Monday, February 25, 2013

Synth manipulating video

I'm starting to understand Max a bit better, having spent a few hours looking at how the Wiimote patch and this synthesizer patch are constructed. I spent a while trying to get the output values from the synthesizer to control certain inputs in a video patch, and I'm getting the results I want. The most difficult thing moving forward is going to be figuring out how to map individual keys to specific video clips. I took some time to understand how the Wiimote patch works and should be able to connect it to video in the same way as I did with the keyboard. I was having second thoughts about using the Wiimote last week, but the more I look into it the more I want to have it be a part of my project. I almost feel the opposite now - I may not bother with the keyboard and just stick to the Wiimote, adding the third dimension of movement/gesture to the connection I'm trying to make.


Esente week 5, Monday


On Wednesday, I spent the first part of the day working on the Cambridge lead list, conducting internet research on financial companies in the area. After an hour and a half, I resumed work on the Pennsylvania media list I was given. The list was partially completed by another intern who wound up leaving Esente, and was a total disaster - it was completely disorganized, seemingly random, and potentially incomplete. On Monday, I had begun the work of sorting out what was what, as well as what was from USNPL and what wasn't. Wednesday, I was able to complete comparing the now-organized list to the list on USNPL. Many of her contacts had missing information like email addresses and phone numbers, so I went back through the entire list and filled in all of the missing information (which is odd - how she didn't find the info that I found rather effortlessly is a mystery). After that, I noticed that she had skipped many of the papers that were on USNPL's list, so I finished up with any extra papers that I could find.

After another hour and a half, I was able to move on to graphic design work. I finally finished working on the Becca Levy fan art. I sent both files I had been working on to my supervisor Amanda. She and the other girls who were still around by that time (around 5-6pm) seemed to enjoy both of them despite my discontent for the first one I had created and abandoned. For the remainder of what little time I had left, I revisited my anti drunk driving posters. Next, I will be making fan art for Jayna Lininger as well as wrapping up my drunk driving posters.



Sunday, February 24, 2013

Curating Cramsie, David Gatten

For Design Stories, we were given the task of choosing 4-8 poster designs from our book to present in curated form so the reader comes away from the experience with a new understanding of the topic. This was inspired by visiting artist David Gatten's films. We were lucky enough to have David spend the afternoon with us during Thursday's class before he went downstairs to give a talk and have a legitimate screening. We chatted about his process, research methods, and production methods, and then he was kind enough to show us two of his films.

I chose to make my curating project about the evolution of Art Nouveau, highlighting how artists broke from traditional painting and, through experimentation & embracing external (outside Europe) influences, developed a commercial art style the public could connect with and respect.








Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Esente week 4, Wednesday


On Monday, my day was relatively routine. I spent the first hour and a half conducting internet research, developing a lead list based on financial companies in Cambridge, MA using Manta.com. After that, I spent about an hour and a half on a new media list for the state of Pennsylvania. One of the other interns had already worked on the list, but had left the company without finishing it. It was in complete and total disarray, with no organization evident whatsoever. Whoever worked on it before must have either had 0 organizational skills, or went into her list and deliberately turned it into chaos before leaving. Whatever the case may be, it took me that hour and a half just to sort through what she had, comparing it to what was on USNPL and reorganizing it in another Google doc. After I got them separated into categories, I edited some of them that were sloppy or confusing. Many seem to be missing pretty key information, like emails, contact names, etc., so I assume I'll be spending more time figuring it out before I consider it to be finished.

For the rest of the day, I worked some more on my Becca Levy fanart example. I decided that the piece I had been working on was one of the worst things I've ever made, so I decided to cut my losses and scrap it entirely. I feel like I spent too much time trying to make an idea work that I was never happy with in the first place, so it was like trying to make a fundamentally broken thing function properly. Instead of continuing to bang my head against a wall, I started making a new piece that instantly looked and felt much better than the previous piece. It's coming along much better now and should be finished a lot quicker than the other piece was taking. I keep promising to add a draft version of it to the blog, and still intend to, but considering the circumstances it probably won't be until next week.

- Ian Corrigan
Graphic Design Intern
Montserrat College of Art

Edit: Here are the two images. The speech bubble one is the one I decided to scrap.



CTRL Event logo ideas

I'm going to be hosting an event at my school for a project in my Design Factory class about media reform. I am starting out by narrowing down my topic since media reform encompasses many topics, including media consolidation, censorship, internet freedom, media regulation, etc. I'm spending time looking through the site www.freepress.net since they're based out of MA and are one of the most prominent names in media reform in the country. I've come up with the name CTRL for the event and have started playing around with different logo ideas.


Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Making things in Max




I've been learning how to use Max from watching tutorials and downloading & studying existing patches (programs). Many patches are available for free online and vary from useful widgets & tools for dropping into patches to complete, functional patches that function either in Max or as standalone software. I've been watching lots of examples of synthesizer, sampler and loop machine patches. I've also watched many tutorials involving the Wiimote, but I'm not sure if I'm compelled to use it because it's useful or just because it would be cool. I've been considering changing my input device from the Wiimote to my Micron, a small scale synth that can act as a midi controller.

Whichever I decide on, I'm thinking the program I make will set the input up to play audio clips of each note on the 12-note scale - onto corresponding keys on the Micron, or specific buttons/combinations on the Wiimote (if I use the Wiimote I'd probably set it up as a loop machine instead of a note-for-note synth).

The data produced by the Wiimote/Micron would also have to control a second patch that plays video in sync with the gestures/keystrokes being used to create the music. I've been making video programs and playing around with effects for the past few days, and am starting to figure out a plan on turning the audio into something visual, based off of the sonochromatic scale. I found lots of resources online offering free video loops for VJ shows. I grabbed some and played around with them in Max, and noticed that there's many that have pretty solid color schemes - some stay basically red or blue or purple, etc. I'm pretty sure that I can eventually make something that connects the notes being played to one of 12 different clips to represent that note's color. Using Max's crossfade, several clips can be spliced together at once to represent chords/multiple notes being hit at once.

In the end, with any luck you'll be able to create music using at least one of these devices that simultaneously controls live video in colors that relate to the notes being played.



Monday, February 18, 2013

Esente Week 4, Monday

On Wednesday of last week, I started the day off conducting internet research for a lead list comrpised of Medical Equipment businesses, Non-classifiables and Insurance companies in Brookline, MA. Since I had finished my Vermont media list, I moved on to working on our national anthem project. We're trying to develop a system in order to help us book national anthem gigs for our client Becca Levy, who is the national spokesperson for the Right Now anti-bullying campaign.

I was put on a team that was assigned to the states of PA, KY and OH, and was given division II teams to research. I found a list of all NCAA division II college teams in the country and sorted it according to state. I then visited every PA/KY/OH school's official athletics website and tracked down contact info for their athletic directors, creating a well organized Google spreadsheet. I also noted the contact info for anyone whose position sounded relevant - facilities coordinators, special events coordinators, etc. I then tracked down what information I could about NCAA division II championship games through the NCAA's official website.

I then repeated this process for the NAIA, although the only division II teams in the NAIA are basketball teams - every other sport is division I only. I collected all of them regardless (I noticed the person in charge of division I teams hadn't found the NAIA teams yet, so I figured I might as well while I was there.) Today, Manta was down when I first came in, so I spent a few minutes finishing up my division II list until Manta came back online.

For the rest of the day on Weds, I did some work on my Becca Levy fanart. I got it to a better place than it was before and I'm starting to feel good about it, though it needs a bit more work still. Maybe on Wednesday I'll post a draft version on the blog.

- Ian Corrigan
Graphic Design Intern
Montserrat College of Art

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Phaidon entries - II

We were asked to create another set of Phaidon entries, highlighting objects that we think are powerful or incredible. The objects I chose were an Alesis Micron synthesizer and a 1970's Electra Outlaw guitar. I'm not quite finished writing about the guitar.


Week 3 at Esente - Wednesday


On Monday, I spent an hour and a half conducting internet research collecting information for a lead list on Home Healthcare Services and Intermediate Care Facilities in the Boston area. Our boss, Ron, was nice enough to host everybody for lunch at his apartment - apparently, when it snows out Ron goes into soup making mode. We spent about an hour down the hall having lunch together and chatting. I'm glad we get the opportunity to connect like that, it makes the environment at work a lot friendlier. I'm definitely enjoying my time here so far because of the way the office operates - we're encouraged to be comfortable with ourselves and each other, and as long as our work gets done we have quite a bit of freedom.

For the second part of the day, I finished putting together my Vermont media list. It includes all major newspapers in Vermont, plus all college newspapers and radio stations I could find, as well as local TV and radio stations, and even a Vermont specific online newspaper. For the rest of the day, I worked some more on my example of fan art for Becca Levy. It's making good progress but I'm still not thrilled with it, so I won't post a draft version of it just yet. Probably look for it on my next week's posts.

- Ian Corrigan
Graphic Design Intern
Montserrat College of Art

Monday, February 11, 2013

Max/MSP/Jitter

I've been watching tutorials on the software I got called Max/MSP/Jitter. It's basically a programming language that is visual based instead of code based. You create programs by making schematics in Max, which you'll see at the end of the "color gun" video below. MSP and Jitter and programs that use the schematics you created in Max to alter audio and visuals using pretty much any input method imaginable. I found some really cool videos of things people have done with this language, some more relevant to my project than others.

Using a Wiimote as an input

Wii Synth

Good example of how the schematics work

I'm going to start looking for specific tutorials now that I understand how the program (basically) works. It would be interesting to make something that creates both music and an image corresponding to the music at the same time made from input from a Wiimote since it has so many sensor & button mapping capabilities.

- Ian


Internship Week 3 at Esente Music Group



On Wednesday last week I worked on conducting internet research developing a lead list for E-Commerce and IT Outsourcing companies in Boston, MA. The interns had a meeting regarding Esente's client Becca Levy's upcoming YouTube video release.

We then focused on figuring out an efficient way of researching and organizing some gigs for Becca singing the national anthem at various high profile sporting events across the country. I was put on a team of interns whose job it was to research who exactly should be contacted to organize such an event, and focused on college sports teams in Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania. To make the work easier, we divided the system into parts, including major leagues, minor leagues, college divisions 1, 2 and 3, and high school championships.

I spent the day looking up college division 2 teams. My system involved finding the NCAA Wikipedia page which led me to a list of all division 2 teams in the country. I was able to sort the list by state, and visited the official websites of every college on the list for KY, OH and PA. I created a Google spreadsheet that included the contact info of every athletic director from each of those schools, as well as any additional relevant contacts that I could find. I also began some research on local, state level tournaments and championship games.

- Ian Corrigan
Graphic Design Intern
Montserrat College of Art

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Esente Week 2, Weds.

On Monday, I spent about an hour and a half conducting internet research creating a lead list for OnPoint Media, including e-commerce and IT outsourcing businesses in Boston. We had an intern meeting where we learned how to effectively coordinate as a group to achieve complex tasks using teamwork and communication. We spent some time watching videos being made for one of Esente's clients, Becca Levy, and had a conversation about what could be done to make the video better.

I then spent an hour and a half working on my Vermont media list, collecting media contacts from all major VT newspapers using USNPL.com. After completing the list of major newspapers, I used Google to hunt down all of the college newspapers/radio stations that I could find and added them to my media list.

For the last part of the day, I took on a small project from my supervisor Laura. She was having difficulty explaining the concept of "fan art" to the owner, so she asked me to create an example of fan art based on Becca Levy's music. I began working on the design and will most likely finish it later today.

- Ian Corrigan

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Thesis Progress

My thesis project at school is about linking music and design. I plan to deconstruct the connection between the visual and audible spectrums, and use this knowledge to both turn pieces of music into design, and designs into pieces of music. I also plan on doing the same thing with randomly generated or aesthetically pleasing designs to create odd pieces of music, and plan on using ambient noise and sound clips to create more random designs.

Today, I played around with some different programs that are designed to analyze .mp3 and .wav files, turning them into .midi files, which are basically simple instrument sounds programmed into the computer, often on several layers that reproduce different instruments. I used the program on a relatively simple song from my itunes library. The resulting midi file sounded alright, but it's definitely not accurate enough to capture everything that's going on. Overall you get a general sense of the song, but there are parts where the program didn't know what to do and made up something that wasn't there, or left it out all together. It might be interesting to use when turning ambient noise/sound effects into scores, but for now it's not doing me much good.

Instead of turning mp3s into midis, I just went onto freemidi.org and looked around for something that everyone would know, and found the theme to Super Mario. I found a second program that opens midi files and shows you their different layers as scores. You can get rid of layers you don't want, so I got rid of the percussion track and an annoying "coin" track. The program shows you what notes the computer has been programmed to play transposed over actual sheet music, so I took some general shapes from the lead track and let them influence how I arranged the rectangles when there weren't all three.


Monday, February 4, 2013

Week 2 at Esente Music Group


Over my second week here at Esente, I further learned how to research and develop lead lists for businesses on the north shore through Manta.com. I also began researching and developing a media contact list for newspapers in the state of Vermont for Onpoint media using USNPL.com. Both lists are being created in Google docs spreadsheets.

I also finished up the designs for my anti-bullying posters and began collecting images and ideas for my next project, three more posters advocating drunk driving awareness and prevention. The refined anti-bullying posters can be seen below.


Revised version with black & white background, only the girl and the pills are in color to help emphasize the message. 
Mostly the same, slightly shifted the positioning and sizes of the text. 
Changed the font of "TOGETHER WE CAN STOP BULLYING" to help differentiate between the different sections of the poster.