We’ve had extra workshops these last couple of weeks on a specialist subject of our choice. This allowed us to hone in on what specifically we wanted or needed to learn in order to create our chosen ideas. I chose advanced HD studio work which was I thought was going to be a workshop on using dollys and runners to get smooth camera work, but instead if was on lighting and although this was still very helpful, I needed to learn how to keep a smooth camera for keeping up with the marbles on my machine.
Never the less the other workshop I took part in was a 2 parter on “Creative Programming” which consisted of using coding and processing of data to make things happen via a computer.
Examples of what we made are simple exercises such as a trail of colourful balls to follow the mouse as you go across a page and a synthesiser type programme which responded to your mouse’s movements up down and across the screen by changing the pitch and frequency of a sound it emitted and also the colour of the box in which you moved the mouse.
However, the main thing that processing could do was that using what Chris our lecturer called a “Sparkfun - Arduino Starter Kit”, we could collaborate the processing with these physical pieces of computer chip and equipment to make the marbles set off sounds and lights by moving past sensors and hitting pressure pads! This sounded fantastic and the Sparkfun - Arduino Starter Kit is roughly £50 so although it’s very expensive, it might just be worth the money if it’s going to make the machine look even better!
It’s still early days but this could be very beneficial to making my project seem all the more professional so check back for how my plans may include this technology.
Moving on I’ve also included some videos here which help influence my idea of an alarm clock and the machine waking me up.
This video is of my Wallace and Gromit Alarm clock which as you’ll see has an alarm clock which sets off a ball bearing to set off another at the top of the clock which comes down to hit bells and a button which sets off a Cockerel sound at the end.
This (very noisy!) wake up is what inspired my alarm clock idea overall as it was a present for Christmas which I’d seen around the time I was debating more narrative before voicing it on here, but I have decided I am going to stick to my original plan of the machine making music only.
This is because with videos such as “Crème that Egg!” I find the main purpose or narrative is lost halfway through the piece as you focus more on what the machine is actually doing instead of why, so I feel that my piece will work better if it is machine only and the music carries a narrative as it includes more and more “instruments” to it.
Moving on from the workshops, I've also included some inspirations I have found along the way to where I am at the moment with the project.
Firstly here is my Wallace and Gromit Alarm Clock:
Also here is the Google logo as a machine which I found very interesting:
And here is an advert which had a similar style of machine:
And finally here is a tryout I did of a train I bought trying to play the xylophone pieces.
Originally the plan was for the xylophone and train to be going around underneath the main drum machine or something but as you'll see and hear the xylophone bits aren't very loud so I'm going to re-think this bit:
These inspirations etc. have been collected over the months and in my next post I will show my second presentation as we get closer to Easter and actually making this piece. :)
Take care,
Joe.
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