The Light of Day

I think I’ve improved on your methods

Above: a still from an improved version of my auto-morphing picture-bleeding algorithmic video whatchamacallit thingy. At this point, increasing the picture quality is just a matter of increasing the number of “passes”, so I’m going to concentrate more mental energy on making it more useful.

From the user’s standpoint, the way it works now is linear. You start with a single stream (thread, channel, whatever you want to call it) of video, with some frames missing, and it fills them in. You could start with a very small number of key frames (like in my early tests below), so that it generates the majority of images for a morphing effect; or you could have most of the frames already (as in pre-existing video) with only a few missing frames, and use it as more of a transition effect. In either case, though, as it stands now you start with one list of numbered frames, and it fills in the gaps.

What I want to do next is give it the ability/option to cross-mutate between two or more simultaneous video sources, sort of like an A-B roll but with the middle zone being more of a cross-breed than a crossfade…

Flute solo from “Outside”, mellotron remix

I haven’t uploaded any audio here recently, so I’ll give you a small taste of my progress on the Through Forbidden Black Doors nonexistent film version remix project. This is an instrumental solo section from a track called Outside, depicting an unhappy factory worker’s daydream of an “outside world” which none of the workers have ever been to.

It’s not that much different from the version on my 1998 CD; it’s a nearly faithful note-for-note copy. What’s most different is that instruments have been replaced. The flute part was originally played on one of those uninspiring 1980s synths, with a few rows of patch selection buttons and a tiny digital readout. It didn’t sound terrible, but I’ve replaced it with sampled mellotron flute to give it a more vintage-y feeling. The drum machine was replaced by sampled drums from a well-known 1969 album (first correct guess wins a hug!), and sampled cymbals from an obscure early 90s album. There’s a heavily reverberated speech-synthesized choir filling in the background and adding to the other-worldly dream-like quality.