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• Design Process: AMA 2009

  Sunday, Nov 29, 2009 7:16AM / Standard Entry

  This blog is for those who are curious about the design process.
  
  Someone asked me what the design steps were for the CMA 2009 show were, so when we did the AMA 2009 show for Carrie Underwood a couple weeks go, I saved a series of images to a folder to share it.  
  
  And so here it is with very little text and  mostly pictures.
  
  
  It begins with Carrie's Creative Director (Raj Kapoor) deciding how he wants to present her and her song for this particular performance, then he comes to my design company (Deception Arts) who makes sure his idea realizes it's full potential.
  
  These screens will play on screens which are huge quite often, so detail matters.
  
  This particular design was based on 18 different signs. I picked one random sign to follow the life.
  
  Sign 16:   CD notes:  "16. LAST NAME sign. All caps. But only the L the straight part of the T which
  becomes an I and the final E. Which spells out LIE is able to light up."
  
  CD reference image:
  
  
  Deception Artist hires an illustrator to conceptualize how this would look.  In this case it was alivenotdead's very own Asia Eng.  (A couple of the other signs are left in this snapshot.)
  
  
  An Adobe Illustrator user converts the sketch into bezier curves that can be used by the 3D artist:
  
  
  
  The 3D artist creates a 3D sign from these elements:
  
  
  
  The 3D artist provides the texture artist with a "UV map" for texturing:
  
  
  
  The texture aritst uses this to make textures:
  
  
  
  The 3D artist applies this to the model.
  
  
  
  The compositor then takes a render of the object with the lights off and lights on and adds some glow to bring it to life.
  
  
  
  It is then incorporated into the entire scene with the other 18 signs and an animator animates the timing of the on and off as well as the placement of the objects.  This is called "compositing."
  
  And then has to be all exported out in a crazy way to pump through 8 different screens which all make it into one large one.
  
  And the final result is here......
  
  
  
  that's right, it' not there, it's on the left side wall, you can see it in the lower left corner here.  (It also appears on another screen which only the live show audience saw):
  
  
  
  
  And there you have it - the simplified life of one of 18 screens for one show.  Here was the live broadcast (The final wall is made up from 9 different streams of video):
  
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DfrMRddzpg
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• Science as Religion as Art

  Tuesday, Nov 17, 2009 8:51AM / Standard Entry

  "The Cosmos is Within Us"
  
  I found this interesting because of how it converts the idea of science into a message through an artistic form.
  
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk
  
  

  
  what follows is the information from the youtube video including the lyrics:
  
  MP3 available at http://www.symphonyofscience.com.
  
  "We Are All Connected" was made from sampling Carl Sagan's Cosmos, The History Channel's Universe series, Richard Feynman's 1983 interviews, Neil deGrasse Tyson's cosmic sermon, and Bill Nye's Eyes of Nye Series, plus added visuals from The Elegant Universe (NOVA), Stephen Hawking's Universe, Cosmos, the Powers of 10, and more. It is a tribute to great minds of science, intended to spread scientific knowledge and philosophy through the medium of music.
  
  Check out "A Glorious Dawn" by Carl Sagan, another Symphony of Science project!
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXG...
  
  And my website for more original music:
  http://www.colorpulsemusic.com
  
  Click HQ to watch in better quality.
  
  Enjoy!
  
  John
  john@symphonyofscience.com
  
  Lyrics:
  
  [deGrasse Tyson]
  We are all connected;
  To each other, biologically
  To the earth, chemically
  To the rest of the universe atomically
  
  [Feynman]
  I think nature's imagination
  Is so much greater than man's
  She's never going to let us relax
  
  [Sagan]
  We live in an in-between universe
  Where things change all right
  But according to patterns, rules,
  Or as we call them, laws of nature
  
  [Nye]
  I'm this guy standing on a planet
  Really I'm just a speck
  Compared with a star, the planet is just another speck
  To think about all of this
  To think about the vast emptiness of space
  There's billions and billions of stars
  Billions and billions of specks
  
  [Sagan]
  The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it
  But the way those atoms are put together
  The cosmos is also within us
  We're made of star stuff
  We are a way for the cosmos to know itself
  
  Across the sea of space
  The stars are other suns
  We have traveled this way before
  And there is much to be learned
  
  I find it elevating and exhilarating
  To discover that we live in a universe
  Which permits the evolution of molecular machines
  As intricate and subtle as we
  
  [deGrasse Tyson]
  I know that the molecules in my body are traceable
  To phenomena in the cosmos
  That makes me want to grab people in the street
  And say, have you heard this??
  
  (Richard Feynman on hand drums and chanting)
  
  [Feynman]
  There's this tremendous mess
  Of waves all over in space
  Which is the light bouncing around the room
  And going from one thing to the other
  
  And it's all really there
  But you gotta stop and think about it
  About the complexity to really get the pleasure
  And it's all really there
  The inconceivable nature of nature
  
  
  

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• Concert Screens - CMA Carrie Underwood

  Friday, Nov 13, 2009 5:07AM / Standard Entry

  I've mentioned that my design company will often do concert screens.  It's an unusual but growing format.  Here is a sample from last night's CMA awards:
  
  In 10 days a different performance for the same song will be on the AMA's and I will try to show a little bit of how these come together including how we use other artists like alivenotdead's own Asia Eng.
  
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re6n7_h7Qrc
  

  
  
  
  
  

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• PMX 2009

  Monday, Nov 9, 2009 5:40AM / Standard Entry

  I didn't take too many photos at the PMX because the lighting was just horrendous, but I saw this when I was walking through the Hilton Hotel and it for me was so filled with symbolism I had to shoot it.
  
  
  

  
  
  

  These are four Gothic Lolitas from the convention.  From a distance, they are dressed quite similar.  Two of them are taking pictures of the other two (and yes, they did then swap afterward). But it's almost like a reflection, taking a photo of oneselves. If you walk through any heavily cosplay populated location you begin to see the blending of watcher and watchee. The stars and the fans begin to blend fluidly. And as they say: "It is the shape of things to come."
  
  

  
  

  
  
  If you're not sure what a Gothic Lolita looks like, here is an up close shot of a girl who was selling Gothic Lolita trinkets and such while dressed the part.  She was very charming, I wish it were a better environment for photos, but I liked this moment because it looked like the was faking her smile and it just sort of lent a strange interpretation to the whole thing.  I always feel like the real secret to Gothic Lolita is for people to not realize they're secretly holding a blade up their puffy sleeve.  :)
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

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• Catcerto - Melody just needs context

  Friday, Nov 6, 2009 6:22AM / Video

  If you've seen my blogs on music from stock charts and other experimental music inspirations, this post will come as no surprise... It's remarkable how melody just needs to find context.
  
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeoT66v4EHg&feature=player_embedded
  

  
  
  Sometimes... that's good to keep in mind when you feel as though you or your ideas don't fit in, you might just be looking to find context.
  
  
  

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