Documentation:

(The script was not intended to be released and is therefore extremely loose in its formatting and spelling; acting solely as a personal point of reference)

Following on from this I started to plan for filming the visual components of the live show. 

This included multiple separate shoots with:

• a bird or birds in a cage (Video 1)

• a red car and a young adult, female actress, as well as props (Video 1 and Video 3)

• 1 young male actor, 1 young female actress, and 1 middle-aged female actress, as well as set design and props (Video 3)

• An interview with a blind woman (Video  5)

• An interview with a family relative and a dark room with strobe lighting (Video 6)

This was a particularly challenging part in the creation of the live show. With a lot of time spent following leads that resulted in dead ends. In particular, finding the birds to film in 'Video 1' was particularly long-winded and ended up happening after attending several meetings with a local bird breeders society before one of the members agreed to help out. 

Casting for actors in 'Video 3' was also a challenge, and I had to compromise in the end by working with a cast that wasn't the age range that I had in mind, but who I knew would be able to act upon direction to a sufficient level.

Although I had a pre-existing friendship with the woman in 'Video 5',  making sure that she felt comfortable in being filmed and interviewed came with its own set of challenges and took some time to articulate authentically and agree upon what she would be happy talking about.

Furthermore, other than some help from the driver of the red car in 'Video 1', all of these visuals were personally recorded. Directing and/or interviewing, and filming simultaneously had to be extremely thoroughly planned in terms of knowing what shots I needed to get and questions I had to ask, so that all of my focus on the day could be spent on problem-solving the performances and interviews rather than the technical aspects of the shoot.

At this stage, I was keen to start exploring how to go about performing the set. I knew that I wanted to hone in on vocals so that the performance could be as immersive and physically responsive as possible, without the restriction of having to play 'MIDI' controllers or pieces of hardware live. 

I initially explored triggering the different instrumentals in the set with the 'Ableton Push 2' acting as a launch pad with the potential to be used as an instrument for playing different synths live or modulating effect parameters.

After some initial experiments, I realised that I was doing this for the sake of it and not because I believed it would benefit the live performance. At this stage, the best way I could achieve the atmosphere that I had in mind was for the performance to be completely vocal-centred and physically engaging.

Translating this into the setup meant programming the tracks within 'Ableton Live' so that they would play seamlessly into one another. I achieved this using follow actions. As for vocal effects, I decided to execute this in 'FL Studio' by creating different vocal buses that corresponded to each track within 'Ableton'. Automating when they would activate so that it was in sync with the 'Ableton Set'. My reason for using 'FL Studio' for vocal effects and not keeping this within 'Ableton' was because certain effects that I wanted to use on my vocals weren't compatible with 'Ableton', including 'Gross Beat' and 'Antares Auto-Tune Evo'.

Using the 'Focusrite 18i8' interface, I was able to route the audio signal coming from 'Ableton' to outputs 1 and 2 of the interface and then the signal coming from 'FL Studio' to outputs 3 and 4. This meant that I could give sound technicians control over the levels of both my vocals and instrumental tracks when performing live.

Finally, I set up my visual media using 'Resolume Arena' so that they would launch with their corresponding audio within 'Ableton':

Rehearsals:

After doing an initial run through of some of the tracks, there were several flaws that I was keen to fix. The first and main flaw with the set at this stage was the levels. Because I was at a point in the creation of the show where the vocal effects weren't all automated, it made performing clunky. Resulting in me having to constantly tweak my microphone input level via the interface as well as some of the effect levels, including the reverb wet amount and decay.

Not only were the tracks within 'Ableton' not at levels that were appropriate for the vocals to translate through the monitor, but they were also noticeably inconsistent in volume to the point where I was having to turn the master track up and down to match the level of the track that just played.

I was also keen to cut down some of the backing vocals, as although they gave some additional weight to my live vocals, it was slightly distracting when performing verses. If I was even slightly off beat from the recorded vocals, it felt distractingly noticeable when performing. To get the best of both worlds, I decided to chop the backing vocals so that they would play only at points where I knew I would be running out of breath.

With all that being said, I felt confident in being able to tweak these elements ahead of my first live run through:

(Unfortunately, the audio being recorded from the mixing desk was corrupted) :

Final Performance:

For my final documentation of this project, I had initially intended to edit together the footage from my following show, however due to some technical issues surrounding cameras and the audio from the mixing desk being clipped in the recording, I decided to do an audio-only performance of the show and comp' it together with all of the footage from the performances that I had done up until that point during this project:

Project Context:

Contextually, the artists whose work has resonated with me most have all presented visceral and shifting performances. Whether that’s an artist like ‘Rainy Miller’, whose aesthetic largely stems from his use of vocals and vocal fx. Carving out intimacy through vocals smeared in autotune and reverb, as they confide in and confront the instrumentals they are conversing with. At a moment’s notice, they go from being immensely textural to devastating and raw:

Key Moments:

0:25 -0:44

1:09 – 1:32
2:08 – 3:06