Video

In addition to my passion for playing with sound, being a visual artist by training and vocation, I also need to work with images. Thanks to the digital age we live in I am able to combine my interests in sound and images by making video collages. Retirement gave me the time to pursue these passions.
I think of these works as video-collages because I use the same thought processes and approaches when creating videos or animation that I used for about 50 years making photographs, drawings, collages, paintings, and sculpture. It is all about exploring and testing the relationships between various pieces of video or animation and sound until a new whole emerges, something that stands on its own merits.

Video Collage Process

In my current process, I start by creating digital images using Photoshop and Illustrator as well as scanned images of 2D works. I use a graphics tablet and stylus to make the shapes and marks so the touch of the human hand is still there behind the ultra slick digital facade. I place almost every visual element on its own layer. I then import those layers into Anime Studio Pro and/or AfterEffects where I add motion and special effects, and get to work with time. Once the animation is completed, I create a sound collage to bring it to life. Occasionally I complete the sound collage first then create visuals to accompany it.

I find this last step, the combining of sound and image, to be incredibly amazing. It is what makes me want to make more video-collage-animations. Sound really shapes and completes the visual experience. This magic inspires me to make more and is what gives me the fortitude to engage one steep software learning curve after another.

TheCollageMaker

Some of my video collages are on YouTube where I am known as thecollagemaker. As I complete new video collages, I will be presenting them on this blog page. Because this is such a time-intensive medium, it will be a while before any new video collages appear here.

Below is an early example titled Tree Shapes. It was created in Photoshop and AfterEffects. The soundtrack was created with Ableton Live and SoundForge.