The Obligatory Showreel Selection for Obligatory Career Purposes

With editing software dying on me and a realization that I have only made 3 films in the last 3 years of which I have any footage of, I must first admit that my showreel is rather basic, I've not been running on films, editing others's films and so on; I directed 3, and continued on my way with performance pieces and now VR experiments, that said, if my showreel can only consist of 3 things, here they be in chronological order:

Digital Distances (2014) [Director]

Resurrection of the Sea Brides (2014) [Director]

Re:Blue (2015) [Director, Editor]

This for me is a slight issue, I can see jealousy in my heart now when I look at the bountiful mountains of content present of my fellow peers I find myself feeling rather worried, so I figured I'd take a small look back at my origins, and the things that I'd never put on a showreel for fear of embarrassing myself half to death:

Despite an early adoration for editing, the majority of my pre-University years were not spent making grand projects, but honing cutting skills through the use of AMVs (Anime Music Videos), a niche community of amateur music video creators, a series of early experiments that due to early automated copyright strikes not including transformative work and low quality, sadly barely exist online anymore... The one that does is....not something I look back on with too much pride xD; it was a start, true, but it's hard not to look back with embarrassment:

 That said early videos online of mine were often heavily inspired by the lacks of other comedy youtubers, especially within the Video Games community, while not particularly representative of the filmmaker I've become, the origins of much of my presence come from an early video tribute to the game Sleeping Dogs:

This later desire for comedic online entertainment soon became heavily inspired by Charlie Brooker and the deployment of shock humor, a newfound obsession with such things became the basis of the channel Hell+, that, while mostly abandoned currently, amassed a niche 1000 follower audience with the most viewed episode being, also, one of the most intentionally shocking:

Channels fail, passions fade, and sometime Hell+ just sin't that fun to do anymore, it was an emotional state of the time, one that has disappeared into a world of my own new-found confidence and stability only occasionally ruined by self-destructive tendencies. That said it's weird looking forward in supreme fear of the unknown, I may have used to be awful, but at the very least I can lay comfort in this past, making a showreel is all about impressing for the future...that's not something that I sit particularly comfortable with. In the end there's little one can do but wait helplessly as one attempts to forge something out of all of this, what I'm forging I have no clue....I hope it looks pretty at least!

Catch up 2: Electric Booga-blue

This blog comes to you in video form (figured I'd experiment with styles to see if one would motivate me to blog more, this one may work actually :) )

Basically, I made a film: 

And then I made a post-mortem (essentially a long blog-post in video form, HOORAY):

Oh, and here's proof that I got permission for the music: 

TADAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

Time for a catch-up! (Pro-toolkit)

 Okay, so I haven't blogged in a while, between stress, depression, and sheer lethargic tendencies it's fair to say that you've missed a lot, as in you've missed a LOT!

 it's also fair to say that by not blogging in so long...so have I, it's been a long time since the Professional toolkit unit I'm meant to be blogging about right now so it's not entirely unreasonable to admit that any personal material on certain things have been lost to me, be them documents, screenshots, or the main film itself for which I served as cinematographer for, I've honestly done a large disservice to  all involved in failing to document what I have done with proper evidence, and I'm not going to solve this situation by lying. It'd be easy enough to pretend to make one of Shahid's storyboards and write notes on it to look like it was an actual copy but it wouldn't sit right with me making a mark based on forgery, so the following musings are my honest attempt to remember helping make a short film as part of a larger group. That said, others within the group such as Thomas Doukinitsas and Shahid Abu will have far more of the actual as it happened stuff on theirs so if you want real info with pictures i suppose they'll have to suffice.

  So, as a Director of photography it was my job to oversee the aesthetic design of every level of production. The Pre-production began with a series of ideas that, in all honesty were consistently spiraling into a sense of mundanity; we knew the theme of consumerism and yet to show it in a unique or interesting metaphorical way was often escaping our grasp, that said when the idea for a museum/gallery of phones came into play at least visually it seemed appealing for me. The clinical nature of a gallery with the abstractness of infinite space through a very simple 3d post-process trick involving using the main set lines as a reference for digitally printing a looped version into perceived infinite space was instantly visually striking. However it was important not to let it overstay it's welcome and instead through storyboarding myself and Shahid began to complement a visual style involving an obsessive close-up to objects idea. The idea being to fetishise the objects as part of the environment to better represent the character's disposition; while several of those shots still appear in the final film it was far less than originally intended stylistically as, due to various situations I was unable to edit the piece as intended. However with a clinical nature inspired by films like "ghost in the shell", "Black Mirror: 15 million Merits", and "Tron: Legacy".

 So during the shoot was pretty standard, making use of our equipment with tracking and panning shots etc. and a tonne of light tuning but it was ultimately about sticking and modifying the style to fit what could actually be filmed, that said an attention to lighting during set-building stream-lined this process immensely allowing more focus into getting all the shots we needed...that is until due to some static build-up or something I got rather heavily electric-shocked and, for the last part of it was left rather unresponsive, I can testify that any shock that makes it through protective gloves and rubber has a habit of being a really bad one and, as anyone there will testify, kind of left me out of it. We do have footage somewhere though where you can actually hear the shock, so that's fun :)

 Okay so regarding the final film in post...I got nothing, depression set in and in all honesty I walked out of my duties and passed them to others. Some initial versions had me editing in post but anything resembling anything close to a finished copy had me out of involvement simply as I couldn't handle anymore at the time.

 Moral of the story: avoid electrical shocks, don't get depression, if you do see people asap, and KEEP BACKUPS OF YOUR FILES SO YOU DON'T LOSE THEM SOMEWHERE!

The Twitch Puppetry Trailer

A quick extra tid-bit I forgot to add was the trailer for subscribers of main to spread around so that the public element could be present at the prototype on twitch. Given the chess theme for the board I gave myself a simple brief for something robotic and in-keeping with the black and white theme. Using a piece by Salyu x Salyu for the music, which is notable for being used in a recent ghost in the shell film (coincidentally about androids and robotic slaves). However I wanted to play on people's curiosity as a way to draw people in to the prototype and ultimately get them curious to use it, this meant that I opted for something minimalistic that explains the basic idea quickly with more detail in the description for those interested, in a way by playing on curiosity I'm hoping to get people a bit more invested in the project because it would make them want to play around with the variables and see all the options but, most likely not all in unison, thus adding the conflict that I'm interested in seeing happen in terms of the journey's direction.

Twitch Puppetry: A Complete Understanding...

 It's fair to say that if there's one thing I advise in life to do it's not writing things withing 48 hours of their hand-in dates, I say this with complete honesty because, to lie and claim that I have been on the ball writing this long post that should hopefully encompass the entirety of my art's conception would be, in a way, against the spirit of the ongoing battle that has been between me and this evil fucking task I have set myself; a task that despite the panicking, financial losses, stresses, and occasional breakdowns it has caused me, is one that, with less than 72 hours to go before the main prototype's performance, is leaving me nervous, waiting for last minute parts through the post, and unquestionably proud of!

 The fact is that, as the previous posts have shown, with all the influences of stellarc and artists that enjoy the involvement of their audiences, the true inspirations are that of the "twitch plays" series of video game experiments, it was such a bizarre movement but so inherently engrossing and fascinating because you felt both as part of a team and as an enemy to all those around you, the struggle to set a direction was legitimate and, when things went well would cause immense satisfaction due to the agonizing frustration of trying to get anywhere when hundreds of people didn't always agree, yet each one had a say in that direction anyway; as much as one would like to say their ideas were wholly original I in no way can say that; this was, in a way, my take on such a movement, and I'd like to precede this whole post by saying thank you to all the wonderful people out there who laid the foundations; created the engines and code; adapted that code for various games and scenarios; and those who've participated and spread the word for such a marvelous little adventure on the internet. The ultimate truth is that I doubt I'm the first person to consider an adaptation of the idea involving real-life actors in some form and I'm sure I won't be the last, but to be able to have the dedicated time, resources, and motivation to actually proceed with such an idea that, I am genuinely surprised to see (as far as I've researched) has never properly happened before, is truly humbling.

 Design Evolution

 The actual piece's design, since it's official presentation have stayed relatively the same to it's original ideas, for technical reasons it is still, and has always been Grid Based as both an homage to the original inspiration and for ease of use, after some basic instructions and a few minutes getting used to it, it's fair to say that practically anyone can be the avatar which, given the use of anonymity, allows the experience to be shared, potentially allowing people to become the artwork itself as opposed to just adding to it. However, while the work and play aspect had always existed in some form, they existed as a way to separate 2 sides to intentionally divide an audience causing the pushing around effects that I desired. Despite the fact that you need cooperation to complete a goal in this piece, the idea is actually on the contrary, I want to motivate people into a sense of conflict that accidentally will make 2 teams of people, those who want entertainment, and those who want something else....the problem was finding that something else, for fun activities play was obvious, fun things like adding music to the stream, dancing, playing with drums and lights etc.   These activities are enjoyable to see and hear, they excite the senses, so why would people trek to the other side with almost no motivational reason to? The answer, like with most things, is money....well in this case charity.

 This dynamic came out of serendipity, because of the constant talk of opposites and conflicts i keep discussing I began adapting the piece as a chess-board (although on 7x7 grid as it adds a center "recalibration" square that makes it a lot easier to see where you are in relation to it) and, in buying a lot of garden chess sets I found myself with a lot of counters which look quite a lot like large poker chips. Gambling is a fascinating thing, the simple incentive of monetary changes creates a lot of tension out of something that is actually incredibly dull to watch, in the end all you're actually performing is the movement of representative items of value based on a set of rules that lead to gain or loss via odds. That may sound a bit pretentious but to me the fact that as a method of keeping track of money it is simple, easy to understand as chips, and intentionally uninteresting adds to the battle that is work vs play; in this case letting chips be constantly passed across to the end table will, for each one that makes it, go into a pool that donates my own money to charity (in this case cancer research u.k.). That, in a way completes all of what I want/need for that understanding of masochism, I am consistently on financial edge and doing something like this is arguably quite dangerous (even though I've calculated the max amount at around £40 (very unlikely to happen)) but, by having something at stake to lose (and incentivising people to make it actually happen) I am forced to give up all control. I set up to have some understanding of masochism, and as much as I was always thinking about the experience of the viewers and the visual styles the ultimate goal was, interestingly, an experience that should hopefully feel uniquely uncomfortable.

The technical times

 This is where all my time has been and I honestly don't know what to say, I got the engines, got the test channel and just kept working on it, with server switches and different channels it was a nightmare and the wonderful instructions were now, thanks to a new partnership between twitch and amazon, outdated, so with the main website ( https://github.com/Francesco149/OpenTwitchPlays ) as reference, I had no choice but to trial and error my way through all the new servers, and then days later some pixels on my screen moved, in all honesty it was just a blur of emotions and as much as I'd like to say every minute detail I honestly can't, it was merely perseverance, a lot of googling, and a fuck-tonne of internet usage for streaming.

 Now as I say this with less time until the performance I just got wonderful news....my server for the chat has been changed..........
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Engine-wise I now have to do what took me a week in a day if i want everything ready and testable on set-up day....
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for never updating my blogs I must say, karma is a complete bitch sometimes, still, at least the news had pretty decent timing in terms of a narrative........
One Second Please....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ

Okay...where were we?
Oh Yes, technical stuff...

 The streaming interface from Open Broadcasting software is, once the plugins are installed, extremely flexible and luckily not too tricky to interface with,it's mostly a case of understanding the overlays, and that's where we get to the wonderful world of server lag:

 Streaming and actually watching is, due to rendering and upload times, basically guaranteed to have a delay, this can be between 10 seconds and 10 minutes, and while, at home tests I can vouch for a 32 second delay, I still have to wait until setting up to get proper corded access to the university's internet from my main PC, this means that delay-wise I genuinely have no idea. In most streams with people playing games it merely delays when the chat see their questions answered, but here we have a system that acts on the chat, that means that chat-control can have an entire 30 seconds worth of time before their action is shown to them, this is why using OBS I made the chat log:
The chat log is a virtual screen-cam that looks at the engine interpreter, it says when someone said an action, and who said it, this means that real-time people can see and check the delay but know when an action was, in fact, actually theirs. It is a small thing, but incredibly valuable at mitigating frustration. Interestingly enough those who are in the room and typing will actually get instant feedback, so, in a way the use of twitch could arguably be seen as a compromise for the viewers, and those present to the performance are perhaps the only people truly experiencing the intended product. As much of a case as that may be, however, the need for such safety nets is very valuable to those watching, as it demonstrates and provides an understanding of genuine control, and not just a fake one.

The Props, The Set-Up, The Waiting...

There are some things that it's hard to plan for, the English postal service is one of them, and currently part of my floor and 2 of my props have, at most 2 days to get here due to shipping delays. The fact is that I have to adjust accordingly no matter what. So here's the Plan B for current disasters:

-If there is not enough flooring I redesign the grid to be thinner, while the webcam is set to 4:3 so the square flooring fits better for the stream it is still possible to readjust accordingly, this includes last-minute changes to the map interface, luckily the RPGMaker engine can be very flexible, this will, however mean the visual assets will be lost and I'll have to use place-holders, however this will only be visible to those in attendance at the event for this prototype, by gallery-time last minute adjustments should not be needed.

-If parts don't arrive then I go to the charity shop and buy temporary ones, then change the text boxes in the instructional parts of the RPGMaker Map

-If I can't get the internet to work properly when I'm there....Then I have 24 hours to get al software loaded and configured on someone's mac who actually wants to connect1

-if the green morph-suit doesn't arrive (green helps it stand out from the black and white aesthetic), I luckily have a black and whit skeleton morphsuit that, while perhaps might be a bit odd, fits the colour scheme and with some extra lighting on the floor should allow me to still stand-out in the space!

So What Else....

Expect a blog on Thursday, as much as I want to evaluate the work now I just can't. I've planned as much as I can and at this point I've just got to set up and see what needs to change because of circumstance. Unlike making a film or normal performance here the problem is that I can test the engine, the systems, the servers and channel adverts but, setting up today, this space is everything, and seeing it, adapting it, and being efficient is all I can do, once I see it you'll all get your lovely evaluation but, as dumb as this sounds, I have to know this works, and now that I finally have a space to build the thing,  I have to see it through to the end. In terms of a Gallery space it's currently planned to be basically the same as it should hopefully be presented, but I honestly can't change that until it's made. I can plan all I want but reality is going to hit soon, and I need to make sure I'm ready.  Now if you'll excuse me I have a server to reconnect to, a set to build, and a whole lot of PC parts to transport.

I must admit, this is the most ambitious art-piece I've ever done....
And this is some of the most nervous and stressed I've ever been in my life...
I am scared...
I am exhausted...
and I will do anything to see this working one way or another...
I may have been absolutely disgraceful at logging what I've done, and I know that's going to bite me back horrifically in the coming days....
but right now that's not what's in my head, as much as it should be, my head is filled with one thing right now:
No matter what goes wrong, Do It Right, and Do It Well!

 Because as much as this is all for university I'm honestly not making this piece to get a good grade anymore, I'm doing it to finally make something I can be proud of, and I'm not stopping until I am!





Also sorry for all the stress I've caused you Rosie, you deserve a better student, but I hope when it works it'll make up for something.....perhaps because I'm tired I'm getting sentimental but genuinely, to everyone who's helped me with this, thank you all so much, I will do everything in my power to not fuck this up!

Twitch Puppetry: A Presentation

Introduction, Inspirations, and Predecessors

 As someone who plays a lot of video-games it's fair to say that I've encountered and played as hundreds of characters, however in terms of any philosophical conversation that ever crops up from video games the most common term I tend to get involved in is that of "Player Agency" in games and "Projected Autonomy". These terms refer to the idea of the level of control a player has over an in-game avatar and the level in which the player projects his/her own personality and habits via the character themselves. Now games are inherently limited, be it by game code, the size of the environment or the fact that game control is normally from buttons and keys therefore never allowing a full sense of freedom and expression.

 I mention this limitation, not as a statement to say that I can break it, but more as an accepted weakness, I say this now in hindsight of the criticism that the base actions of this piece are inherently simple, while this will be explained more later it needs to be said early on that the focus of this is not the idea of free control for the participants, but more the relationship between player and character.

 The idea of human control has been shown before in works by Stelarc, his consistent talks about the human body in relation to technology is fascinating, however with works like ping body, he often shows the ideas of humans both fully in control of technology, and technology in control of the human; it was this video here that, in particular caught my attention: 

 The idea of human control is, personally a fascinating one, however a single person controlling someone for the most part can tend to be restricted by a sense of consequence caused by identity, and morality which would cause someone to be more restrained in their decisions. The first step to eliminating this issue is by making them know a human is being controlled, but void it of its identity and responsibilities, so that this "shell" can have the participant project their wishes unto it. However for ease of use for all involved, the interface and the actions would have to be simple and understandable, which leads to the problem that simple actions with no particular goals is not perhaps something that a participant would find compelling, so an obstacle or challenge would need to be made to insight interest so that the goal that the viewer has made for themselves can become more engaging and, for the "puppet" more cathartic, this is where twitch plays pokemon comes in:

 Twitch plays pokemon was an experimental livestream that gave viewers full control of a game of pokemon by typing directions in a chat, the problem was that there were hundreds of them at once giving constantly  contradictory information to the game. It was cathartic, funny, and utterly captivating. The fact was that there were hours of random movement, the moment the chat were not unified on specific goals everything would reach a pointless standstill, but the game would just keep on playing regardless, the character would be a slave to the masses, so I decided to harness that idea with a simpler interface, but one without specific goals, and more importantly, one where the controlled subject was real, not digital...

Aim

 Twitch puppetry is an art piece that uses the simplified interface of "twitch plays pokemon" but in a small area that contains an assortment of items representing both responsibilities and distractions. This would then control a faceless human (in a morph suit) to do the actions of the chat by following a screen interface, this allows the chat that same sense of catharsis, but now representative of a real life human...

The Real Aim

 The actual aim of this piece is not necessarily for the chat, nor those watching, or contributing to the piece. It is a personal journey at the hands of a majority and, in a a way, a sense of willingness to submit. The wish of this piece is to personally lose my identity, sense of direction, and any real semblance of control, it is, by definition, masochistic. It's a curious idea that I want to personally experience due to the fact that, while one can complain about having no control in their lives, it's rather doubtful that they have actually experienced the sense of true submission, an experience of genuine masochism at the hands of an anonymous crowd. It's slightly embarrassing to admit but part of me has always been curious of that ideology and the feelings it maintains. A true sense of randomness and dictated movement that, while initially voluntary should quickly become second nature after the initial phase of getting used to the feeling. The journey is therefore not just about the journey of movement that will be creating, but more a personal psychological one, a journey into the world of sadomasochism outside of the sexuality that the term is often associated with.

The Process

Using an open source code from the "Twitch plays Pokemon" stream, it is possible to make certain comments in a twitch-stream chat correlate to keyboard presses, by using basic game software with a similar top down interface to Pokemon (RPGMAKER) a simple grid can be created and a character in the center can be controlled. This game is sent on screens surrounding the "puppet" who is on an identical grid with identical item placement and needs to replicate the on-screen characters movements exactly, a stream of him is what the audience sees and believes they are controlling. The twitch stream will be public and, while the main advertisement with links will be at the site of the performance, it is allowable (and in many ways beneficial) that anyone online can potentially tune in and join the system.

[Insert scans here]

What needs to be decided/Problems

-The room is still unknown, it needs to facilitate projectors (preferably 2), at least have a square of 7 metres (for a 7x7 grid minimum) with room for cameras, an internet connection, and hopefully some space for live viewing.

-The items need to be specifically decided, however on the work side the most likely things will be paper filing, cleaning equipments, and office supplies (such as paper shredders etc.); The play side will most likely contain musical instruments, childrens toys, and gadgets (such as stereos).

-Stream delay is inevitable, meaning actions may not seem instantaneous to the viewers, especially those at the event also using the twitch-stream as a control interface.

-The performance also needs a decided time to run, which will most likely be an afternoon time slot of a few hours.

Objective Timeline: (updated if objectives are completed)

-To have specific objects and functions decided, along with the grid layout within the next week.

-To have the room decided, a long with the corresponding safety forms dependent on the room; as well as the rpgmaker grid actually made withing 2 weeks.

-To have the chat engine fully functioning with the game for full twitch control within 3 weeks.

-The rest of the time is to iron out the kinks and prepare for the performance!

Maps and Journeys....A Journey of Epic Proportions!

when tasked to go on a journey and present the narrative of it in accordance to a map-route of your choosing, it is fair to say that one can be pretty stumped. I say this because recently that exact thing happened to me in a recent workshop.

 The ting about this year is that now the realms of interactive art can be included which immediately leads me into the realm of video games! Now I'm not here to debate whether games are art or not for a single reason: They are. Video games are an incredible, exciting, and artistic medium through interactivity and gameplay. The reason I stress this is because one of the things games can do is make the player feel in a state of "unrealism". A different state of logic and action where individual actions, no matter how absurd in isolation can make coherent sense in its own world of rules etc. But I love the joke of applying video games to real life, the effects of reenactment can help highlight and isolate the nonsensical nature of certain aspects of many games and yet also celebrate the feeling that games can give to a player because of said absurdity.  So I decided to use an odd base inspiration for this mini-segment of the unit, I used comedy troupe Mega64:

Now I actually have cosplayed as the person from journey before for an expo, and as tempting as it is to get my costume back out and basically just copy them it is a) pretty lame to just steal ideas and b) doesn't incorporate a map at all. However I recently managed to get the classic game "shadow of the colossus" for my housemates Playstation 3, and while looking at a map for collectibles I noticed something rather interesting (or extremely loosely coincidental and still a bit of a stretch when you think about it for 2 seconds!). However I figured it'd be a fun way to look at the project from a slightly different angle, so I made this as a chronicle of my journey!: