When we watch a music video, a commercial, or an interesting piece of cinematography, our eyes are often treated to unique visual effects meant to capture our attention and possibly evoke a response. The content creator of the media used in these genres has a wealth of tools and plug-ins available to create these types of effects as well as a creative eye that’s been trained to use these effects.
Most lighting programmers who are not content creators might not be able to easily identify these types of visual effects, simply because we spending our time working with lighting fixtures with gobo wheels and prisms, so we likely don’t think in terms of transitions beyond “linear crossfade” or “snap” and of effects other than strobe, irises, or overlaying rotating gobos.
What the programmer of a media server comes to know eventually is that there is a world of visual effects available just for tricking out a piece of media. So, it’s important to be familiar with as many of these as possible so that you can create them when you find yourself driving a media server from a lighting console.
Visual Effect Overlays
Since programming a media server is very similar to working with compositing software, only just in real time, most media servers offer a Visual Effects channel in the DMX protocol. Some of the most common types of visual effects I’ve seen in media servers include:
- Alpha Channel
- Kaleidoscope
- Channel Shift
- Mirror
Fig. 1 is a basic image; Fig. 2 shows ways it can change when using these effects.
There are some effects with names that may not be familiar to you unless you have used an image editing application like Photoshop for instance, but it’s likely you’ve seen them in videos on the web or on TV.
- Solarize
- Pointillize
- Pixellate
- Posterize
Fig. 3 shows examples of these effects.
Some visual effects are just downright fun to play with, and while they may come in handy once in a while, most of the time they sit there waiting to be used.
- Ripple
- Twirl
- Wobble
- Distortion
Fig. 4 shows these effects.
If you have access to a program like Adobe’s Photoshop or After Effects, opening the programs and familiarizing yourself with terminology and applications for most of these visual effects can be very beneficial since the majority of them have the same functionality in the server as they do in the compositing and editing software.
Learn by Doing
Ultimately, the best way to familiarize yourself with all of the different types of visual effects available in the media server you’re using is to experiment. This means taking a piece of content and playing with all of the effects, adding them on one at a time and exploring the parameter controls that are available for adjustments (such as quantity of columns or rows, level of color for alpha keying, or speed of the wobble).
I frequently instruct programmers, and one way I suggest learning a server is to pick a piece of music that you like and then try programming something visual for that music using a server and stock content. Usually very quickly the programmer will begin to navigate through the visual effects looking for just the “right” effect, in much the same way the lighting programmer searches for the right gobo, focus, and rotation speed.
If you don’t have the media server available for experimenting, then in most cases you can download a demo version of the server’s software and experiment on your laptop while in the airport on the way to the gig.
Transitions
It’s important to challenge yourself as the programmer of a media server to think beyond just simply playing back a piece of content, unless that is what is required at the gig. Most gigs will, however, allow you some creative input into at least the transitions between clips, so it’s important to understand how to cleanly and effectively transition into and out of a piece of content.
Some servers allow for a simple crossfade between two pieces of media on a single layer while others require two layers and then using layer intensity to crossfade (of course the media server programmer should know what the server’s features are before arriving on show site).
For servers that allow crossfading on a single layer, then transitions can also provide unique visual effects that help add dynamic energy to the playback of media. Some of the more common visual transitions found in servers include:
- Dissolve
- Wipe
- Zoom In/Out
- Rotate
- Flash
- Fade through Black, White or a color
So you see, there are many ways that a piece of media content can be manipulated for playback beyond just simply playing a clip as it was recorded. All of these visual effects and transitions can be applied in endless combinations, resulting in a virtually unlimited palette of looks that can be achieved. For most programmers of media servers, this is what draws us to the server to begin with; the unlimited opportunity for creativity!
