Still thinking about YouTube, Bandcamp and artistic life aims in general, and how to progress, …..again!

Still photography considerations:

A fair few months back, thinking began concerning how to produce imagery for a CD cover. One that had an original and appropriately connecting image to each of my separate songs. Reality dictated that I would have to take new photographs as my old images captured nothing relatable to any song/lyric subject matter. Initially I put out a blog regarding using some black and white film imagery I’d produced in the past and maybe a link existed to new song titles or stories. And it was obvious that it didn’t.

From a generation that loved the aesthetic and tactile values of vinyl albums, tape cassettes and CDs, there has always been that wonderful vibe of physically ‘sense’ owning your purchased music. The touch, smell, sound and sight of hard copy ownership. Taste? Tasteful artistically certainly. So albums, especially vinyl albums, were pored over and the album cover art, individual iconic imagery and lyric inclusions were so important. Album covers have given us all some wonderful imagery that has been part of our lives. The Beatles half shadow faces on With the Beatles, T.Rex having Marc Bolan with amplifier and guitar on Electric Warrior, David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust backstreet vibe, again holding a guitar, are all timeless images. So many more too. So a central Frail Autumn still photo capture became important in my mind. The avatar of myself with the half shadowed face, that a ‘booked by the band’ photographer took of me at a gig, was my ideal for back when. Now. An older version of Summers’ face? Nah! Something weird and other type wonderful is more appropriate than a current Summers’ visage. Frail Autumn, in the name itself, has many possibilities.

Why all these ongoing thoughts again? The last few music/song audio uploads have sound playback in high quality file mode. This was/is possible due to our household getting a faster fibre broadband speed. What once took an absolute age, poor base level compressed quality files and sometimes with little erratic blip sounds in the audio, has now been changed dramatically. Bandcamp, the musicians upload platform, is now a realistic possibility. Hence thinking of the still photograph/art visual package alongside the music too.

Still photography to Video photography considerations:

My only knowledge of camera film colour ambience was related to cinema and the Masterpieces that were the present from iconic directors, producers, cinematographers, production designers, etc. Often collaborative team efforts from many involved to decide on specific colour aesthetics for many films. Sin City, all things Tim Burton, Wes Anderson, Guillermo del Torro, to name a few. The Bladerunner film was so amazing visually and has been my oft go to return and watch agains. The new Bladerunner film is also visually stunning.

I cannot hope to achieve such levels of beauty such as those iconic movies. But a nicely captured library catalogue of a Summers ‘go to movie capture collective’ can be juggled about into the video storyboards. I use juggle because I was recently thinking of a guy who juggled. A profoundly Deaf gentleman who I interpreted for when he went for an interview for a place in a Circuit of Performing Arts course. It actually was a circus tent he was interviewed in. He had to walk on a tightrope a few feet above the ground in case his deafness proved that he could not maintain balance. He did extremely well traversing the rope. They asked me to have a go. Nope! He visited us here in Wales a fair few times. Taught me how to juggle to a decent standard too. I tried juggling again the other day after a blog friend brought up boomerang throwing in his latest blog. Yes, my juggling friend was also into boomerang throwing. Oh! And beautiful origami productions. His letters to me were folded in wonderful abstract ways. Sorry….I digress. Back to to juggling. Or in this case? Not back to juggling. I was completely useless! I kept dropping the balls after about three short circuits, so feel a lot of practice need coming on again.

Video imagery considerations:

After this initial foray into art in cinematic film possibilities, it was then that video capture was to be considered for songs. Especially for YouTube uploads. So far, this has been a pie in the sky dream. Initially seeing no inspiration of where to go and having no skills in this arena whatsoever, a penny dropped. A Projector. My black and white film images, a few decades ago, were used to project, as a back drop, onto the Art’s Centre stage background when a dance group were performing on stage. My little 35mm film negatives captures, blown up to cinematic size levels, was awesome. I was flabbergasted at the results. From a little tiny acorn a veritable tree was realised.

It would be nice to simply build up a catalogue of stills to quickly follow each other to result in a video collective. A background of textures each following the other.

Ongoing, a fast learning curve is required. Choice, learning and plans? Certainly not AI. It has fast become a bee in my bonnet in that I am totally refusing it as a choice. Ever. So alternatives are always at the tentative fingertips of consideration. So far? Considering projecting my produced still photographic or typed out lyrics/poetry/prose imagery and recorded video onto myself as a simple storyboard of appropriate inclusions. A typewriter font of my lyrical thoughts, borne from tip tapping/click clacking the old vintage keys. The resulting typewriter sound recorded and captured for inclusions to video ambience. Recorded and projected onto a screen, in which I am sitting in front of, playing acoustic guitar and singing the song. That would be nice visuals. The whole imagery of this captured on a camera using video format should be as useful as projecting still photographs. The iPad with the Shure MV88 microphone capturing it all. And iMovie being the video’s audio/visual editing tool.

Also. The gentleman in our village, Richard, has agreed to help me out regarding drone flight captures. Flying over the locality of where I am filming a video storyboard for YouTube. A drone capturing the beauty of outdoors and then zooming in to the VeeDub Bus sitting on a beach, next to a riverside or lake, or amongst trees. Once it settles, I will then proceed the video content and capture. An intro and then an outro drone flight would be ideal consistent bookends. I can use the same drone captures over and over if I visit the same spots regularly. And with weather changes like snow? Then maybe we can take advantage and go out and film drone flight in that way. These flights will have overlaid quirky to softer music/Muzak instrumental vibes over them. I enjoy writing these type of instrumental songs. Also, the repetitive lyrical ones too.

Let’s see where this lot of ideas goes!