Having put a few months between myself and completing the Gallutep music video I can be abit more subjective when reviewing it and drawing up the list of improvements I’d like to implement in the next one. In hindsight the theme was overly dramatic (too emotionally concentrated) and needed more of the odd humour present in Fat Controller to lighten it up some.

It was also too long and the (car driving) hyperlapse sequence was probably mistake. I could have shot something more interesting to heighten the sense of agoraphobia. From a technical point of view there is a bunch of stuff I think I can improve on too: less flat framing, more depth and modeling with lighting, less noisey low light shots, tighter focus, less camera shake on pan shots and spending more time defining the creative color grade especially considering as I am going through all the effort of shooting in RAW – I didnt make nearly enough use out of the extra data that was recorded (approx 36MB per second RAW compared to the 1MB H.624!). Some of the editing cuts in sync with the music feel abit off in hindsight too. All that said thou I’m still very happy with how a few of the shots worked out and I learned a whole lot while planning and shooting it.
“From a technical point of view there is a bunch of stuff I think I can improve on”
Regarding the next (electronic) video ‘Morgana’ (short for the optical phenomenon known as Fata Morgana) I’ve been tipping away on the track since early October and nearly have the first mix finished. I have a bunch of ideas taken down for the storyline and can hopefully get cracking on a shooting script soon. For the location a friend has very kindly agreed for me to shoot in the, very modern looking, house he has just built. It has large spacious rooms, floor-to-ceiling windows and recessed lighting which will make for a nice change from shooting in my kitchen :P I also hope to shoot another video this Summer for one of my crude folk (guitar and voice) songs. Over the past seven years I’ve been slowly refining the ten songs I wrote in 2010-2012. I usually spend about a half hour each day playing through them and tweaking the arrangements. Around eight songs are completed (or to a stage I’m quite happy with) including V2’s of both Monster and Circles – with more mute notes, better chord progressions, tigher timing and structured macro dynamics (louder and quieter parts of a song).

On the orchestral side of things I’ve been working my way through Seth Monahan’s excellent series of free Harmony and Counterpoint videos. He has developed a method of teaching Species counterpoint that places more of an emphasis on harmony and analysis. I’m trying to sharpen up my music theory and proofreading as I find each new composition I write will inevitably have one or two very weak sections. In other words there is parts I am happy with, that feel solid enough, but rarely or never a piece as a whole.

Over the last year I’ve managed to keep up with the daily painting and figure drawing studies. Some of the painting-from-the-imagination practicals are starting to be good enough for me to post on Instagram and Facebook thou only one out of every five or six passes the grade. I’d really like to improve that batting average this year if possible. Often its just down to laziness where I’m in a rush or too bad a mood to take the time to come up with a decent layout. On the plus side thou even if it doesnt work out I usually have a pretty good idea of where the problem lies and what I’d need to do to fix it.