Saturday, September 10, 2011

Stylish Nonsense - Ninja


For my final project for my MA in visual communication with Birmingham City University, I decided to move on to something more challenging. I explored the potential of using live concert and performance techniques to strengthen Music Video as an interactive media. Being a part-time Vijay in clubs and concert, I found it quite challenging to work on such approach as both music video and vijaying are giving a visual representation of music.

Being aware of the existing barrier between concert videos and music videos, I had to find a way to combine live visual elements such as projection and interactive visuals, with more classic music video techniques such as rhythmic editing, split screen and multi-camera cinematography, techniques I explored in the first 2 stages of my MA.



The final outcome of my project is a music video designed for the Thai indie band “Stylish Nonsense” using front projection on scrims and interactive lighting techniques.
Stylish Nonsense - Photos I took and compositedfor my pre-production

To get a more challenging result than a simple projection on background, I studied the use of scrims for front projection. Scrims are semi-transparent fabrics which depending where is the light source coming from, becomes transparent or opaque. Following the recommendation from Deyan, another fellow VJ (theWetCarpet), I decided to go for a dark grey fabric that I could set up in front of the 2 band members, allowing to see both visuals and the band in the same time. To achieve a better result, I also collaborated with Go Kun (Go Ueda), a japanese lighting sequencer who designed a set of interactive lights placed in different part of the stage.

We shot the video at Opposite, a venue own by the WTF franchise, sukhumwit soi 51