Digital Bloom – Experimenting with Kaleidoscopes

There is an awkward balance between improvement and consolidation that needs to be found at this stage of being a media practitioner. Figuring out how much room should be left to explore what is new to you whilst on the other hand utilising and demonstrating the skills you already possess. It is in the pre-production period that I find myself feeling out the opportunities and constraints of this project in search of that balance.

The electronic nature of DUAN’s compositions afford the opportunity to develop quite abstract visuals, which led me to explore what I could possibly bring to the track through After Effects. I have used the software on a couple of occasions but (like most adobe software) I find myself to still be merely dipping my toes into an expanse of technology I am yet ill-equipped to harness completely. Despite this I wanted to explore to see what opportunities could be seized. The floral imagery that the songs lyrics (“Let the flower bloom inside you”) mixed with its electronic production begged for a exploration of digital blooms to be created. Through the brainstorming process the concept of kaleidoscopic imagery came up. Kaleidoscopes do, after all, create a reflected, refracted, floral image and to my delight I found that there was a preset buried in the effects panel that allowed me to create just that. Strangely the “kaleidoscope” effect did little but reflect footage vertically and horizontally, it was “Kaleida” that gave the option to create floral patterns out of the b-roll I had loaded in from my hard drive. I played around a little with sizing and styles and applied the effect to a large variety of different b-roll for the purpose of better understanding what the preset did, and therefore how we may be able to apply it.

I found the footage to be mesmerising and I think the pulsating effect of movement could be harnessed to great affect during the instrumental portions of the track in which DUAN experiments with some Trap/Dub Step sounds. The digital creation of flowers brings together the lyrical and musical elements of his song neatly, the only possible issue is incorporating it into a larger body of footage without its presence being jarring. Further experimentation will be needed, however I am happy with the result of this initial test. Time will tell as to whether it fits with the full, finished, creative vision.