Do You Believe In Life After After Effects?

So I went to see Cher this past week and as I imagined, it was the greatest night of my life and I cried much more than I had intended. Especially for being 67, she really put on a great show for over two hours. One of the things that really grabbed my attention throughout the entire show was the intricate animations being shown on the huge screen at the back of the stage throughout each song.

If you were to watch the animation by itself on your computer, it may not appear to be much more than a fancy screensaver. But paired up with the loud music, thumping bass, backup dancers and everything else going on on the stage, I can say from first-hand experience that the animations at the back tied everything together and truly made me get up on my feet and mom-dance from If I Could Turn Back Time all the way to Believe.

I guess the point I'm trying to get across is that it's not just how an animation looks that makes it special, it's how it's used. The video below, to my knowledge, is fan made but I can attest it's identical to the backdrop during her opening number. Maybe to you, watching it won't invoke much emotion. But for me, thinking about her performance and knowing how the video was used during it, it gives me goosebumps every time.

Lights, Camera,Spinifex!

Spinifex brings motion graphics to a new level by creating graphics at a scale that is larger than life. Ranging from Olympic opening ceremonies to "MOVIE" experiences, Spinifex truly puts entertainment in a different perspective. The team uses their environment around them as a canvas for breath taking designs and incorporate performers to dance across their artwork. Spinifex proves that art is a action, not just an object. 

"Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony" 

"How to Train a Dragon"

"Dr. Who Live Light Show" Sydney Custom house

"Lighting of the Sails" 

"Vivid Festival 2013"

To check out more of their amazing work, go to www.spinifexgroup.com

Ted on the Oscars

While watching the Oscars last weekend, viewers had the chance to see Mark Wahlberg and Ted interact on stage. At first I thought it was just a cool illusion like Tupac during Coachella. I researched the subject and  found the animation during the show was pre taped. This sparked my curiosity of how Ted was actually created. The basic animation is based off of Seth MacFarlane's performance on set. Seth wore a suit with motion tracking points off camera. While the actors perfumed he would say and act he lines of Ted. The graphics we later sent to Tippet studio for finer animation and texturing. 

There is a cool video of Seth using the suit found here:

Seth MacFarlane is Ted from Seth Macfarlane

If you want more info about Tippet Studio or the article on the Oscars the links can be found here.

Tippet

Deadline

Interactive Music In Digital Environment

When searching for topics I came across this project that really interested me both as a machine and as a visual spectacle. It is called the V Motion project and It is funded by a company similar to Red Bull. They created a device that takes human motion and midi maps it to a computer running Ableton Live. The person movements actively trigger the music being created in real time. What interested me was how the graphics in the background are also manipulated by the persons movement as well as the music. This is only the first version of this technology but the developers want to make it so more then one person can interact with the program. Check out the video and see it in action but also check out this blog which describes exactly the process used in creating it. 

Blog of how its created!

-Samuel Dickinson

Beyond motion graphics, or is it?

To give you an idea as to the power of some of the tools available to us, coming from the OS (Open Source) community I would like to share two very different videos. They are simply some of the thousands of projects created with PD (PureData) a free open source program mentioned in my comment to Jenna's post below.

Although originally a program designed to control and manipulate music, it has evolved, thanks to the OS community into one of the most used real-time graphical/auditory, performance programs in the world. The program however is capable of controlling absolutely anything you can somehow connect to a computer (including wireless of course), including robots, projectors, cameras, phones etc. etc. No limit but your imagination.






In this video that was shown at TED's "Full Spectrum" auditions,  Onyx Ashanti demonstrates "beatjazz", music created with two handheld controllers, an iPhone and a mouthpiece, and played with the entire body. The software is Pd controlling three Arduinos which are open source hardware controllers.

pure data live music visualizations

I really want to do something like this at my recital next year. If I can find/design my own simple visualizer I'm going to give it a try this weekend to a few movements of Bach Cello suite 2. Most of the work I find in this style uses recorded music or live performance of computer generated music to trigger the visualizations. What I'd like to do, and what this example demonstrates, is using microphones and acoustic instruments as the triggers. The program will analyze different pitch classes and dynamic ranges to control the animation.
From the link....
"Pianist Hugh Sung demonstrates the use of Pure Data/GEM as a method for computers to react to live audio input and generate responsive visualizations. In this clip, Hugh performs selections from Charles B. Griffin's "Vernacular Dances". This performance took place on Sept. 30, 2008 at Wallenstein Castle in Prague, Czech Republic, presented by Music Bridges International"