digest, fragment and catalogue

This whole weekend has been spent watching videos that contain copious amounts of source material and cutting out the fragments that I wanted
In the past, I thought of the video clip that I wanted, searched for it and then chopped it out for whatever purpose
This got me thinking and wondering how many times I lost an idea because the labor took too long and I lost inspiration/interest so I tried using videos that held a very large amount of source material

First was the documentary “KRAFTWERK and the electronic evolution”
I originally started on this video because there is a great quote from Conrad Schnitzler coupled with a great photo of him under power lines with a mixer and headphones (which will be the intro clip to show #8)
This 3 hour monolithic slab of a documentary has so much information in it that it took me a whole day to comb through it
It was worth it though because I have tons of new material to use for the show

Next came the collection of Japanese toy commercials from the early 70’s
I went there looking for a commercial for the TV show but ended up staying for the countdowns between clips
They were old to begin with but the dubbing to VHS had degraded them more, giving them lots of scratches and pops and skips
As I was hacking through that footage, it occurred to me that I should do a barrage edit of these commercials
Specifically, I should use fragments of the commercials where the pieces of the toy come together accompanied by cool 70’s Japanese sound effects
I bet some really cool loops will come from that
But that will have to wait because I am burnt out

Finally, I decided to work on the most dense project of the weekend
The intermission collection
The Kraftwerk documentary may have been 3 hours long but the intermission collection is very dense
Previously, I have been using a “condensed” version where I load the video into movie maker and just cut out the fat, leaving a montage of video clips usually 10 to 15 minutes long (like I did with RIP last week)
However, this time I realized that I could send individual fragments to a new folder instead of one large compilation video
This allowed me to createtons of tiny clips with a bit of extra on each side just to have some editing room
I ended up with 93 indivisual clips ranging from a couple of seconds to a couple of minutes
All titled with names that describe the content in a way that I will understand when referencing the ideas
Not only did I get tons of commercials and stock footage but also some fragments that were saved purely on the asthetic quality rather than the subject matter addressed in the clip
Anything from crude sexual innuendo achived with selective editing to fragments that will work as loops for music
This caused me to wonder how many ideas I had lost because

Eventually, I hope to build a huge library of fragments that can be referenced at a moment’s notice
Hopefully, this will remove a barier in the artistic process, making it easier to catch as many ideas flowing from my brain as possible thus allowing me to be more prolific

Look for a couple of new barrage edits coming soon including “Japanese Toy edit #1”