Deja Vu
DEJA VU
New Music, and a little thought about repurposing content.
This Kind of Dream is like a song....
Filmed in Infrared on the Lumix G7
Have you ever experienced Deja Vu intensely? I have, and seconds later was hit from behind by a drunk driver while driving home from a photo-shoot late one night. We were driving through an intersection and making a left turn and I said "Deja Vu" out loud just before wreck occurred. Luckily we all walked away safely. But, it really made me think about what Deja Vu really is.
That brings me to this post... A few days ago over in a photography and video group I belong to on Facebook, somebody posed the question..."Do you delete your old footage from hard drives to make room for new footage?" My personal answer to that is "absolutely not", and the reason is that video footage and photographs can be repurposed a million different ways.
Footage without the Sun Moon Overlay Footage from the Lumix G7
Kind of like a Deja Vu moment, a client comes along with a unique project, and assuming you saved your footage you realized that you have a way to demonstrate your vision for the project. Or, maybe you realize as you are working on a personal project that there is something cool you could do artistically by combining old footage and new. I can't express how many times footage I artistically captured in the past equals a creative way to share an idea with a client.
Solar Eclipse Footage in Infrared Lumix G7
I've been writing songs on my acoustic quite a bit lately, and this new little ditty is a simple tune that I wrote. On the same token, I've been working with my Lumix G7, which I converted to only capture the infrared waves of light, on all sorts of personal and client projects as an option as well. I have to say that this little camera packs a creative punch! Do you recall the Solar Eclipse a several months back? Well, I had setup my Lumix G7 to record it in color infrared, and I streamed the eclipse live on Facebook just for the fun of it.
After writing the Deja Vu song, and recording it on the acoustic I was thinking about how cool it could be to find a way to repurpose the solar eclipse footage. As an artist on many levels it's incredibly fun to combine all sides of our capabilities and talents, so as a test I decided to create a music video. I setup a tripod and ran through the song in several locations in my yard at our Connecticut home and studio. I made sure to used the similar color settings to what I used with the solar eclipse footage so that it would match up well. Finally, in Final Cut Pro X I used a blend mode and overlaid the sun and moon slowly crossing the sky from left to right. The two fit together seamlessly.
I always promote that "personal projects are the key to success throughout an artists career." In fact I had so much fun on this personal project that since this video I've been pushing the boundaries of music and art in new ways. I am experiencing a lot of personal growth beyond what the camera alone can teach. I am even heading up a new rock band with long time friends, Outside Reality, and we are writing and releasing new music for the joy of it. The overlap of music, photography, video, technology and art is a remarkably intriguing place to be as an artist at this moment in history. The possibilities seem endless, and its just so much fun to be giving and sharing all of myself that I feel like I'm in a new beginning, or witnessing a change taking place... Kind of like Deja Vu I suppose.
