Like to cut up and sample video? Sick of all that time-consuming scrubbing, slicing and rearranging in Vegas or Premiere? Well I’ve figured out a workflow using a collection of After Effects scripts which turns lots of tedious editing into a very quick process to output a series of video clips for your VJing pleasure.

This technique uses the following After Effects scripts:
AEScripts‘ “Magnum - the Edit Detector”
Reverse Selected Layer Order
Precomp to Layer Duration
Redefinery’s RenderLayers
and ScriptLauncher, to speed things up even further.

My first test run for this technique was on The Arctic Monkeys - Brainstorm:

As you can see, this clip has an extremely choppy edit. My plan was to remove all of the band shots and leave just the dancing girls and UVA’s LED wall animations. With cuts coming at a rate of several per second, this would have been extremely time-consuming using a traditional, manual editing workflow. With the following technique I managed to cut out everything I didn’t want and reassemble the remains into a series of performance-friendly video clips in about 15 minutes.

The Workflow

Install your scripts: ReverseSelectedLayerOrder and Precomp to Layer Duration go to the folder “After Effects/Support Files/Scripts/”. Magnum, RenderLayers and ScriptLauncher go to “After Effects/Support Files/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels” (you may have to make this folder manually if it’s not already there). Restart After Effects, and choose Menu: Window > rd_ScriptLauncher.jsx to get the handy Script Launcher panel up, and Menu: Window > Magnum-The Edit Detector.jsx to get your Magnum panel.

Now run Magnum - TheEditDetector on your source clip (choose sensitivity, click the layer, then click “DO IT!”). This took about a minute to run through Brainstorm, and at the default sensitivity level it found 529 edits! You may have to experiment with this level depending on your source, and of course it’s designed to find cuts, not fades, so this won’t work for all videos.

After Magnum is finished, you’ll have a series of layers. Select all of them, then use the ReverseSelectedLayerOrder script to, yes, reverse the layer order. This will be useful later when we come to render individual layers.

Looking for ways to liven up your festival appearances, fellow visualists? A little audience participation sure doesn’t hurt. Then again, maybe it’s just that those Dutch festival goers are cooler. (Hug a nurse!)

Team Eboman writes us:

At the last Lowlands festival in the Netherlands Eboman made a new composition in collaboration with the audience. With a team he collected videosamples with the audience and impressions of the festival which resulted in the following collaborative video composition of the festival. The tracks were also performed during the festival by Eboman in his SenSorSuit.

dSenSorSuit = played by Eboman Camera = played by Mascha Rutten Software = SenS IV by www.smadsteck.nl For more info visit: www.eboman.info/projects

Whether this is your gig or not, I really like seeing people interacting with a visualist and having a good time. And I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of ways people can get involved in live performance. Visualists aren’t to blame, anyway — I think the DJ trend, not computer musicians or artists, is really what drove the performer behind a piece of hardware and away from connecting with the audience. It’s not always a bad thing, but it’s good to actually make the choice in your performance and remember what your options are.

And there’s certainly nothing wrong with making people smile.

I’m working on an Eboman interview; stay tuned.

New VJ hardware tends to be few and far between, so we’ve been closely watching the P-10, now officially the “P-10 Visual Sampler.” (The “P” stands for “presenter,” but Edirol has changed from “visual presenter” to “visual sampler” to emphasize the P-10’s sampling features — smart move.) First spotted earlier this spring, the P-10 boasts a built-in display and pads, the ability to play straight from memory cards, and sampling from a live analog video/audio source.

Specs:

• MJPEG movie and still JPEG support
• Slide show capabilities
• Playback and recording from SD(HC) memory cards
• Capture from live video input (onboard composite, S-Video, and even audio in and out)
• Internal color display, 12 trigger pads, dedicated effects dials

About those effects — we now know what they are, and they should look pretty familiar to Edirol owners:

• Movie: Repeat A<>B
• Reverse
• Strobe
• Speed
• Color
• Output Fade
• Still Image: Slide Show, Strobe, Color, Output Fade

There’s also V-LINK support for integration with other Edirol products, though I would imagine you’d mostly want to use the onboard controls.

I think Edirol might be going a bit far when they say this is “a faster, more elegant and reliable alternative to using a laptop on stage.” I’m not sure what they mean by “faster,” and the main problem is that this really isn’t a laptop alternative — laptops just do more. But that said, if I had the cash I’d love to have one of these units alongside a laptop and mixer, and imagine gigging VJs will find the quick SD card capture to be just invaluable, especially if they pick up a camera that saves MJPEGs.

The deal killer for many is likely to be price, but to put this in perspective, this is a lot more compact and flexible than the Korg Kaptivator, which cost about twice as much.
I hope to get a look at the P-10 when it arrives stateside. Speaking of which…

Are we approaching a visualist technology singularity? This video from live visualist virtuoso Eboman might make you a believer. With live camera, live video drums, live camera as instrument, a sensorsuit body performance instrument, and custom software, this set has no shortage of live gimmicks. The beauty of it, though, is that there are so many technologies happening at once that it comes down to live performance chops. The pace of technology accelerates to the point that the technology disappears, and the only way to survive is not with a gimmick but mad skills.

You just sort of find yourself living in the future, a future that strangely combines the ancient, surreal art of the one man band with modern software, with hyperkinetic, attention span-warping results.

The cast, as described on YouTube:

This composition was produced for the Stranger Festival by Eboman and performed live in Amsterdam, 3 July 2008.

www.strangerfestival.com
Sensorsuit = played by Eboman
Videodrumkit = played by Guillermo Kardolus
Camera = played by Mascha Rutten
Software = SenS IV by www.smadsteck.nl

SmadS-Sens is an actual product. Then again, tools like Processing and OpenFrameWorks and Max and Pd could all achieve some of the same results, if you think you want to rumble with these Netherlandish mad scientists – just prepare yourself for mind-blowing amounts of practice and work, as with anything. (Good thing we enjoy that sort of thing.) I also expect some of the 3D video manipulations going on here to become more commonplace.

For the single master of live music – complete with visuals – look no further than McRorie, the legendary, kilt-wearing, sensor-driven electronic artist. So, to the SmandS team, I say, consider kilts! They’re not just for Scottish people any more!