Twinklebox Textures

A work in progress selection of screengrabs:

(Click on the images for higher resolution images)

Dramatic Flow

I forgot to post this. This is the dramatic flow of the film that has been visualised as a graph to aid Biff whilst creating the music. It can be very difficult to convey the different feelings and dramatic cues without words to assist, so this graphical script will hopefully communicate what Horstmann should be feeling and at what level throughout the film. It should give Biff a better understanding of what the music will be saying.

Previs First Pass Complete

Christmas was ace and I got some lovely gifts including some short films, texture maps, and chutney. I’ve also had some misfortune as my Mac Book Pro has died. Co-incedentaly it happened as I was rendering the completed first pass of the previs edit. I’ve spent some time trying to fix it but now it just shows a death screen at startup. I’ll be sending it off to the apple workshop in the new year and hopefully it wont be expensive… although it seems to be a hardware issue so it will probably be extortionate. Anyway… I’ve brought my old PC back to life and fixed all kinds of problems, installed new bits of software, battled through continual crashes and finally have the previs edit I began exporting about a week ago.

The idea is that Biff takes a look at the previs and begins work of the music. Normally deadlines and budgets aren’t very forgiving when it comes to experimentation and play but seeing as there are no deadlines and no pennies in the pot we have as long as we like to try new methods and different ideas. One thing I have always been keen to do is work continually throughout a production with a musician and be able to pass visuals and sounds back and forth to achieve something that isn’t led by one or the other. Most often music is led by imagery, as typically the soundtrack to a film comes later in the production or imagery is led by the music as in music videos. Having worked with both of these structures there are very particular benifits with each and I know from experience and other peoples experience that it can be very difficult to integrate music and video in such a way as they feed off each other in their production.

Our sense of hearing more so than sight has the ability to tap into our emotions and feelings. My personal desire to tell stories without words and commonly with characters that have little in the way of expression can make it very difficult visually to communicate emotion. It is music and sound that I look towards to help portray the feelings and moods of the character. Without an idea of how much is possible with the music it is easy to over exagerate the movements of characters until they become very thespian like once the music is adde, so in order to inform movements of subtle ideosyncracies it is very beneficial to start experimenting with sounds and music as early as possible.

I have a lot to say about this subject but I am terrible at putting thoughts into words… The next pass in terms of the edit will be a musically informed one… The structure and the rhythm of the film will hopefully begin to take shape and allow the pictures and the music to harmonise with each other.

Music Box Character Ideas Development

Make Your Own Music Box Melodies

I’ve recently been digging through some old things and venturing into a world of  translucent memories… Not long after finding my ‘Mechanical Music Box Set‘ for which you can ‘Make Your Own Music Box Melodies!’ I stumbled across a myriad of memories in the form of hand made melodies… A myriad. Whilst working as a temp for two years, you find yourself with lots of time… time when you should be working… temporarily… for two years. Well anyway… When I first took the music box set into work it went down a storm with friends. You can be certain that any temping job will be bloated with artists, musicians, writers etc and this one was no different. Everyone made several melodies.

Here are just a handful of the melodies we made before the music box was banned for making too much music.

My melody:

Aaron Music Box Melody 01 by aaronbradbury

Ambo Mbeebo’s melody:

Ambo Music Box Melody by aaronbradbury

Ania Wlodarczyk’s melody:

(In reverse)

AniaMusicBoxMelodie by aaronbradbury

Another melody of mine:

Aaron Music Box Melody 02 by aaronbradbury

Music Box Concept Render

Well… This is another old one… A low-res render test with some improved modeling and texturing… It’s a bit sketchy… The rear base of the model is floating and the music cylinder moves around far too much. It’s mainly just to get a feel for the character within an environment. It will hopefully throw up some ideas visually as well as musically. The kinds of sounds the character can produce might be dependent on the way he moves or vice-versa.

The music is a very short section from a larger sequence of chord ideas from Biff. It’s not yet supposed to be coming from the music box… it’s more of a development of ideas.

Music Box Character Designs

Here are some of the character designs for the twinklebox project. They’re old but fun.

Particular Colour Sketch

I love Trapcode Particular… I decided a while ago that I wasn’t going to use it for the butterfly on  ‘A Siege of Colour’ as I felt the  butterfly element required more control within the 3d environment than Adobe After Effects, a primarily 2d package,  could offer. I did however continue testing Particular as it might be useful in post to embelish the butterfly element or compliment it in some way. After time the testing gradually became playing, as you begin to understand the controls more and more it becomes more like an artists tool and you can pretty much just throw particles around like paint. Well anyway, it’s a lot of fun.

This video is a reletively simple setup of particular but has got me quite excited about developing some more sketchbook videos using music to drive a procedural setup. I’ve got a lot of things in mind but it’s sometimes best just to see where the animation takes you so I’m trying to not really think about it too much. Anyway… As fun as it is playing with particles I feel like I’m straying from my main project a little so I should probably get back to the lamp.

The music is a short section from ‘Green Grass of Tunnel’ by Múm.

The Church of Musical Textures

Well… After hearing about Biffs Breedon Church adventure I thought it would be a good idea to go along with him on another visit and get some photos to use as texture maps for ‘A Siege of Colour’ and check out some of Biff’s new sketches for Horstmann. So… on Sunday we ventured to Breedon.

As Biff played a menagerie of Musical wonders such as Max Richter, Aphex Twin and Erik Satie I wandered around the church collecting a trove of photos for use as texture maps. I found an amazing lynchian radiator that I might make for Horstmann’s cell as well as some huge pipes and a couple of old gates.

We talked a little about the sound and music design… We’re thinking if having separate musical signatures for Horstmann and the butterfly, perhaps using different instruments to build on the contrast between their individual styles. I also found an old diagram I had drawn for the flow of Phillip Glass’ Cue 2b (Piano) from way back when, which I had completely forgotten about. It was originally designed to help build a narrative around the music showing peaks and identifying them with specific events in the story so I might make a new one for Biff from the story to show how the music might peak and trough along a time-line.

The notice on the piano reads: This Piano was made to be played. If you know how and would like to, please play it.

Audio Particles Butterfly

This is a recent test render of the butterfly from ‘A Siege of Colour’. It’s a very simple setup using Particle Flow in 3D Studio Max.

I’ve been looking at making the animation more sound reactive using an audio controller to influence the amount of particles and the speed and direction they dissipate. Just for testing I’m using a track by Philip Glass called ‘Cue 2B (Piano)’ from the Candyman soundtrack. Since it’s unlikely I’ll be using this track for the final animation I’ve also been testing with some other tracks with a variation of styles to see what kind of sounds or musical structures will work best with this kind of approach.

I’m considering treating the butterfly as a more abstract entity, perhaps even without any solid form. I quite like the idea of her being a suggested form from the residual powdery trails left by her wings. I’m not sure how that will work for the still shot when she’s landed but it definitely has potential to look quite beautiful.