^ This is the first video as part of my Looper session series.
Then these video files below are ones that are ready to upload on future dates.
Creating the video –
These are photos captured from behind the scenes of creating the video.
The poster that was advertised on all social platforms.
The gig –
The gig was a very intimate one, which is something I wanted. Only about 15 people actually attended. The idea was that the setting was to far apart from the aesthetic of the video. I used the same back drop and this is something I’m going to use in all future performances.
Below are some photos and screenshots of videos that people at the gig took.
Live Event Evaluation
The main thing that went will with the performance is the atmosphere that I could feel. It felt like everything I was singing was being listened to and this was the one thing I really want when performing my original material. I think that this atmosphere was heightened due to my choices of playing as the people entered the room and allowing them to sit. Having the audience sitting down, gave them chance to relax and to be able to take in the emotion in the songs. I also chose not to talk during my set. Through the process of the development videos it was clear that my not so strong point was talking in between. It felt forced and just unnatural. This is when I came to the idea of not talking. Just keeping this mysterious feeling throughout my set and only saying thank you maybe when needed, like at the end.
I was pleasantly surprised as no one clapped between songs. I tried to look like the previous song hadn’t finished to prevent clapping and it worked. Clapping breaks the atmosphere so I wanted to prevent the audience from doing so.
The overall aesthetic of this dark, emotional and sad performance I felt was achieved. I chose to have a blue wash in regards to lighting, with a dim spot on myself. Having the piano off centre was the final decision I made in terms of staging as when I thought about performances in the past, I had always felt uncomfortable being central. I chose to have the piano on stage left as this took away from the structured, central, static, feeling of me performing dead on centre.
In terms of clothing; My songs are sad and in some cases mournful, so black just fit this theme. I wanted there to be a consistent aesthetic between emotion and colour. Black is a colour that is present in all my outfits every day. I don’t want to take away from me when I perform. What I am singing about is personal so it only seemed right to take my colour choices in fashion in daily life into my performance persona.
The songs felt like they went really well. There were a few vocal wobbles, specially in the last chorus of the last song, my voice cracked slightly but I just ignored it and carried on. This voice cracking happened during my development and it’s just something I need to overcome by making sure I’m warmed up sufficiently and watered.
Something I found didn’t go so well was that I didn’t say my name, I just said ‘Thank you’. I didn’t mention who I was at all, which meant no-one knew who I was and wouldn’t be able to find me over social media if they wanted to.
To further develop my performance, I’d like to look into vocal effects that I could change while playing, making the vocal more interesting with echo’s in places I think would heighten my set. The performance also showed me that I need to perform more, and that I can as an artist take control of an audience’s mood through thinking about overall performance aesthetic. The development part also showed me that when I practice the outcome is much better.
I feel like I’ve learnt a lot through this module. I’ve learnt how to communicate with other art forms and therefore forming a line into the photography section. I’ve learnt a lot about myself and how I am when talking about a topic that’s hard, and i’ve learnt how to approach these tricky topics with people.The key was to make the person feel safe and comfortable to be able to talk about a sad point in their life
Critically speaking I wish that I had recorded the piano live using the grand in the chapel or the uprights in the studio, just to capture this real sound of a piano. My time management was the biggest reason behind not being able to do this. Just purely due to everything getting on top of me throughout this final year of uni a lot of my focus has been to take one deadline/module at a time.
I also think I got into my head to much about channeling out and getting in contact with a photographer but all it took was asking around my friends on the music course who have had photos taken previously and they put forwards my photographers name (Brandon Mines). Who was an absolute pleasure to work with and I’d definitely hire him to do stuff with me in the future. He understood everything I explained to him in our meeting before hand and he took this onboard and actually showed me how we could do it. I decided to use just the head one portraits in the end as It just felt right when putting it together. Having different images were too much of a distraction, I wanted focus to be on what was being said not on the angle of an image.
I chose to use piano as from research before hand this was the intrument most used in emotional videos. The sound of a piano is very emotive and can enhance this sadness through playing the right chords and notes of course. Piano is my first instrument of choice bar my voice so it seemed fitting that I chose to play piano. I did at first toy with the idea of using vocals but it became messy when out with the voices speaking. I didn’t want the focus to be taken away from what the voices were saying so it just seemed right to not add my vocals.
The piano is very homophonic to start with and I add little melody through out and play around about 5 chords. The key was to not make it to full as again this could take focus away from the speech. Less is more in this case, this is why its pretty minimal but it gives the intended emotion. (sadness)
I also found the creating of it really emotionally draining. I sat for hours cutting and cropping out little bits of the talking for it to not drag on, and to make sense. Listening to people talking about grief for hours on end isn’t the best. I think this is what made me realise that two videos for this would be better than one. It made me realise how heavy the subject was, and a 20mins+ video could be to much, this is why I decided on making two.
Someone I looked into is a singer songwriter called Nastasia Zurcher, whom I found through the looper hashtag on Instagram. She uses a looper and anytime she wants to show that she uses one she posts videos. This strengthens the idea that using a looper isn’t just musical but also visual. The video that is shown in the bottom right corner of the screenshot is a video of her using a voicelivetouch2. This piece of kit is something I’m thinking of looking into as it focuses on vocal effects and harmonies and loops them.
From finding her I want to look into how to use a voice live as it seems like a good piece of kit for me to have and try.
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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRKVuMVfmcyKmx2LbH4U3XA
^ this youtube account shows how the voice live works and shows other looper and voice effect pedals being used.
These are the photos that Myself and Brandon picked as being the best in the shoot. He went home and did some editing and these are the finished products.
- The not talking through the set I think works really well, but obviously won’t be able to tell until I try with a real audience.
- The emotion was carried out throughout the set which is something I wanted.
- I need to make sure my voice is properly warmed up to prevent the vocal cracks
- I noticed I tend to lean my head to the right, so I want to try and stop this as it looks slighting weird – and weird is not the vibe i’m going for with this performance.
- Theres two wrong notes – chord wise – in the set so I just need to keep practicing to make sure they are all good.
- Just need to carry on with the practice. Make sure i’m super confident with every note i’m pushing down.
I’ve decided to play before the audience enter, so as they come in i’ve already started; This will help the whole talking before, so they are brought into the emotion straight away. I won’t be talking until the very end of the set either so that I don’t break any atmosphere created.
Today was the day set aside for the photoshoot with Brandon. Myself, Will, Katie and Ophelia all headed to Hardwick campus to be met in the studio by Brandon.
As spoken about previously, Brandon got to the studio early to set up so when we arrived everything was all ready to go.
The shoot was really chilled and Brandon made everyone feel super comfortable from the start. I felt that we worked really well together to, and he was constantly checking to see if I was happy with every photo taken. With us both going in with a few ideas that we discussed in the meeting, we were able to play around with the ideas and straight away take out the ones that weren’t strong.
We started with straight on portraits, and played around with the lights to get the right light capture. We also played around with the girls having hair up or down. It turned out that with the hair down the light captured on the face better so we ended up settling with hair down on everyone.After each person was shot head on, we tried the idea of focusing on hands, eyes and mouth.
The mouth shots were a straight away no. They just didn’t capture the right idea, although through being honest and saying no straight away it meant we could focus on getting the light right for eye shots.
When in the meeting with Brandon we discussed my idea of using the dark and light to show the parts like grief that people don’t take about and then using the shadow to show this.
The last shots were silhouettes. Brandon played around with the light until we decided on the best light for the shots.
I’d definitely work with Brandon again as he was a pleasure to work with and I felt we had a good level of ease to work together.
Will
Recording Will was the first day recording any of the speech. I decided to take my mic and interface to wills house and record with this plugged into my Mac through logic. This worked really well as the vocal came out really clear which is something I knew was needed.
Ophelia
We had to record phe with her in cupboard with the door shut while I sat outside. This was due to her house being on a main road and you could hear everything in her bedroom. Phe has recorded vocals for her track in the cupboard previously, so we knew it would work and be the best place to capture vocal.
Katie
I recorded Katie at her house (same as wills house) and had the same set up that I did for wills. This worked really well, the only downfall being in some parts I had to cut out as Katie kept fidgeting on the soda, this could be heard on the recording.
In hindsight I wish I had recorded everyone on the same day and in the same setting. However this wasn’t realistic as everyone had different schedules, and just getting them free for the recording was a pain so getting them all to match up and settle on one date would not have been an option. Recording everyone in the same place would’ve just kept a consistency in sound.
Rosie Louise Mountjoy 