I’m working as a research assistant to professor Jim Bizzocchi in the area of stereoscopic 3D films, it’s very exciting! We got some great new toys today, a dual camera rig and a 3D monitor, Jim demos above. You would need to be wearing 3D glasses on set for this to work of course, but it’s great that we’ll be able to test the effects of the different variables involved in filming in 3D, get two key factor in the 3D-ness of an image being how close together the two cameras are, and how much they’re angled inward. Maybe I’ll even make my next film in 3D!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gquhan5w1y4rlxl/FuerzaBruta.mp4
On my first day in New York, Avery and I went to see our first show, an off Broadway performance called Fuerza Bruta. If it wasn’t ending soon I would tell you to go see it because it was awesome! I knew it was pretty artsy so I was skeptical at first, but it was a really heart pounding, visceral experience and I loved it! There was intense tribal-like music, wild dancing, people swimming feet above your head, men bursting through walls, and styrofoam sheets full of confetti being broken on people’s heads, performer and audience alike. (I’m still finding confetti in my clothes) The pictures above were taken looking straight up, through the bottom of a shallow plastic pool. The audience all stood in the performance space, and moved around the room with the action as stages, conveyor belts, and suspended pools came in and out of the space. By the end, the whole audience was cheering and dancing along, and we finished with a brief dance party in an indoor downpour. I managed to record pretty much the whole thing, here’s a clip of one of my favourite dancing parts for now. Link above! (apologies for the poor quality. Given my lack of options on the road, and the large size of the raw video, this was recorded on my Playbook from the video playing on Avery’s laptop. And I couldn’t even upload it to tumblr properly after all that.) Overall, so intense and awesome, and a great way to kick off the adventure!
Upcoming Phlying and Adventures
Well it looks like Phlying Wayl is about to do an awful lot of Phlying in the next couple months. In just a couple of days I’ll be leaving for New York, New York for a week where I’ll get a huge dose of sightseeing, tons of museums and galleries, and a whole lot of Broadway. So many exciting things to see and do! And lots of photos to come. Then next month, on a more business-like note, I’ll be heading to Morocco to screen my short film “Curtains In My Mind” at the International Festival of Video Art of Casablanca! I’m still in shock after getting my acceptance email a couple of days ago. Now that will be a whole different kind of adventure!
I’d better get my bags packed and my camera ready, this is going to be crazy!
Phew it’s been a busy week. Finished off a decent version of beta 2.1 of the virtual reality Sensorium project in time to showcase it at both the SFU Surrey Open House as well as the Faculty of Communication, Arts, and Technology Undergraduate Conference. We developed a much smoother system for running demos and getting participants in and out. A lot of people were very interested in our project and we got some great feedback, so thanks so much to everyone who came out, and to everyone who made these two events happen! And my awesome teammates Julian and Jeremy of course.
As well, my short film Curtains In My Mind screened at both of these events. For the conference I even gave a brief talk before the screening, which was honestly terrifying ha ha. It went really well though; I didn’t forget anything and people seemed engaged so that’s a good sign. I’ve been submitting the film to a number of festivals lately so we’ll see if it gets any screen time elsewhere, which would be very exciting.
My biggest project right now is a virtual reality project, Sensorium, that uses a head mounted display and galvanic skin response technology. The user sees a digital world, and the more stressed they get, the more the world begins to break apart. This video can explain more! The version you see here has about 18 pieces. The new model I’m trying to implement before we demo the project at the Open House in 4 days has 40 pieces. Oy! Spent all night coding, phew! But good times. All 40 pieces now float in an out smoothly. Lots to implement, so little time!
Our current project for Interactive Video, which will hopefully be done today, is an interactive documentary about independent video stores. We wanted to focus on the community aspect of the stores, as well as the experience of shopping and working there. We also wanted to incorporate this with the experience of the documentary itself, so it’s a website that displays a video store shelf that you can scroll along and pick out video clips as you choose. I really enjoyed designing some the decorative immersive elements of the shelves in the form of ‘moving photos’, like from Harry Potter ha ha. They’re looping video clips of various parts of the store that look like still images until you spot someone walk into frame or pass the camera. I also thought it would be amusing to give them an instagram effect, to add to the photo and indie feel of them, ha. Anyway, I hope it’s up soon. Time to sleep now, phew!
I really should try to update this regularly, because I don’t. I always put it off until there’s a finished project to show off, and even then I don’t always remember, but that’s not really the point, is it? Half the fun is seeing how the stuff is made anyway. And it’s all about the journey, right? ‘Adventure’ is one third of the blog name for goodness’ sakes. So I’m going to really try now to make posts often, I’ll set an alarm for each evening. But no one wants to read a post about not posting enough, that’s why this is at the bottom instead of at the beginning where I had it originally.
After much blood, sweat, and tears, I’m excited to say that I think my short film is finally complete. It’s a 10 minute drama about the power of belief and the nature of reality, or as much as one can attempt to say about such things in 10 minutes anyway. Unfortunately I can’t show it to you yet as it’s being prepped for submission to some competitions and maybe a student film festival or two, but here is the 30 second teaser. :)
Written and directed by Samantha Derochie
Starring Avery Fane and Karl Reifenstein
As much awesomeness as there is in Every Major’s Terrible, only a fraction of it ended up in the final cut. Here’s a taste of on set choir shenanigans with some behind the scenes photos.
The first shot was filmed on July 19th, 2012. 7 weeks later, my labour of love is complete. Thanks so much to the SFU Choir for doing this with me, and giving me the opportunity to create the largest film project I’ve ever led. Not to mention the snakes, the angry mob, the underwater basket weaving… It is my pleasure to present, at last: Every Major’s Terrible.
It even has it’s own website.
http://www.everymajorsterrible.com/
I’m getting all teary eyed…
Last week, I went to see Yanni live at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre here in Vancouver, which was absolutely amazing. If I could make films with half as much passion as there is in this man’s music, I’d make incredible films. The first thing he played was Santorini, seen in the video, which is one of my favourites, was so excited. Yanni is there on the left, dual wielding three-layer keyboards. I love how he’s movin’ and rockin’ to the music. Or maybe he just cues the rest of the musicians by whipping his hair. During the song Marching Season, a duet with Yanni and his long time drummer Charlie Adams, right in the middle Adams busts out the most intense six minute drum solo, it was insane! At the end, Yanni came back not once, but twice for encore performances, including my other two favourite songs, Nostalgia and One Man’s Dream. So beautiful I could have cried. All in all, a phenomenal night. And to top it all off, he announced that he’d be coming back next year! Looking forward to it! Finally, props to the inspiring words of wisdom Yanni gives between songs. I particularly like when he quoted astronauts who noted that, from space, it’s impossible to tell the countries apart. Food for thought.
Page 1 of 9
