As I get closer to finishing the first mix of Gallutep I’ve started to flesh out the music video concept I’d been mulling over since I began work on the track back in September (tends to take me between six to ten months to complete each track/video). The narrative follows the short story of a mathematician with, bear with me, an obsession for solving a formula based on the nature of vorticity. She is accompanied throughout the video by a benign ancestral figure/spirit (wearing something like a mixture between a Krampus body suit and an African boar mask).

Although I haven’t nailed down the story-line yet I have a few set pieces devised to fit sections of the track culminating in the final scene which revolves around some spiral motion graphics and a Chladni Plate I’m planning on building into a coffee. All going well I’ll start work on the shooting script in mid February aswell the costume and set design. From a technical point of view I’m hoping to improve the quality of the video over the last one. Even thou I’ll be using the same camera (a consumer grade Canon 700D) I’m planning on shooting in RAW format this time round using the excellent Magic Lantern Canon camera hack. This should lead to improved dynamic range, color and detail. I had previously thought I didn’t have the PC spec (or hard drive space) to shoot in RAW but having recently read up on the various codecs I think I should be able to manage it using the Proxy/Offline workflow in Resolve. If not, at the very least, I should be able to shoot it in a better compressed codec than the Canon’s native H.264.
“I’ve also introduced a minimal cartoon style to the daily character drawing practice”
On the study front I’ve kept up with the nightly figure drawing/costume and anatomy practice and although I’m still struggling with certain cloth folds there is definitely an improvement from this time six months ago. I’ve also introduced a minimal cartoon style to the daily character drawing practice (randomly generated character themes) – this more abstract type of illustration is a handy addition to the graphic design commissions I work on which often require a simple graphic element. With all the practical based work I’ve been doing it’s been a while since I’ve worked on an individual piece but I’ve started setting aside some time each week (1Hr Tue/Thur) into working on these type of paintings again (folk or concept art for the most part based on my own ideas).

As usual it took me alot longer to finish the current two and a half minute Brothers Grimm composition than I had thought (about fifty hours in total). Although lacking abit in melodic interest I’m happy enough with both the orchestration and it’s mix. It’s satisfying to play it back with it’s accompanying illustration too. I haven’t done as much composition practice over the last few months as I’d like but I have started cross referencing the excellent Counterpointer manual available at www.ars-nova.com (very un-Irish friendly domain name) with the notes I had made from various books over the last five years or so. It’s a very thorough resource and it’s handy learning both additional (new to me) and alternative descriptions of species rules. On the sample front I picked up the early bird offer VSL had going on their new Synchron String library in early January. My 2008 64bit system can just about manage to load the presets but it’s well worth it for the very rich sounding 9 velocity layers with multiple variations. The diminuendo and flautando to pianississimo patches are particularly stunning and I’m looking forward to testing them out in the next Brothers Grimm composition.