order to make a nice video = time...so

= The scanning process was scrapped!

Instead I opted to use a digital camera mounted to a stand. I used the software utilities that came with the camera to have remote shooting and control via my computer. (a real time saver!) This worked well, because it minimized shaking.

For the images themselves I came up with a neat idea. Instead of the charcoal and chalk technique used by Mclaren, I decided to use pastels:

After deciding on what image(s) I wanted to create to match with my composition (aka storyboarding), I drew the image with pastels, mounted it onto a flat surface so it would not move and took a picture of it. Then I covered the entire drawing with black pastel.
Using a piece of plastic I scraped a bit of the black pastel of the image, then took another picture. I did this A LOT, to create patterns/images in the pastel until all the black pastel was removed!

Next was editing this all into a video = done!

I hope to take pics of the setup soon and post them, I just can't move anything because I have been using the camera for a similar technique for the next video.