While staying at home for Thanksgiving, I found the third and final toy ray gun that I have been looking for. The white plastic has yellowed. The internal components are scratchy and unreliable. It sounds exactly like I remember it.
Now that I have the trilogy of ray guns from long ago, I can get to work on dumping their various squeaks and beeps into a new VST instrument. I think it will function primarily as a percussion instrument … or maybe just an old school analog sound effect machine. It may seem pointless to many, but I’ll find a use for it on my record somewhere.
I have no time frame for a release … but now I have all the pieces I need.
I sat down and rough mixed a few songs for my mom today. I’ll be heading home for Thanksgiving and I thought I should give her an update on how “Bits” is progressing. Afterall, I did record part of the album at her house!
So it got me thinking … I used to make mix tapes all the time. Now, tapes don’t really exist anymore to most people and I’ll be damned if I make someone a mix CD. It just doesn’t feel right. The person on the other end can shuffle the songs, skip around and what have you. The old fashioned mix tape kept people from doing this and allowed you to create a natural ebb and flow to the song order …
… which gets me thinking about how to order the songs on “Bits”. I already know that “Combat” and “Demon Attack” will be the first and last songs (respectively), so where do the other eleven songs go? It will take me some time to figure out and as I track the vocals and guitar on the remaining songs each song takes on a new life.
Song order is pretty important right? Or do people just buy two songs on iTunes now???
Posted on November 25, 2008 by arman. Categories: movies.
I’ve had Super 8 floating around in the back of my mind. (Not the hotel chain, the movie film). I started shooting on Super 8 in 1997. It’s has been a long time since I’ve shot anything with the medium, and I’m thinking it might be time to dig out some of the old cameras.
One thing that my Nizo 801 (pictured above) can do is shoot single frame base on the amount of available light. Most Super 8 cameras can shoot single frame, but to open and close the shutter based on timing a proper exposure can create some very bizarre results … especially if the level of light changes periodically. In a nutshell, how brightly lit a scene is determines the frame rate of the camera. In extremely dark situations, the shutter can stay open almost indefinitely, creating crazy blurred motion.
I might just use it to shoot some background plates or as a texture effect … I’m not sure.
Now … if I can rig up LED light boxes to a potentiometer and control their output …
This is a still from the “No Escape!” music video. What happened to this TV? Who could do such a thing?
All I can say is that this comes at the end of the video.
The world will know soon … I hope to finish the video for the song by the end of the year. I guess I should probably finish the song too! I mean … the song is written I just need to finish tracking the vocals. It is one of the more catchy songs on the record and clocks in under three minutes.
I’ve been working on this video for several months. I started it after the completion of the “Combat” music video. I have recently finished outlining two more videos but I am sworn to secrecy for the time being.
