RED – is a collaborative project with Zoë Robertson.com (Canadian violinist), Zoe Robertson.co.uk (UK jewellery artist), and Dayna Szyndrowski (Canadian dancer) who put their skills together to create the video RED
Red is a collaborative project created by a duo of Zoe Robertson’s including Zoe Robertson.com a Canadian violinist and Zoe Robertson.co.uk a British jewellery artist.
The duo discovered each other online and whilst striking up dialogue across continents about their work and interests a collaborative project was born. They established parameters for the project and envisaged a performative film would be created with sound jewels, percussion and dance.
To begin a series of sound jewels were created by the jewellery artist using a variety of materials, technical processes and re appropriated objects. These jewels interpreted a list of favourite sounds established by the duo primarily around percussion and rhythm. These sounds would then be digitally captured to provide a moving soundscape for the film.
Once the music was complete I contacted Dayna Szyndrowski, a percussive dancer based in Vancouver, and asked her if she’d be interested in choreographing a piece to go with the music. She responded with some enthusiasm, saying the music lent itself abstractly to flamenco rhythms. Only a few days later she informed me that Vancouver’s Julie-anne Soyent and her organization MovEnt had arranged for Dayna to have four days in a black box theater at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts with lighting designer Ken Reckahn.
For four days we were spoiled by Ken’s tremendous creativity and facility while we played with camera angles, choreography, lighting, mood, space and sound. At the end of it, I had a very tired camera and several hours of footage. Together, Dayna and I sorted through the clips and distilled it to the final edit:
I am not a natural collaborator but both Zoe (UK) and Dayna made it very easy. I will always have mountains to learn about process, software, creation and collaboration, and I can only hope my future projects will be so blessed with gracious company as I have experienced with red….”
red was completed using open-source software.
For audio recording and editing: REAPER
For video editing and post-processing: BLENDER3D
The process of turning the Sound Jewels red would not have been possible without the technical support of the Blender Artists Community forum, with a particular thank you to 3pointedit for his (patience with me and) node set-up.
For more information about making things RED please visit zoerobertson.com