Joel's Experimentals

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I did start a thread a while back called "Filmmakers at Home" which was short lived. I thought I'd start another thread and just drop in bits and pieces of the stuff I've been workshopping since 2012, when I first started trying my hand at film.

My passion is design, and by that I mean sound design, music, framing, color, found locations, rhythm of editing, so on and so forth. I haven't hit my creative peak yet because I, like many others interested in this sort of thing, are waiting for the right ingredients and opportunity.

Some say you must make your own opportunities and forge ahead. I disagree. You can't run before you try walking. This is a life work, film making. I am not interested in commercial film making as much as I am interested in learning the technical side of what turns me on about the medium.

Film making is an all encompassing art form that incorporates dance, light, music, graphic design, effect work, writing and human emotion, not to mention everything else under the sun and moon.

With that bloated intro..I'll leave you with something much less inspired...








https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=sUU5xbst3C4






http://joelbooska.wixsite.com/thevid...ge/excavations



I'll post this one again because I'm proud of it..I know, according to Christian religion, pride is a sin...maybe I'm satisfied with it, then. It has a story to tell..I'll be including "director's commentary" for anyone interested (probably just me)



DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY

I came up with a way to take super VHS footage I filmed down at the glastonbury pier and tweak it in real-time with an echo chamber for video effecting. It's a bit of a hack program designed by an acquaintance of mine, Alex May, called Big Fug. I was able to sizzle and replicate many angles with an already overly saturated palate of colors I got juiced from the magnetic footage.

On top of that, I painstakingly coincided my own sound design with each "glitch", as well as used some of my left-over music to act as a running theme for background.
Also, the title card I performed in real-time, as well, using a cursor activated paint with light. The corresponding sound to each stroke of the light pen is designed bit by bit right here in my living room.

The video effects were done live using an M-AUDIO midi controller keyboard. I midi mapped each parameter to a knob or slider, opened up a secondary monitor, set my fraps to live lossless screen capture, and went nuts.



I'll post this one again because I'm proud of it..I know, according to Christian religion, pride is a sin...maybe I'm satisfied with it, then. It has a story to tell..I'll be including "director's commentary" for anyone interested (probably just me)



DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY

I came up with a way to take super VHS footage I filmed down at the glastonbury pier and tweak it in real-time with an echo chamber for video effecting. It's a bit of a hack program designed by an acquaintance of mine, Alex May, called Big Fug. I was able to sizzle and replicate many angles with an already overly saturated palate of colors I got juiced from the magnetic footage.

On top of that, I painstakingly coincided my own sound design with each "glitch", as well as used some of my left-over music to act as a running theme for background.
Also, the title card I performed in real-time, as well, using a cursor activated paint with light. The corresponding sound to each stroke of the light pen is designed bit by bit right here in my living room.
I like it. Really like the music. Also, is that a soap opera character in your profile pic?
__________________
You're an enigma, cat_sidhe.



I like it. Really like the music. Also, is that a soap opera character in your profile pic?
Yes, it's Stephen Nichols, who played Patch on Days of our Lives. Thanks for the compliment. So far, it's been my most experimental adventure. Using the M-Audio midi controller keyboard to tweak the effects live is something I plan to revisit. Now that I know how to do it, and have patted myself on the shoulder for forging it as a personal piece of kit, my next freak-out session should be even better.



This is a commercial I directed,filmed and edited for a studio engineer I am in business with. We wanted to rope in the upper class recording artists locally and hopefully land some primo gigs with trustafarians who wanted a video. My only reservation is that the video didn't have anyone besides us, in the studio, to use as guinea pigs so...it's kind of creepy?



DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY

I told John, the studio owner, to compose a brief collage of different musical genres that I could use to cut the images I shot to. He did within a week, and he did a great job! Using his own devices and prowess, that's all him on every instrument and vocal harmony.

I also had some ideas to bring visually, such a projection onto paper as a transition, a docu-feel to illustrate our practices, and a very, very time consuming comp I made of a gold spinning platter. It listerally took me the better part of a week to get that title card sucker into place, and I'm still not happy with it!

My best visual is the drum kit near the ending scene. I back lit every tom tom with a warm, yellow light underneath, to give it a juicy look. I'd love to play those skins!






DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY

This music video took me the better part of a year because we kept having to re-arrange our shoot dates. The songwriter/singer, Katy, wanted something mystical. I took that as an opportunity to really roll my sleeves up and try some practical effects, such as lighting in-camera, for that Lamberto Bava effect of having strobing lights accompany the 2nd pass visuals I'd add later. The tarot card scene is a good example. She had all the ideas of the red flowers in snow, so we found an abandoned park in the dead of winter, and proceeded to freeze out butts off to get that footage. Some of the visuals are a bit schIzo because we took so long to film everything. She lives over a hundred miles away from me. But I think in the end we got at least a unique video and visual style. I also played most of the instruments and mixed/produced her track. I layed down drums, bass, guitar, synths, etc. She is a great collaborator. She trusts me. I can only hope our next vid together, I really get to make her happier than she's ever been. She's very forgiving and understands our limitations with next to no money at all. That's the best way to be creative. Have zero budget.



This is Katy again, a bit younger. One of the first proper music videos I did.




EDITOR'S COMMENTARY

The first time I met Katy in person was when I showed up to film her and her band out of Rhode Island. A few members had been in the creative design college there and were expecting a showboat director. I think they were a bit underwhelmed at my appearance and demeanor. Katy already knew I had just started cutting my teeth on editing and filming, so she was cool, but I had to impress her band, who were all working pro's.

This video was mostly Katy's ideas. Simple and kind of low-budget. She rented a hotel room, and we partied a bit there while we filmed our scenes. When I went to cut this all together, I was amazed at how little footage I had after the video was complete. I used just about every drop of footage with no left-overs. Talk about skin-of-your-teeth filming. It's a small miracle that I was able to get anything up for her. The pick drop at the end was filmed at my apartment, during the editing. I used an ernie ball medium gauge pick. No one ever seems to notice it.



Wow Joel! The use of color is gorgeous, and I love your editing style. Perfect for music vids, but I look forward to any longer narratives you come out with. Your experience with this really shows. This inspires me to power through with my experiments.



Wow Joel! The use of color is gorgeous, and I love your editing style. Perfect for music vids, but I look forward to any longer narratives you come out with. Your experience with this really shows. This inspires me to power through with my experiments.
You really should! It's not rocket science, and it's not a competition. It's just expressing your interests and materializing them, sometimes using what you have to work with. I look forward to seeing something from you, hopefully?



experimental music

I violently put down some piano note blotches atop an Angelo Badlamenti styled synth pad. I hate to deconstruct this, but that's essentially what it is...my description doesn't deserve the throwaway laziness of the tune below....





Thanks again, @re93animator!

I make next to nothing, but the innovation part makes it worth it. I think the trick is to lie to financiers and tell them it costed a lot of money - so they know how much they are writing the check for.




New film is up. Successful experiment - to light, gather samples, film and then improvise live with 2 analog mini synths patched together, plus a midi map to a cello and a synth harp on my laptop. Fun and dark!

and yeah, I did my own make-up




Nice! I have a monotron delay. Those things are so fun.
Cheap, too. I grabbed the duo and feed that into the monotron. This video is literally the very first time i played either. I bought them especially for this experiment. Hence the pitchy areas



One thing, when I was making music, I always wanted to improve on - actually, the main thing I wanted to improve on - was keeping things organic and evolving. I felt I was too repetitive, and I think part of why I stopped was because I never really found a creative way to conquer that. You are very good at keeping thing flowing.



One thing, when I was making music, I always wanted to improve on - actually, the main thing I wanted to improve on - was keeping things organic and evolving. I felt I was too repetitive, and I think part of why I stopped was because I never really found a creative way to conquer that. You are very good at keeping thing flowing.
Thanks man. Its years and yars of formula. Verse chorus verse chorus x2 bridge outro etc, and then throwing the rules out. Some of the formula remains like vinyl memory grooves so that probly helps. Id keep going but im not you. I did music out of want of female attn, then out of love for music, then for the craft, then boredom but not in that order at all,,, so, if it bores you, take a break then come back?