Dance Film, Part 3

The dance film is done!

I'm most proud of this one so far. This is the first film I've made that actually looked as good as I pictured it in my head while planning.  There are definitely some things I would have liked to do differently (like have the thing properly memorised, and have an extra camera or two for B-roll), but I am also completely content with how this one turned out. It's beautiful to look at and fun to listen to. I think this is one of the first times I feel that I've properly showcased who I am as a choreographer and as a dancer.

This is also the first time I've worked with a separate audio track rather than using the in-camera audio -- well, that's not entirely true, as the audio I used is from my B-roll camera. It was positioned closer to both the taps and the music source so both were louder and the sync was better. I've also noticed that my iPhone 13 Pro (now my primary filming camera) is REALLY LOUD. At first I thought it was interference from my tripod light, but even when I don't use the light, it still makes this loud white noise in the background. The sound from the taps was also extremely dead on this camera -- much more resonant on the B-roll (probably because I had an umbrella behind the B-roll camera shielding it from the drizzle).

So I split the audio track off the B-roll and synced it up with my edits as I went. I'm comfortable with sound editing from years of converting my dad's records on Audacity (and from designing the sound cues for Sottovoce), and I think that actually helped me slog through the hour of footage that I shot for a four-minute dance film.

It's a simple, fun piece, and I think the choreography, the location, and the editing all manage to support that. This isn't big or flashy, and I like that. I'm not a big, flashy person. I feel this piece is the closest I've gotten to displaying my heart and soul on 'stage.' I don't expect this to make me viral or put me on the map or anything, but it's definitely my personal favourite.

Watch it here.

NaNoWriMo Teaser

I had almost decided not to do NaNoWriMo this year. Not because I had a bad experience or anything, but because I'm so weary. I'm tired of fighting for every scrap of creative time and energy. I've accomplished such big creative things in the past year and a half or so, but I still feel disconnected from the act of creating. I don't get to sit and enjoy it for hours on end like I used to. I have to sneak it in behind closed doors and on work breaks, only seconds at a time, maybe ten minutes if I'm lucky. I don't get to lean into it and really explore the way I used to. And I guess to me, that was the part I liked most. Finishing projects is great and all, but I loved the process of sitting down and just disappearing into another world for hours and then emerging with something tangible.

Somewhere along the line I decided to leverage that weariness.

So I'm writing essentially an autobiography set in a video game world. All the bosses are the people and situations that broke me.

Of course, I have no idea how it ends, since I'm still in the middle of three boss battles simultaneously.

Dance Film? Part 2

I filmed the thing. A casual perusal of the footage looks good, though I haven't checked the sound. But at this point, what I have is what I have and I'm going to have to work with it. If I absolutely have to, I can rent the studio for an hour and record an overdub (though I'd rather not).

I'm glad I did it. Once I actually got going, I was at peace. Peace is so hard to find for me nowadays (working in fast food and walking on tiptoes around my in-laws every second of every day are not exactly peace-inciting activities), and it's been so long since I was in a regular dance class that I've forgotten what it's like to just lose yourself in dance.

I have said many times that dance was probably the reason nobody ever cottoned on to my ADHD -- it gave me an outlet for my physical energy and quieted my racing thoughts for long enough periods of time to keep me from spiraling into madness. (Dance has quite literally saved my life on suicidal days.)

But when I was dancing on Monday, despite thinking about the choreography and the music and the timing and the dynamics, all other thoughts were gone from my mind. My mind was active -- thinking about dancing -- but calm. I wasn't chasing threads of half-formed ideas crisscrossing just out of my reach and despairing that maybe I just lost The One -- the Big Idea that finally gets me out of this rut. I don't ever -- EVER -- get that calm anywhere else. I was well and truly in the zone. Despite having to re-start over and over (because my memory unfortunately is still trash even when my mind is at peace), I managed to not get frustrated (filming outside in 10 degrees and light rain probably helped too because I wasn't dying of internal nuclear meltdown #sensoryissues).

I still don't know how it looks. But as I wrote in my journal on Sunday night, somewhere in the midst of all the despair: 'any footage is better than no footage.'

Now to get my iPod to remember that AirDrop is a thing so I can transfer the B-roll...

Dance Film...? (An Update And Small Vent)

At the beginning of the year, I swore to myself that I would ACTUALLY make two dance films this year.

I knocked out one (Sottovoce) almost immediately, and allowed myself to do a smaller, simpler one for the second. I finally picked one, and have been trying to memorise the thing since July.

It's still not memorised.

This is the only weekend I can film it, as this will be the last weekend of the year that I have access to this location and I REALLY don't want to film it indoors (in the same studio as Sottovoce to boot). I want to infuse colour and life into this dead town and filming outside in the fall leaves is the best way I can see to do that.

I also can't break a promise to myself again.

The only promise to myself I've kept this year so far is to finish the Kyrie rewrite. Don't get me wrong, that was a MASSIVE accomplishment, but I don't want the rest of this year to be a total washout.

I've been doing all the right things. I've been running this piece every spare second I have for three months. I didn't have access to a tap floor until tonight so I've been drilling the choreography into my head, knowing that only goes so far but wanting to give myself the best possible advantage.

I wanted to film this thing tomorrow. But it SUCKS.

The choreography is (mostly) great. But my memory -- apparently now my achilles' heel -- is doing its best to sabotage me at every. single. turn (literally and figuratively).

I don't want to fail yet again. I've broken this promise to myself so many times. I don't want to fail again. I don't want to fail again. But it looks like I may have no other option.