Improvised Visuals with Jeff Younger’s Devil Loops

Jeff Younger’s Devil Loops

I’m doing my first live improvised visual performance with Jeff Younger and some amazing dancers and performers tomorrow night at the Orpheum Annex!

TICKETS HERE

I’ll be playing with video from Ukraine, with live animation, and VJ-type live cams.  I feel like someone has taken a DJ and said “here’s a guitar!” which is pretty fun but also terrifying.  Come see me triumph or crash!  It will be a great event!

The event is produced by the Railtown Cultural Eclective…

– Flick

 

Add audio transitions to your entire timeline in Final Cut Pro X!

95d08e2d901ae9457724d209586a56acI finally figured out how to do something that should have been a no-brainer in FCPX:

Audio-only crossfades in the whole timeline!  Or add multiple sound-only dissolves at the same time to as many clips as you select.

Almost every time I edit, I need to add soft audio transitions between cuts.  All of them.  Even a smash cut that you WANT to be jarring can create an unwanted “pop” when the playhead jumps from one digital audio file to another.

One of the first things I learned working at CBC in the early 90’s is that a 3-frame audio crossfade is the best way to smooth out a sound cut without actually making a noticeable overlap.

One of my main reasons for avoiding Final Cut X for almost two years was the difficulty of adding audio-only dissolves.  In FCP 7, you could select your whole timeline, hit command-shift-t, and there you’d have it.

FCPX official workflow is to right-click->expand audio/video, then drag the ends of the audio clips each way so that they are overlapping, then drag the fade handles inwards so that the fades overlap.

GIVE ME A BREAK!  For hundreds of edits?!  Do I have a sign on my back that says “Please give me carpal tunnel syndrome?”

SO I’ve been perfecting this workflow and thanks to Alex4D, and a little poking around, I’ve solved it.

Continue reading “Add audio transitions to your entire timeline in Final Cut Pro X!”

AGEWELL Chataqua Project Art exhibition, free workshops and community dialogues

Agewell-ExhibitionWorkshopsDialogueFrom ICASC:

On behalf of the Art for Social Change! (ASC!) Project, you are invited to the AGEWELL Chataqua Project Art exhibition, free workshops and community dialogues.

A partnership with Arts Health BC, Judith Marcuse Projects and Simon Fraser University, the AGEWELL Chataqua Project is an arts-based community project that explores aging.
On Saturday and Sunday, May 31st and June 1st, as part of the AGEWELL Arts Exhibition, we will be offering free arts workshops and dialogues at the Performing Arts Lodge in Vancouver (581 Cardero Street).

OPENING RECEPTION: May 29, 6 pm – 9 pm

FREE ART EXHIBITION: May 30 – June 7, 2014 (CLOSED June 2) 11 am – 7 pm

FREE WORKSHOPS and DIALOGUES are as follows:

Saturday, May 31
11 am to 12:30 pm – Movement and performance with Judith Marcuse
12:45 to 2:15 pm – Storytelling with Claire Robson
2:20 to 4 pm – Public Dialogue

Sunday, June 1
11am to 12.30pm – Puppetry with Maggie Winston
12.45 to 2.15pm – Music with Rup Sidhu
2.20 to 4pm – Public dialogue

Sunday, June 8
1:30 to 3pm – Workshop & Dialogue: Art for Social Change Movement Workshop/Chataqua Dialogue with Judith Marcuse

You can learn more and register here: http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/agewell-chataqua-project-public-events-tickets-11161234553

Please feel free to distribute this invitation far and wide.

Call for Submissions: Agewell Chataqua Project

Agewell call(I am working on this project as a researcher and videographer… please submit artworks if you are interested!)

The Agewell Chataqua Project invites you to create and submit small-scale artwork that is an expression of your thoughts and feelings on aging: what it means to you; how that meaning is shaped and influenced by your external environment and society; how you are impacted by it, your hopes, worries, and struggles with it; and how the inevitability of it shapes your decisions and actions.

Creative expressions can be in a wide range of media, including paintings, graphics designs, textile art, installations (which can be interactive), photography, poetry, narrative, and performance work in music, theatre and dance. This invitation is open to everyone, and all are encouraged to submit.

Continue reading “Call for Submissions: Agewell Chataqua Project”

Flick’s drone at the VIVO open house.

IMG_0341

Here’s some raw documentation of my Parrot AR Drone in action at the VIVO Media Arts Open House on Friday, March 28.

I had a great time crashing into things and only got a good chopper-blade in the finger once, when the drone seemed to want to attack me.  If such things amuse you, check out the raw footage below this Flickr set.

Thanks to all the VIVO staff for making the Drone Bar great!

 
(the drone doesn’t record sound so I left it silent. talk amongst yourselves.)

Flick’s drone copter @ Drone Bar, VIVO open house from Flick Harrison on Vimeo.

 

Fine Line: Twisted Angels at VIDF

I’ve been playing with Wii controllers, teddy bears and night vision cameras for this show at the Vancouver International Dance Festival.  Check it out March 19+20  at the Roundhouse…

 

March 19 & 20, 8PM @ The Roundhouse

Dancers Dancing (Vancouver)

The FINE LINE ~ twisted angels

Using movement, sound, and image veteran Vancouver choreographer Judith Garay examines how we perceive our internal and external worlds. Through ephemeral and sometimes transformative movement, interwoven with the music of Patrick Pennefather and video by Flick Harrison, Garay builds a study of sense and cognition that encompasses everything from addiction to hypnagogic hallucinations, and synesthesia in a profound and compelling work. The FINE LINE ~ twisted angels is a work grounded in personal experience that engages with the fragility of existence and risks a deep, dark journey to bring forth internal experience onto the stage.
Continue reading “Fine Line: Twisted Angels at VIDF”

FCP: The once and future king of editing software

fcpx iron throneFinal Cut Pro is back from the brink.  I’ve finally decided to get back to it, and I’m teaching a workshop in FCPX at VIVO media arts centre on April 6.  After 12 years of FCP I went over to Adobe Premiere for lots of good reasons, mostly to do with the missing features and my hard-earned distrust of the iLife suite, i.e. the kiddie-oriented iMovie on which FCPX was based.

The reasons behind Apple’s move were not too mysterious: woo the big market of amateurs and hope to drag the prosumers behind.  Professionals could go buy something else.  But the outcry against all that (and, no doubt, some kind of money-metric) convinced Apple to go back and fix what was wrong, and, well, now it’s time to re-think.

I found myself downloading demos of FCPX every couple of updates, partly to stay abreast of the changes being made, but also because for some quick projects it was easier to download and install a demo version of FCPX than to do simple tasks in Adobe Premiere.  Crazy but true.

So, two and a half years after its release, I’m going back to FCP for good.  Why?

First of all, I can’t recommend Adobe’s subscription model.  It is nasty, nasty, nasty.  And Premiere has revealed bug after bug as I’ve gotten to know it.

Meanwhile, FCPX by version 10.1 has solved (almost) everything I wanted solved.  These are simple things but it was insane to leave them out of Final Cut X:

Continue reading “FCP: The once and future king of editing software”

AGEWELL Chataqua Project – Call for Art

Agewell Chataqua Project

AGEWELL CHATAQUA PROJECT ART EXHIBITION: Call for Creative Expressions

Deadline for submissions – April 17, 2014

Exhibition, Public Dialogues, and free creative workshops – May 27 to June 8, 2014

Further Chataqua Dialogue Series – Starts September 2014

The Agewell Chataqua Project invites you to create and submit small-scale artwork that is an expression of your thoughts and feelings on aging: what it means to you; how that meaning is shaped and influenced by your external environment and society; how you are impacted by it, your hopes, worries, and struggles with it; and how the inevitability of it shapes your decisions and actions.

Creative expressions can be in a wide range of media, including paintings, graphics designs, textile art, installations (which can be interactive), photography, poetry, narrative, and performance work in music, theatre and dance.

This invitation is open to everyone, and all are encouraged to submit. We are hoping for reflective work that is thought-provoking and can be used as a starting point for further dialogue on the topic of aging and seniors’ health and wellbeing. We will aim to include as many of the submissions as possible in the exhibit, but due to space limitations, submissions will be gently juried.

The criteria for the jury will include (but not necessarily be restricted to):
• How the creative expression relates to the theme of aging
• Diversity of themes related to aging
• Representation from different sectors of the community
• Clarity of the message of the work

Read more at the Agewell Chataqua website.