Jazz Video

In 2018 SMUS Band Teacher , Gordon Clements, asked if the Digital Art students wanted to collaborate on a project. He suggested that his band students perform Swirling Prisms by Brian Balmages live in concert, perfectly synced with an animated video made by the Digital Art students.

We agreed to the challenge and proceeded to divide the musical piece into 20 second segments. Each student animated their own piece with abstract images, partly inspired by the old abstract images in Fantasia. Mr. Bateman then took each piece and "stitched" them together, trying to overlap some imagery from the various pieces.

In the end it was Mr. Clements who had the biggest challenge. A band conductor can typically adjust his or her tempo to fit the band. In this case, with the musical performance being live at the UVic auditorium, and the visuals prerecorded, he had to keep things perfectly on track. With an earpiece in, he conducted to a click track metronome for the first time in his career - and coincidently during the last performance before his retirement.

The music and visuals came together perfectly and while the event was sadly not filmed (the video above has prerecorded music), it was very rewarding for all involved.