project
For my icam senior project, i am created a set of concert tour visuals for a song that created. I wanted to experiment with creating compelling visuals as a storytelling tool for music.
Project goals:
- create a song using python
- create a set of tour visuals
- use projection tools/software to exhibit my work, simulating a concert tour
Moodboard
creative
Concept: these visuals will capture the tender moments of girlhood, inspiring celebration of female power
Shot list:
- glowing hands touching
- body silhouettes: ballerina in mirror with projection
- girl with butterfly wings: projection
- eyes looking at each other
research
to better understand how concert visuals are created in the music industry, i spoke with eden mili at warner music group.
Key insights:
- Designing for live performance versus just recorded music is a valuable assest
- platforms like after effects, touch designer, and blender are the most relevant tools
Additionally, i met with professor maya vanderschuit at uc san diego, who is a practing artist that has experience in projection/video works
key insights:
- the key to using projectors is experimentation, test, explore,
- projection mapping has its limits with requiring computers in a gallery
Relevant
works
Inspiration
Description: Eden combines painting, sound and light to create art and concert visuals. This project is a mixed media piece that was created through painting on a large piece of fabric, creating visuals using After Effects and Touch Designer, and then projection mapping onto the wall surface. This project was incredibly inspiring to me because it combined both physical and digital media to create compelling visuals while also showing me an example that what I am envisioning is possible. Eden was able to map her visuals to sound in a compelling way, and bring them to life by exhibiting them through projection.
Eden works in Vinyl Marketing at Warner Music Group, and completed her M.S. in Interactive Design & Media at New York University. While Eden’s project combines painting with sound and light, I am creating my visuals primarily through the digital landscape. I am unsure if I have the bandwidth to create an interactive light display similar to Eden’s, as I am just learning platforms like Touch Designer, but my project will similarly combine visuals, sound, and light in a creative way.
Inspiration
Xkylar is one of the first artists that I saw doing the kinds of projects I was interested in. I found her on TikTok when I was researching concert visuals and creative direction examples. Xkylar is a music producer and creative director that specializes in tour visuals. She works primarily with After Effects and Touch Designer, while utilizing a mixture of filmed footage and 3D creations. She works a lot with layering, blending modes, color, and transitions which are all essential explorations for my project too. Her process usually begins with concept ideation, filming footage, and then bringing things into after effects to edit and experiment.
Her work has been used on multiple concert tours, for example the band Muna, where we see how designing for multiple screens and branding for artists come into play. Xkylar’s work is incredibly inspirational for me as she creates exactly what I would like to do. She designs and edits based on the branding of an artist, and then navigates how to exhibit the work on real concert stages. I have learned so much about concert visuals from her work, and hope to use more inspiration going forward.
Inspiration
Description: I had Professor Maya Vanderschuit for my Sixth College CAT class, and was inspired by her work in video projection and videography. When beginning my project, I reached out to Maya to gain insights on how she used projection to creatively exhibit visuals. Maya’s artistic process begins with filming footage and editing in Premiere Pro, where she then explores projecting on various surfaces.
In the early stages of my project, I have been debating how to create my visuals using filmed footage or exploring 3D creation software, but Maya’s work provided me great inspiration of how you can be creative with filming footage instead. Her work doesn’t revolve around sound or music, but provides great insight to how projection can work creatively with visuals in an exhibition space. I am also intrigued by Maya’s use of physical media in relation to her projection work, where she adds things like rocks and other objects to the exhibition space. I am learning a lot about how to create a scene that incorporates visuals with other elements, and Maya’s projects teach me about how to execute that.
the music
using the program earsketch, i have been doing music production by writing python code. by adding sounds, mixing, and recording I was able to create 2 verses, a chorus, and outro.
Visuals
using after effects, canva, and cameras i am creating sets of visuals to align with the music for a live show. Designing for multiple screens, i am imagining each set of visuals to be displayed across a stage.
Progress
midpoint
Main Project goals
- Complete full song
- complete second photoshoot/creative direction
- match visuals to beat of the song
- exhibition prep: test out projection mapping techniques
- display and exhibit the work :)
Equipment:
- projector
- possible camera for interactive elements
- speaker for audio
projection
Throughout researching for this project, i’ve found many ways of blending visuals with projection for concert visuals. Many of them are made using madmapper or touch designer, and artists have been creative with exhibition pieces using fabric, cardboard, and real paintings to project over.
for my project, i am exploring exactly how i want to display the visuals. I like the idea of using multiple pieces of fabric or cube blocks arranged together. i am experimenting with these ideas throughout the quarter, while drawing inspiration from artists that work in creative projection.
Examples:
- https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRTs1yB8/
- https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRTsMUop/
- https://youtu.be/8zHPGbraW4Q?feature=shared
prouction
Platform: Earsketch
I
I have also been working on developing my sound as an artist and producing the song i would like to use to accompany my visuals. Inspired by my love of summer, female friendship, and girlhood, i want to create a song that is catchy and makes people want to dance.
Earsketch involves coding using python to add sounds to a sequence. i am also planning on recording some of my own vocals/guitar plAYING THIS QUARTER. IDEALLY, THE SONG WILL HAVE A TYPICAL POP STRUCTURE OF VERSE 1, CHORUS, VERSE 2, BRIDGE, OUTRO.
SONG INSPIRATIONS:
- Unwritten by natasha bedingfield
- summer by calvin harris
- sunflower by harry styles
- Girls just wanna have fun by cyndi lauper
visuals
First quarter, i did a photoshoot with one of my friends inspired by her love of ballet. Capturing her movement using an instagram color filter, i brought those visuals into after effects.
For the second half of my project, i created a more complex photoshoot. incorporating more images of girlhood. Filming in my college apartment and dance room, i was able to capture footage of my friends being themselves.
in addition to filming, i used some canva stock footage and manipulated it in after effects to create extra visuals.
tours
One of the biggest sources of inspiration for this project is concert tours that i have attended. in preparing for this quarter, i have been researching more visuals that i admire from tours so far.
Examples:
- beyoncé’s Renaissance tour
- olivia rodrigo’s guts tour
- hannah montana best of both worlds tour
- taylor swift eras tour
https://youtu.be/wgm9b8u0ELE?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/dvXr8UyvAVU?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/1bOBU0Yapss?feature=shared
coding
leading up to the second midterm, i focused on producing the rest of my song so that i could match the visuals to it. Using earsketch, i have been mixing and mastering the track while using preexisting sounds in the ableton library.
challenges: this has presented to be quite a challenge as i have progressed. The first was that i created the chorus before the verse, meaning i had to calculate the timing to add in instruments for the verse.
earsketch is less intuitive when it comes to adding effects and changing the volume of short clips, so ive been reconciling with that.
coding
Visuals
my intention was to have this music video represent key images of girlhood. I wanted something exciting, bright, colorful, and authentic to my college experience.
Filming in the gym at my apartment, I captured my friends dancing around and conversing. then, i filmed the girls dancing around my bathroom.
i created animations over still images from the shoot in procreate, and then editing everything together in premiere.
