Video backdrop series, part 1: "Where the Game Begins"

I'm going to try something new (and possibly even more self-indulgent than usual) on this blog over the new few weeks/months. I'm going to post an entry for each of the backdrop videos I created for ThreadSpinner's album release concert in which I describe -- and show clips and/or stills from -- the videos and discuss some of the thought and work that went into making them during August and September of this year. There will be 10 parts to this series in all, so this could take me a while, but some of the descriptions will be less detailed than others and most will probably read like a stream of consciousness. Let's see how it goes. And don't worry, I'll still be mixing in some regular blog entries as well.

If you have no idea what video project I'm talking about, you can read more about it here and here. Let's get on with it then...

What better place to begin the series than with "Where the Game Begins." This is not the first video I made for the project, but it was the easiest. Some of them I struggled with for hours and hours, trying to get the look and feel right, but not this one. I literally spent 15 minutes shooting it, 15 minutes editing it, and then put it away until it was time to synchronize it to the click track. I didn't second guess myself because this one just felt right, and I needed to rely on intuition if I was going to have time to finish ten of these puppies.

The reason this one was so simple is because the whole thing was caught in a single shot. All it is is a blurry close up of a candle flame flickering roughly to the beat of the music. It starts off as an unrecognizable little spark in inverted black and white. As the song builds, the image gradually grows more flame-like, and then in a key moment, it switches to color and the audience should finally realize what they are looking at: a fire that complements the burning passion in the heart of the song. Well, that was the idea. I'm not the most subjective critic.

I really loved the moment of that switch to color. This song was played pretty early in the show, before the audience really knew what to expect, so this was the point when they were shown that the video was indeed timed to the music. I'm a little surprised we managed to pull that off actually. If the images had been half a second ahead or behind the music, the moment would have been missed altogether. Timing-wise the entire show went off without a hitch.

The clip from the performance below contains only the second half of the song -- it starts right before the "switch" -- so you miss a lot of the build up, but check it out to get an idea of how the backdrop video was used in the show. I can't stop watching it myself.