Last semester, I enjoyed taking a class on non-linear video editing (any editing program on a computer is non-linear). The final project was to assemble something original from the archive footage on the school’s servers. I also edited a disturbing little trailer for the movie The Adjuster, a music video, and a couple scenes from an episode of Law & Order SVU using the original takes. I’d post the Law & Order, but I’d rather not go through the trouble and be asked to take it down. Donaji posted a slide-show of her crafts which included a copyrighted song, and was contacted by a third-party to take it down, so…
A lot of ideas for The Vital Spirit Mechanism spawned from watching a trilogy of philosophy videos that gave an overview on the evolution of thought. “Vital spirit” was a way of explaining life and the soul without resorting to science or anything physical, so including mechanism in the title is a play on it. Ancient Greek physiology stated that,
…air enters the body, is then drawn by the lungs into the heart, where it is transformed into vital spirit, and is then pumped by the arteries throughout the body. Some of this vital spirit reaches the brain, where it is transformed into animal spirit, which is then distributed by the nerves.
The Greeks of old also dissected criminals while they were still breathing as a humanitarian effort to further medicine.
The project is about the melding of music, math, and machine by speaking and audibly understanding binary code. Wonderfully preposterous… until it happens. I wrote out the narration and made a text-to-audio file with my Mac’s Automator. The voice was actually on the Victoria setting, but I manipulated it with effects and it resulted in sounding like a male.
The hours of life required to edit minutes of assorted footage into viewable entertainment is depressing. Similarly, recording and editing music is an egregious process of hours of work for minutes of product. You slave your soul to create a piece of music. You slave hours to record a demo of it for people to hear. You then have a hard time keeping their attention while they wash dishes or maybe dismiss it because it’s not a serious record on a label with distribution.
The class was a nice introduction to Final Cut Pro. I want to save up and purchase the program for future projects like editing home-movies.
