I was delighted for my proposals to be one of the first collaborations to be chosen for the MARS project at Federation House with Benji Reid. MARS is about giving Manchester artists free creative space to network, collaborate and make art happen, the space to be allowed to experiment and explore ideas.
The collaboration involved Jim Parris, an experienced and talented musician, bassist and manager of Carmel. Hannah Richmond creative film maker from Manchester Music Videos, Greg Foster interesting, gaming concept artist and two of the original wired and wild puppeteers Rik Thorpe and Matt Crowther . Later joined by brilliant storyteller Alice Penny.
The collaboration was initially for four Saturdays.
Working on Fridays with Hannah Richmond on filming.
My original idea was that I wanted to create some digital content for a performance idea that involves Wired and Wild going into schools and creating a performance.
I wanted to create a living coral reef that could be projected and used as a window into the imagination of a storyteller, a character, I was making a colourful felted coat for, she is inspired by the wonders of nature! She has a collection of exotic creatures and her relationship with them is at the heart of the action.
Day 1
We brainstormed and talked through what I was trying to achieve, Greg had lots of ideas around audience participation and what it means to be involved in a performance, we talked about the narrative and how the creation of the creatures a could be part of the performance.
We went on to work with puppets to play a game lead by Rik, that builds up a narrative, myself, Rik, Matt and Greg worked the puppets and Hannah filmed, Jim played his bass, jamming along to the movement of the creatures to create an atmospheric melodic sound.
Day 2
I worked with Hannah to film my corals, I showed her how they could be animated and I described the living coral reef like a living digital environment. Hannah came up with the idea of filming them in a black box, which would enable the background to be keyed out. I wore black gloves and animated each one individually through a hole in the back of a cardboard box that was lined in black fabric. This low cost, innovative idea gave brilliant results!. They really looked alive in the footage! The footage would be montaged together to create a moving, living reef.
http://youtu.be/KGM1DtDSG9k
Day 3
We took the footage into Federation House and projected it on to a big white sheet.
It was starting to look more like a digital art installation than a traditional performance piece! Jim played along as the footage played I started to imagine it in a gallery setting. We talked about sound effects like bubbles and underwater sounds that may work with the bass, Jim worked with garage band on his computer to create a track. We also decided to record the piano harp that was there to create some interesting sounds.
Day 4
I worked with Hannah, taking a fish tank in to Federation house to film some underwater footage, I wanted to create some flowing movements making sea plants with hairy wool, I made jelly fish from shredded plastic bags and nets. The movement looked great although it was quite a challenge because there was quite a lot of noise in the image so it may prove difficult to key out. We looked at using After Effects to edit the footage with Phil from CSV.
This project coincides with a media course I am doing, so I have decided to combine both projects to get access to expertise and resources.
Day 5
Meeting with Alice Penny, Alice has been travelling in Asia so hasn’t been available up until this point, she is perfect for the role as the storyteller and I was delighted when she agreed to play it, I have seen her work when my daughter went to one of her sessions, she takes children on a journey, engages them in her world and they are involved in the performance. After talking to Alice, who was very excited to be involved! I realised that she doesn’t perform in the traditional sense in front of an audience, everything became clear, the show would be an art installation with Alice taking the children on a journey through the space, the creature puppets would come to life in their environments and interact with the viewers.
This was also an area I was more comfortable with being a visual artist,
I also did some research and found some sound effects for Jim to listen to.
Day 6
Jim played sound track adding the sound effects which worked really well together.
Talked about ideas with Rik, we discussed breaking the show up into sections,
Section discussed
A tactile interactive coral reef, making an environmental exhibit with gloves attached to corals that can be animated from underneath, either as a kind of table top or standing frame. Also discussed using a mirror so children could see how it looked or viewers could see double.
Digital video projection of living coral reef.
Children’s creative writing from schools project being used with Jim’s soundtrack.
Environments with puppets rainforest or desert created, puppets would come alive as viewers approached, Matt Crowther is particularly good at this skill as he proved at Manchester Museum.
Children’s work from the school projects would be displayed.
Coral reef shadow screen, children would have a chance to have go at working the shadow puppets on the overhead projector to sea how they look maybe create some simple ones to use?
Storyteller would use the different elements to tell her stories.
Day 7
Making a photographic montage of photoshop corals to be printed for shadow screen on Media CSV course.
Recorded piano harp in the basement to send to Jim.
Day 8
Brought in Storytellers coat I have been making, for a fitting on Alice Penny who was able to join us for the last session, it was great because I was able to get an idea of how it could all work together! Both myself and Hannah brought our children in to get an idea of the audience participation element. Alice and the puppeteers worked with a script to introduce the characters. We talked about the idea of the coat being magical and that the creatures could come to life when she wears it! We plan to develop this idea more. This was the last day of the collaboration as planned. We plan to meet up when the coral reef film is finished.
The MARS project has given me the creative space to get together with talented artists to develop ideas, I am on my way to creating a film and soundtrack which I intend to use to apply for ACE funding.
Day 9
I have started learning After Effects on my media course, I have learnt how to key out the black from the coral footage, scale down, duplicate and montage the moving corals together, i use my photoshop background as a starting point and add the video footage. I am impressed with what I have learnt so far although frustrated because of my professional vision, I am getting support from tutors Phil McDowell who will help me with the skills to make it more professional. I plan to show it to Jim and we will put it together with the sound track.
Day 10
The video I am editing is looking too busy and not 3D enough, I have done really well to learn after effects, although because I have only just started learning, I can’t achieve what I need for this project, this is a complicated process for someone who is experienced! I have to call in the help of Mike Thomas who is very skilled at editing in After Effects, he helps create the background using the photoshop image, making it more 3D in the space, creating lighting effects to give it more depth and adding particles to give the impression that the still image is moving.
Day 11
The original footage of the corals wasn’t working with the new 3D background, it was really hard to key out the black and it was moving too fast, it was really hard to slow it down with out it becoming robotic. I decided to do so filming with the green screen, I filmed my jelly fish puppet using a fan to create the movement in the water, this worked really well!, I also filmed some of my knitted wire fish. This footage worked really well with the background Mike was working on which is starting to look really atmospheric and magical!.