My goal for today was to get a few pairs of lungs breathing independently, or at least visually distinct from each other. Getting instancing working in Touch took me a little while but it worked and in the end I had a little group of identical lungs breathing. But the animation on the lungs looked wrong because the instancing broke the pivot point of the objects. So my little success turned into a pretty big failure as I tried to alter the pivot on an instance basis, to no avail. I finally decided to write to the Derivative forum. Lo, I heard almost right away from one of their developers who said it's a bug. He'll be releasing a workaround in a day or two. I was almost relieved to hear that my defeat was not solely from rust. The workaround involves writing a shader to rectify the order of transformations. Since I had to write a shader for the lungs anyway, it's not such a hardship. Rather more like a prod.
Tomorrow we spend the majority of the day in the recording/listening studio. It is the last day in the studio so hopefully we will record everything we'll be needing later on.
I found one thing that Vancouver is better at than Montreal: Public Transit. I never realized how smooth and uncomplicated Vancouver's system is until I came here and tried to find my way around a maze of different systems for the bus, metro, and different regions. So many frustrations later I had to admit to myself that it couldn't solely be my unfamiliarity making this a scene out of The Castle. And it's expensive! $5.75 to go one way from where I'm staying in St-Hubert to the Plateau in Montreal.
We played the Tulip Theory production song in the studio today. This song became our theme song when Steve Nichols played it over and over again, particularly when things were tense or tedious. Here it is:
A song for this post.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Happier Here (day 274)
Getting here may have been work but being here does not feel like work at all. I find myself out of my usual context into another one that is strangely familiar. The language is familiar, people's faces are familiar, the way people move is familiar. The parts of my body that remember Quebec awaken and start dancing with each other again. It's a bit awkward at times but the dance is getting more limber and smooth. I look around and it seems that people are happier here. I said as much to Leila and she said "maybe you're the one that's happier here". Indeed, smiling people see other smiling people. I admit that being away from a steady flow of emails and being able to concentrate on production and creative work is like a summer morning after a fresh rain.
I've been trying to remember to document the experience. Documenting is not something that comes naturally to me and if I'm really enthralled by something I usually forget to document. Likewise, failed experiments rarely get any kind of treatment. Still, here is a spotty photo doc of some of the activities we've done so far. I've had to at least get this much written down before the details are forgotten.
May 25th (day 1)
We spent the day getting settled and learning about the soundfield ambisonic microphone. We had plans to take the mic to a bird sanctuary in the evening but it ended up being too windy and the Vancouver part of the team was silently grateful for this reprieve. It had already been a long day. Leila took me to The Liverpool House in St-Henri for dinner. Amazing dinner. Amazing dessert.
May 26th (day 2)
A very hot day. We spent the late morning and early afternoon recording birds (and flowing water) at the bird sanctuary in LaChine, by the rapids. A great time was had by all. When we got back we heard some of the samples in the recording/listening studio. There was some pretty great footage in there. We then made plans to go see Hubble 3D at the Imax but these plans were thwarted because the late show was in French and it was better for Miles to see it in English. We ended up at Leila's for an impromptu homemade dinner. Extreme goodness. We finished the meal at an ice cream parlour near her place where we ran into Lynn Hughes and Alain Thibault. Walking back to her place, we stopped and got a dozen St-Viateur bagels for the next day's lunch.
May 27th (day 3)
Today we recorded many sounds including:
We tried again to make it to the Hubble 3D show but last minute tasks got in the way. We made it an early night and I had dinner with my mom. Sorry, not pics. It's too bad because there were some pretty hilarious moments in there. I'll post some sounds when I have them.
May 28th (day 4)
While Leila was wrangling camera purchases at Concordia, Miles and I parallel-played on our respective computers. He played with speaker setups and sounds, and I played with lung graphics. Just as I was thinking of a lunch break around 2pm, Chantal came in and said a curator from Glasgow would be touring through at about 2:30pm. Miles said we should still have a quick lunch. As we were eating lunch Leila arrived and we told her about the curator. We decided to get something ready to show. Much like the impromptu meal of the day before, Miles and I took the ingredients we had on hand and put something together that wasn't bad at all. The previous day's recordings were very interesting when mixed with images of the lungs breathing and mapped with video. I think we surprised ourselves and it was a wonderful ramp into another stage of the residency.
That afternoon I tried the Sonic Bed by Kaffe Matthews. It's a bed surrounded by speakers which when laid upon gives a kind of sonic massage both auditory and bodily. Very interesting. There is currently a call out for compositions for the bed.
In the evening we went to a Gregorian Chant performance by the Ensemble Scholastiques Neumatiques. It was amazing. We finished the evening at an informal gathering of people performing noise music at which Zoe was performing.
A song for this post.
I've been trying to remember to document the experience. Documenting is not something that comes naturally to me and if I'm really enthralled by something I usually forget to document. Likewise, failed experiments rarely get any kind of treatment. Still, here is a spotty photo doc of some of the activities we've done so far. I've had to at least get this much written down before the details are forgotten.
May 25th (day 1)
We spent the day getting settled and learning about the soundfield ambisonic microphone. We had plans to take the mic to a bird sanctuary in the evening but it ended up being too windy and the Vancouver part of the team was silently grateful for this reprieve. It had already been a long day. Leila took me to The Liverpool House in St-Henri for dinner. Amazing dinner. Amazing dessert.
 | A sculpture I came across on my first walk towards Oboro from the Metro station. It was in front of a very regular Montreal walk-up. I wondered how it came to be. ← |
| Dessert at The Liverpool House in St-Henri. → |  |
May 26th (day 2)
A very hot day. We spent the late morning and early afternoon recording birds (and flowing water) at the bird sanctuary in LaChine, by the rapids. A great time was had by all. When we got back we heard some of the samples in the recording/listening studio. There was some pretty great footage in there. We then made plans to go see Hubble 3D at the Imax but these plans were thwarted because the late show was in French and it was better for Miles to see it in English. We ended up at Leila's for an impromptu homemade dinner. Extreme goodness. We finished the meal at an ice cream parlour near her place where we ran into Lynn Hughes and Alain Thibault. Walking back to her place, we stopped and got a dozen St-Viateur bagels for the next day's lunch.
 | Red-winged black bird at the sanctuary. ← |
| Zoe and Miles recording. → |  |
 | Zoe, Miles, and Stephane learning about soundfield workflow. ← |
| Leila with the plated food. We ate outside on her deck. Menu was Stuffed Portobello mushroom with blue cheese, basil and tomato; Grilled asparagus with reduced balsamic; Tomato cucumber salad with Tzatziki; Gin&Tonic with Basil and Mango. → |  |
Today we recorded many sounds including:
- group laughter
- individual laughter
- banter
- sounds of uncertainty
- breathing, slow and fast
- random phonemes
- singing bowl, tibetan bells
- "I like it", "I don't like it" both normal tone and whisper
We tried again to make it to the Hubble 3D show but last minute tasks got in the way. We made it an early night and I had dinner with my mom. Sorry, not pics. It's too bad because there were some pretty hilarious moments in there. I'll post some sounds when I have them.
May 28th (day 4)
While Leila was wrangling camera purchases at Concordia, Miles and I parallel-played on our respective computers. He played with speaker setups and sounds, and I played with lung graphics. Just as I was thinking of a lunch break around 2pm, Chantal came in and said a curator from Glasgow would be touring through at about 2:30pm. Miles said we should still have a quick lunch. As we were eating lunch Leila arrived and we told her about the curator. We decided to get something ready to show. Much like the impromptu meal of the day before, Miles and I took the ingredients we had on hand and put something together that wasn't bad at all. The previous day's recordings were very interesting when mixed with images of the lungs breathing and mapped with video. I think we surprised ourselves and it was a wonderful ramp into another stage of the residency.
That afternoon I tried the Sonic Bed by Kaffe Matthews. It's a bed surrounded by speakers which when laid upon gives a kind of sonic massage both auditory and bodily. Very interesting. There is currently a call out for compositions for the bed.
In the evening we went to a Gregorian Chant performance by the Ensemble Scholastiques Neumatiques. It was amazing. We finished the evening at an informal gathering of people performing noise music at which Zoe was performing.
 | Waiting for the sonic bed. It was popular. ← |
| Zoe performing in funky Montreal loft. → |  |
A song for this post.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The busyness of going (day 263)
Getting ready for the Oboro residency. The thought of being away for almost three weeks is both exciting and frightening. I've resigned myself to not being ready but being ready enough. What I most look forward to is the spark of creativity coming back, from sputter to more like sparklers you put on a birthday cake. Something happens when the day to day is interrupted by something other than tragedy or sickness. Threads are lost and others find each other. That's interesting and unpredictable. It's too bad the physical constraints are such that these kinds of interruptions are necessary. Don't think the irony of leaving such an amazing research lab to do creative work escapes me.
Meanwhile, in whatever pockets of calm I can find, and in whatever interesting company I find myself, I'm bouncing off ideas about crowds, the topic I will speak about at Smart Graphics. The management of crowds is especially interesting to me right now and I realize I've been thinking about this for a long time. I was even thinking about this during my PhD. But back then I was into local rules influencing morphology. That's still interesting but there's the other way around too - the context influencing the local behaviour. I'll be looking for a way to map the ideas and sources I've collected in the past few months into some sort of map.
A song for this post.
Meanwhile, in whatever pockets of calm I can find, and in whatever interesting company I find myself, I'm bouncing off ideas about crowds, the topic I will speak about at Smart Graphics. The management of crowds is especially interesting to me right now and I realize I've been thinking about this for a long time. I was even thinking about this during my PhD. But back then I was into local rules influencing morphology. That's still interesting but there's the other way around too - the context influencing the local behaviour. I'll be looking for a way to map the ideas and sources I've collected in the past few months into some sort of map.
A song for this post.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
More frames and nibs (day 257)
As luck would have it, someone's been reading my blog that knows a lot about S3D with prosumer cameras. He recommends either the Kodax Zi8 or the Sanyo Xacti Full HD line. Turns out the sync problem is not as bad if the frame rate is higher, which makes sense. They can be controlled with an infrared remote. Both models can do 60fps at at least 720p. I'll recommend these to Leila and we'll probably try one of them out during the residency.
On a completely different topic, I have a new addiction: Raw Cacao Nibs. Deliciously crunchy cacao goodness. Totally addictive, versatile, with a mellow stimulant. Apparently they're a healthy snack too, though I view this as a bonus rather than a reason. I ordered a Kilo from Earth Notions.
A song for this post.
On a completely different topic, I have a new addiction: Raw Cacao Nibs. Deliciously crunchy cacao goodness. Totally addictive, versatile, with a mellow stimulant. Apparently they're a healthy snack too, though I view this as a bonus rather than a reason. I ordered a Kilo from Earth Notions.
A song for this post.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Inaugural spin (day 256)
The tech session with the stereoscopic rig went really well. About 15 people came and for over two hours Marty talked about the technical aspects of the rig and took questions from the participants. There was lots of great feedback and many said they would be interested in coming back and spending some time experimenting with the rig. We ourselves will be spending some quality time with the rig in the coming days getting ready for the Western Economic Diversification announcement of the S3D Centre taking place at Emily Carr on May 20th. We'll be filming the event with the rig and showing the live footage on a 3DTV LCD (Hyundai S465D).
I taped a lot of the session today but I haven't had time to upload the footage. In the meantime here is a photo taken from an iPhone of Marty and I looking at the live stream for the first time. The next shot is an older one of my first time seeing the rig at Kerner in late March.
Many people deserve thanks for making this session happen. The Kerner team for getting the rig up here in time and helping organize some of the session logistics. Marty Brenneis especially for so generously providing so much information to the assembled group. And Rick Overington, for heroically wrangling technology and traffic to make sure everything worked in the end.
Our industry partners also deserve many thanks for their invaluable contributions and support: Panavision, Codex, Cine-Tal, Sony, Fujinon, Evertz, Silicon Imaging.
A song for this post.
I taped a lot of the session today but I haven't had time to upload the footage. In the meantime here is a photo taken from an iPhone of Marty and I looking at the live stream for the first time. The next shot is an older one of my first time seeing the rig at Kerner in late March.
 |  |
Many people deserve thanks for making this session happen. The Kerner team for getting the rig up here in time and helping organize some of the session logistics. Marty Brenneis especially for so generously providing so much information to the assembled group. And Rick Overington, for heroically wrangling technology and traffic to make sure everything worked in the end.
Our industry partners also deserve many thanks for their invaluable contributions and support: Panavision, Codex, Cine-Tal, Sony, Fujinon, Evertz, Silicon Imaging.
A song for this post.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Now in stereo (day 255)
Marty Brenneis from Kerner arrived at the lab today! He's here for a 2 day visit and to help us put the stereoscopic rig together. He's the engineer that built the rig. It was really exciting to see the rig being come together and to see the live stream from the cameras on our new 3DTV. Tomorrow we're having a tech session and Q&A mostly for internal technicians but also some technicians from IATSE. May 20th is the official WED announcement of the funding for the Centre.
We'll be filming the session tomorrow so I'll post some pics and perhaps some videos. I'll also put together a list of the rig components.
A song for this post.
We'll be filming the session tomorrow so I'll post some pics and perhaps some videos. I'll also put together a list of the rig components.
A song for this post.
Friday, May 07, 2010
A progressive discovery (day 252)
There is a glimmer of hope in our search for a low cost solution to stereoscopic video capture. One of the technicians at Concordia found the Canon Vixia HF S200 camcorder which can record progressive (24p) video in HD and has a LANC terminal. With any luck they will be better synced than the TG1s. Having progressive recording means faster motion (like sports which we've been recording) will be better quality.
We haven't addressed the issue of post-processing at all. I suspect this will be another hurdle. With the TG1 footage we ran into a lot of codec and audio issues which never really got resolved. The Canons probably record in AVCHD just like the Sonys. Hopefully the tools got smarter in the interim.
That's it for today. Just an equipment update. I've been busy planning for the stereoscopic tech session happening on Tuesday in the lab. Here's to hoping everything comes together.
A song for this post.
We haven't addressed the issue of post-processing at all. I suspect this will be another hurdle. With the TG1 footage we ran into a lot of codec and audio issues which never really got resolved. The Canons probably record in AVCHD just like the Sonys. Hopefully the tools got smarter in the interim.
That's it for today. Just an equipment update. I've been busy planning for the stereoscopic tech session happening on Tuesday in the lab. Here's to hoping everything comes together.
A song for this post.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
The whale tried to warn us (day 251)
Maybe the whale was warning us of the impending stock market bungee jump. It's possible. The word on the street is that someone typed billion, but meant million, in a sell order. The risks of txt'ing your sell order can't be overstated. What better image than the fail whale for such a warning. Alas, we were all too mesmerized to listen.
And mesmerized is a good word for it. Turns out that a big sell order like that, erroneous or not, triggers android traders to sell without thinking (not that they could). Then the meat-based traders get in the action and boom goes the market. Mesmerizing indeed. We've created an unpredictable monster and someone kicked it accidentally. So fragile we are.
The stock market is the biggest hive experiment we have. I'm personally fascinated by the stories we project on the movements of our pet monster. Oh he yawned! It must mean that the crisis in Bolivia is not that important. Uh oh, he burped. It must mean that interest rates will rise. From the inside of the cage, it must be the same with just a bit more nuance. I want to know who really understood derivatives. Was it like feeding our monster some re-processed waste? I think we did that with the cows and it didn't turn out so well.
Will Friday be boring? It's hard to beat the last two days.
A song for this post.
And mesmerized is a good word for it. Turns out that a big sell order like that, erroneous or not, triggers android traders to sell without thinking (not that they could). Then the meat-based traders get in the action and boom goes the market. Mesmerizing indeed. We've created an unpredictable monster and someone kicked it accidentally. So fragile we are.
The stock market is the biggest hive experiment we have. I'm personally fascinated by the stories we project on the movements of our pet monster. Oh he yawned! It must mean that the crisis in Bolivia is not that important. Uh oh, he burped. It must mean that interest rates will rise. From the inside of the cage, it must be the same with just a bit more nuance. I want to know who really understood derivatives. Was it like feeding our monster some re-processed waste? I think we did that with the cows and it didn't turn out so well.
Will Friday be boring? It's hard to beat the last two days.
A song for this post.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
A grey in shallow waters (day 250)
A grey whale swam into False Creek this afternoon. Never has this happened before. I was in meetings all day and missed the real time announcement. No doubt, twitter was overheating in the local geo. By the time I found out, it had gone back to open sea. I went down to the docks to talk with the Aquabus guys and they told me how amazing it was to see a big animal like that so close. They say it was about 13 meters. Here is the CBC report.
The big question is why this has happened. Is the whale healthy? Is this just random? Was it a message (a la Douglas Adams)? Is this related to the whale that washed up on shore, starved to death? Is it related to what is happening in the Gulf? I have this notion that whales talk to each other over great distances. I have no idea if an oil spill would be a topic of conversation but I'm guessing it might be? Still that probably wouldn't have anything to do with False Creek. The CBC report seems to imply this is a normal migration route and the whale was just curious or something.
Anyway, I'm sorry I missed the whale but I hope it's happily swimming with some stories to tell.
A song for this post.
The big question is why this has happened. Is the whale healthy? Is this just random? Was it a message (a la Douglas Adams)? Is this related to the whale that washed up on shore, starved to death? Is it related to what is happening in the Gulf? I have this notion that whales talk to each other over great distances. I have no idea if an oil spill would be a topic of conversation but I'm guessing it might be? Still that probably wouldn't have anything to do with False Creek. The CBC report seems to imply this is a normal migration route and the whale was just curious or something.
Anyway, I'm sorry I missed the whale but I hope it's happily swimming with some stories to tell.
A song for this post.
Monday, May 03, 2010
Resounding sanity amidst frustration (day 248)
Leila tried using the Sony TG1s with the digi-dat remote but she said it was highly frustrating to have to wait for the moment where the initial sync is less than 1ms. It breaks all spontaneity and creates a lot of tension when trying to get a good shot. She was shooting a soccer game with 10 minute periods so fiddling with the cameras for 5-6 minutes was too frustrating to be worth it. She did get some footage but we didn't have time to look at it today. In any case, it looks like we'll have to find another solution, or other cameras that are better synced than the ones we have. We do have the Silicon Imaging cameras but are still waiting on the field recorder. Hopefully we'll have it soon and can use the setup during the residency. Time is getting tight but hope lives on.
We also tried to make the singing bowl resonate without being struck. Miles used a piezo vibrating at the same frequency as the bowl (~457 Hz). The results were interesting but not as successful as we'd hoped. The bowl would resonate a little bit at some specific spots but not to the point of giving the rich sound of stroking or striking the bowl. Miles will keep working at it. It's possible we could use a mix of vibrations or some kind of amplifier to create the effect we're seeking.
Lastly, today I came across this interview with Father Miguel D'Escoto, former President of the United Nations. I had never seen or heard him speak before. Sometimes the strength and sanity of older humans are awe-inspiring. Miguel D'Escoto has that awe-inspiring quality. I think there is a lot of truth in what he is saying about the way we name things to normalize them. We name wars and they become crusades. We name groups of people getting killed and we forget they were ever individuals. I also liked the way he talked about being unashamed to stand up for 'Mother Earth'. It is not us that are insane. We should care.
A song for this post.
We also tried to make the singing bowl resonate without being struck. Miles used a piezo vibrating at the same frequency as the bowl (~457 Hz). The results were interesting but not as successful as we'd hoped. The bowl would resonate a little bit at some specific spots but not to the point of giving the rich sound of stroking or striking the bowl. Miles will keep working at it. It's possible we could use a mix of vibrations or some kind of amplifier to create the effect we're seeking.
Lastly, today I came across this interview with Father Miguel D'Escoto, former President of the United Nations. I had never seen or heard him speak before. Sometimes the strength and sanity of older humans are awe-inspiring. Miguel D'Escoto has that awe-inspiring quality. I think there is a lot of truth in what he is saying about the way we name things to normalize them. We name wars and they become crusades. We name groups of people getting killed and we forget they were ever individuals. I also liked the way he talked about being unashamed to stand up for 'Mother Earth'. It is not us that are insane. We should care.
A song for this post.
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