I did my first mock pitch online in front of my Studio peers and James. I was near last to ‘present’, and no one had any plans for something as extreme as my idea. Which isn’t a bad thing, there were a lot of fantastic ideas that I am looking forward to seeing develop. I was actually afraid that I had misinterpreted what the boundaries of the course were, and that I was too on the fringe for what we were meant to do. Luckily I was merely stressing myself out for no reason. I got a very positive response from my pitch, though I believe I could have done far better in person, but that’s just something I need to adapt to for the foreseeable future. I remember that someone found my early visuals ‘scary’, this is fantastic news to me. It means that I am on the right path to eliciting an emotional response from people with my work. I was afraid they were too abstract.

My work up until this point has been fragmented parts of a more complete vision. I started off by distorting old archive footage. Then i moved onto creating entirely new visuals from scratch using the tools in After Effects. I want to combine these two to create something more than they are individually, and I think it would be a good idea to add images as well. If i want to create landscapes, and hopefully animated characters I need more than just singular elements, I need interaction between elements.

I cited the punk scene as more of an influence than glitch art, which is true to a extent. I listen to music near constantly everyday, after all sound is the most important part of a cinematic experience. My taste in music is very wide, there is little to nothing I don’t enjoy, but my most listened to genres are Industrial, Punk, and Rap. These aren’t mutually exclusive either. When I envision a project I use music as a way to keep focus on development, which leaks into the tone and style of my pieces. Despite this, I am not setting out to create a music video, but I think I will be looking more into music, as there is a way to incorporate it without it being heard. I will extrapolate on this more in another blog post after I do some new visual experiments.

 

A few months ago one of my friends was experimenting with oscilloscopes. He was using a digital software to create images from sounds. It was very impressive to see how much he progressed in a few weeks alone. Around that same time I as researching into analog audio synths. I was intrigued by how an analog signal could be altered and distorted into something new through the use of hardware. These two things coalesced into a single thought:

if you can make images from audio, and distort audio using hardware, why can’t you distort analog video signal’s using hardware? Or a video synth.

I began looking into CRT televisions, and how television signals were transmitted and received. This lead me to discover that visual effects began as hardware that distorted video. Though it was is incredibly basic by today’s standards. This confirmed that the hardware exists, but had it evolved from that point onward? I soon after disvered that there are individuals, and even companies that specialize in creating Video synths, and I was already familiar with what they can do. Artists utilize this hardware to make Glitch Art. The two companies I discovered were LZX Industries, and Tachyons+. Unfortunately i can’t afford the equipment, but i looked through videos and images that artists have made using this equipment. I was already starting to learn After Effects too at the same time, so naturally I began trying to experiment and try to emulate what Video Synths could do; only using After Effects. My early stuff was decent, but I lacked a unique creative vision and a methodology to get consistent results. By consistency I mean the process ending with something visually appealing, the specificity and chronology of how I use the effects are negligible.

For this Experimental Short Film I plan to expand on the visual style I have been developing and evolve it into something beyond what my initial work .