This weekend I got to run a multimedia show for a prog rock concert! Andy Engstrom of Volitar is the one who roped me in and it was a great show and a great experience. They played covers from Rush, Kansas, and Ozzie Osbourne but the best songs were the originals by George Wallace, Dave Crabtree, and Andy Engstrom.

For the media display we had 12 foot screens set up on both sides of the stage and Ben Sapp built some projector mounts so we could hang a pair of projectors from the lighting rigs. I recruited my dad to run a main video board with four inputs while I did the button mashing on the sources.

Input 1

This was a feed from a laptop loaded with Resolume VJ Software. Yeah, that’s right, I’m a VJ now. I downloaded Resolume the night before the concert and fiddled with it all day before the event. I’d like to think it was because of my bad ass tech skillz that I was able to get so much out of it but really it’s just an incredibly well built system. I didn’t try much other VJ software but there’s a lot out there to choose from. I found VJ Central and Wikipedia to be good resources even though the VJ world is a slightly overwhelming hodgepodge of home brew graphics.

Resolume allowed me to mix three layers of video clips and apply live effects to them. It came with enough built in clips and effects to get started and was easy enough to customize that I added several of my own. I had an audio feed from the main mixing board running into the laptop and was able to use FFT audio analysis to make effect parameters react to the music. There was a slight lag to this but I think it could probably be overcome with a faster machine or better audio card. It still looked pretty cool but if it was tighter on the beat it would have been better.

I didn’t have time to record my own clips and I didn’t want to get stuck with just the built in stock footage so I hit up NASA and the Prelinger Archives for additional footage and images. I also downloaded some old Flash Gordon episodes and other cornball movies available as Public Domain Torrents. On a side note I came across a film titled “Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women,” which was cut cobbled together using badly re-dubbed clips from an old sci-fi movie cut in with footage of telepathic bimbos in clamshell bikini tops. The best part is that the movie they took footage from was a cut up of an even older Russian space movie. It was awfultastic.

Input 2

For the second input we had a wireless spy cam attached to the neck of Ward F. Ward’s guitar. This was an amazing shot for solos that dad layered nicely over some of the wide shots using the fader on the main board. Wheedlee wheedlee weeeaaooo! You can pick up these cameras from shady internet sites and paranoia mongers everywhere. They also come dressed up to look like smoke detectors, pens, wall clocks, sprinkler heads and teddy bears for all your voyeuristic home security needs.

Input 3

The third input was a DVD with some sound synched edits that were used for song introductions and interludes. The biggest challenge was trying to time things with the main stage and lighting but for the most part this worked out ok. We screwed up once and put the DVD menu on the main screen but if we’d had a chance to practice I think it could have gone smoother. Bah. I hate you Input 3.

Input 4

The final input was our safety net, a wide shot camera operated by Gloria Merry. Whenever things got frantic at the mixing board we could take a breather by kicking over to the wide shot. The shot also worked really well faded together with the computer effects and guitar cam. If we had headsets we could have communicated a little better with Gloria and set up the shots to match the fades better but it worked pretty well anyway.

Thanks to Angela Crepeau, Ward F. Ward, Dave Crabtree, George Wallace, and Andy Engstrom for being total rock stars and putting on such an amazing show!

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 11th, 2006 at 5:08 pm and is filed under Juneauite, Projects & Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.