Handout for Aesthetic Overview

Aesthetic Overview

The key challenge of visual performance design is to dynamically visualize the concept and story arc of the music and/or narrative. Defining a “point of view,” or overarching aesthetic can be helpful in maintaining cohesion throughout a set.

For instance, the source material might vary greatly (bodies, objects, abstractions, landscapes), however, if they are treated and presented using similar textures, color palettes, framing, pacing, and even layering elements from multiple images can make the visual set appear more unified.

Paintings or other, more ‘worked,’ visual forms, provide a second meaning to the subject matter—the denoted or representational meaning supplemented by the style or ‘treatment’ of the image. For example, William Kentridge’s theatrical designs, featuring his own charcoal drawings and animations, alter the perception of the images he portrays beyond that of a representational photograph.

Regardless of treatment, consider how the aesthetics influence the mood and meaning of the imagery, the tone and themes in the music, and your desired intent.

Lesson 1: Styling Your Look

We should consider how effects and digital manipulation influences the interpretation of our imagery. They will have their own connotations and history. For instance, effects that simulate an old VHS tape or an analogue synth may tie it to a certain era, e.g., the “Stranger Things” opening title.

Videos and Slides

Lesson Overview

  • Aesthetic Overview
  • Styling with FX and LUTs
  • DJ / VJ Techniques
    • Mix / crossfade
    • Time jumping / scratching
    • Audio and Visual FX
    • 2 vs 4 channel setups

Lecture Notes

  • Aesthetic Overview
    • Minimalism
    • Retro
    • Glitch
    • 3D Graphics
    • Samples
      • Live
      • Archival
      • Modern
  • DJ / VJ Techniques

Resources

Homework

  • Create an mix that uses at least three different styles as a test sketches for your final project.

Lesson 2: Mood board / storyboarding

A visual performer will need to plan out the theme, setting, and mood for a performance or a production before any editing, composing or programming begins. They will also want to plan out, or “storyboard” a script for choreographing various forms to music.

Start by creating a primer, or “mood board,” for the overall style, palette, and patina for the visual design. This may include a collection of colors, graphics, textures, image references, screen grabs, etcetera. Lay them out using your preferred image viewer (Finder, Preview, Bridge, et al) or make a collage Photoshop. Pinterest is another resource for collecting images of a certain theme.

Next, storyboard the desired sequence for your music. In the animation industry, storyboards are comprised of “extremes and in-betweens.” Extremes are moments that set the exact mood, emotion, or key image in a sequence. In-betweens are the transitional frames that move from one extreme to the next.

Videos and Slides

Lesson Overview

  • Using VDMX as a sketchpad to work out ideas, create demos.

  • Screen grab or image capture stills

  • Creating “mood boards” to define style and general aesthetics
  • Storyboarding for pacing and spacing of visual events and transitions, i.e., “extremes and in-betweens”

Lecture Notes

  • Moodboards
    • Used to help define style, feeling and general aesthetics
  • Usually an informal process. Start with using whatever tools you feel most comfortable with, then compile into a PDF or other collection for sharing with collaborators
    • Can be made up of images, sounds, videos, gifs, text and any other media that helps describe the ideas
    • Okay to use stock footage, snippits from films, images from the net; we are not going to use these materials, nor copy them, for the final product, but we can use them for inspiration, to describe particular styles and to better understand existing visual languages
  • Storyboards
    • Takes the elements derived from the mood board and places them in time, typically matching up events such as style changes with important moments in other elements of the show production, such as the music or theater scene changes.
    • Typically made with images, laying out sequences like a “comic book” or photo novella.
    • Can be used to describe the progression of a single short clip / loop, or the thematic progression over an entire performance; a project may contain several storyboards
    • Storyboards are commonly used for animation, film, theater and related fields.
    • In the animation industry, storyboards are comprised of “extremes and in-betweens.” Extremes are moments that set the exact mood, emotion, or key image in a sequence. In-betweens are the transitional frames that move from one extreme to the next.

Resources

Homework

  • Using selected music, create a mood board and 24-frame storyboard for final project.
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