scnproductions

Perfect!..or that'll do (a classic oxymoron)

stuart@scnproductions.com (Stuart Neale) — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 15:01:24 GMT

I have been referred to along lifes journey as a ‘perfectionist’ and with some internal satisfaction I previously received this label with glee, but now I’m not so sure..

Whilst it's not limited to any one particular trade, skill, lifestyle or technology, I can use the audio/visual arts as a prime example where this is played out frequently. In earlier decades (yes I have not so recently entered my seventh!) I may have found myself cooking up a load of interesting sounds, hands feverishly moving across a Roland Jupiter 8 synthesiser, in the pursuit of that most perfect sound for the part - one that would set the world alight and contribute to the recordings ultimate success, no..even a sound that would be responsible for that records’s success; wow what arrogance indeed…

Swing the clock forward three decades sees amazingly advanced technology from those early days, but the potential creative entrapment is still as vibrant as before. Take film-making as an example where to furnish your technical portfolio with the highest end equipment afforded by your budget at the time, can catapult you into a frenzied pursuit of ultimate perfection across your specialised area. For those creative directors operating autonomously, this is very keenly felt, to ensure the limitation of excellence can only be laid at the door of one person….yourself!

So with all the very best at your fingertips we have the choice during many stages of the creative process, to internalise the above, subconsciously murmuring - ‘I have arrived, perfect!’..or..’..mm..’if only I just tweak this particular colour grade, or audio track then it will actually be better and then I will actually be happy with the result..’(thats a long internalisation but you get the point!)

Well then this begs the question, what is the professional, operational and creative line that one must draw in this vast sand of deliberation? At what point do we make that agreement with ourselves to halt and be content with what we have produced, what we are seeing and hearing…and of course the most salient consideration in this matter is, will they notice, will it make a difference to our clients and consumers?

I return briefly to those days of slaving over a hot keyboard and can most certainly witness to the fact that after hours and hours of said pursuit of excellence, invariably I arrived back at the same place as when I started!..or even the end result moved away from that original spark and therein entered some level of deterioration resulting in associates comments like "it was working better before..." - most unfortunate and deeply unrewarding! Those around you can be of great assistance sometimes, however beware the ‘perfection chasers’ who have some influence over your creativity - after all this is a very subjective business; what are we saying to ourselves here, its perfect but in whose eyes, in whose opinion…

Excellence in itself I believe, is a worthy ambition, but, with a myriad of mitigating factors and circumstances we have to sometimes pragmatically use whatever we have been fortunate enough to be created with, and subsequently worked on and finely honed, thus reaching that that timely creative milestone that says - ‘that’ll do’..which can also sometimes, occasionally or often be…”perfect.”

Where Art meets Politics - a bridge too far?

stuart@scnproductions.com (Stuart Neale) — Sat, 28 Oct 2023 20:17:39 GMT

Both the music and film industries have primarily been established over many decades, being driven through the hunger of the consumer to be entertained. Of course nothing wrong in that (I hear you say), but when in the case of purely commercially released music and film production being used very effectively as ‘containers’ to deliver a variety of messages, which are not derived from genuinely altruistic but self serving motives, I begin to wonder is this really 'Art'?

When purchasing music or film (oh I mean streaming don’t I, silly me…see previous blog https://www.scnproductions.com/nobody-does-it-better-than-you ) our appetite or desire to be entertained has the potential to be met with productions that cross different boundaries. It maybe a song with political content such as the Specials release in 1984, “Free Nelson Mandela”, which was then re-released in 1990 when in fulfilment of that song's campaign he was freed; or Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The USA”, again a 1984 release which lyrically represented a soldier struggling with civilian life returning from the Vietnam war.

It’s certainly no new phenomenon where the highly successful artist achieves a status of such popular appeal that their voice extends outside the typical expectations of pure entertainment, one prime example being that of Bono from U2.

Clearly in the early years of U2’s rise to fame, the passionate protestation of unfair discrimination and victimisation shouts loud and proud (encapsulated in their song ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday), but did Bono always have the ambition to become what some perceive him as being i.e. a ‘political superpower’? After all he just played in a Irish rock ‘n roll band right…

Another dimension to this train of thought reaches across into the corporate world of charitable giving, versus true philanthropy and altruism.

According to this years CAF report (Charities Aid Foundation), whose analysis of the FTSE 100 companies' giving for 2022 reports a total of £1.85billion. Now on the face of that figure (which on average has been the same since 2016), ones heart might be gladdened with the UK’s corporate effort in this area. My reason for penning this blog however was born out of the following question:

There are some amazing achievements done in the name of compassion by wealthy individuals, companies, musicians, singers, artists, film studios etc, but to what extent are these performed to gain more wealth or notoriety, versus the true sacrifice of an activity, campaign or even a life given over to the cause?

…and through all of that the entertainment industry is handsomely fed and watered irrespective of peoples motive and ambition.

'Catching the Eye' - technology makes possibilities

stuart@scnproductions.com (Stuart Neale) — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 18:09:38 GMT

After having walked some distance on the journey of film and digital capture and dare I say photography, my eyes have indeed been ‘opened’ to some interesting concepts and realisations.

Take the subject of depth of field for example, which has for many decades opened up cinematic and photographic opportunities for creative visual representations of not only the real, natural world, but also an avalanche of ‘special effects’ specifically created for film, TV and many other consumer-led photographic industries. The digital ‘Iris’ known as 'aperture' has been the bread and butter of lens manufacturers for decades, allowing a myriad of focus permutations, together with rich variations of ‘bokeh’ for the capture of outstanding visual performances whether in the film studio or 'on location'.

But for the source of innovation and creation we can look no further than our very selves - the human form, which intrinsically provides a template for so many things, not least of which is the construction and operation of the human eye....

Let us consider for a moment the in-built capability of just one element of the exposure triangle, that being our ability to make split second changes to our focus length according to the myriad of light conditions; the amount of camera and lens configurations needed to emulate this vast expanse of permutations would be endless, together with the speed of set up coming absolutely nowhere close to our own, visual expertise.

Now where technology may have introduced additional, tangible layers of dimension to the ‘capture’ process is the emerging development of virtual digital techniques such as the planned virtual production laboratory scheduled for completion here in Belfast Harbour Studios - https://www.business-live.co.uk/technology/new-belfast-virtual-production-lab-27139470 - a new brand of explosive creativity that heralds even greater illusions of reality, and supernatural effects, I believe will attract many global operations including the Hollywood ‘set’ for many future productions; with Disney’s show “The Mandalorian’ already having been produced at this 'cutting edge' production facility, it certainly seems destined to ‘catch the eye’ of the consumer as the productions roll in and roll out…

Nevertheless, its worth sometimes to stop and stare and by using the very tool we were born with, that has indeed the most extravagant visual ability, together with that pandora’s box called ‘imagination’, we can emulate and even surpass the technical engineering constructed by human hands.

Yes we can be inspirationally motivated by our wonderful industry but not reliant on its' technology to ‘Catch the Eye’.

Nobody does it better...than you! valued or commoditised?

stuart@scnproductions.com (Stuart Neale) — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 16:52:13 GMT

In an age where technological advances have resulted in artificially created ‘intelligence’, giving rise to automation on an unprecedented scale that previous generations would not have ever imaged.

Nevertheless there remains fundamental facts about the human race that cannot be denied, one being that each individual born on this plant has a unique DNA thus we all have unique fingerprint, a character and person that is like no other.

I could have given this blog the title - ‘whose property are you? or more pertaining specifically to our creative industry - who owns your intellectual property?…a very pertinent question for those who have built their careers within either the music, film or arts industries. I mean not to offend or be misunderstood when I say (in my opinion) there is validity in the expressionism that individuals can bring to previously created works (is there really any ‘originality’ left for the creating I wonder…) - how many breathtaking ‘cover versions’ of either widely or lesser known songs have been huge successes after the original recording…as indeed there have been many alternative versions of movies with different Directors interpretations, that all have found resonance with their avid consumer bases…yes with all relevant licensing permissions given, this is certainly a most valid route for creative advances and popularism.

My enthusiasm however falls short, no, in fact meets a brick wall, when through the intention to change what used to be a monopolising industry, now all source material is available through commoditised mechanisms to benefit the general consumer public, but at the expense of author and creator. Such examples as Spotify, Amazon and Apple provide an vast array of musical and video content, but at what price to the content creators…

For Hollywood writers, actors and film makers, this large menacing cloud now has begun to burst, threatening the livelihoods of many but its nothing new; we only have to turn our gaze back to the global pandemic where such creative output has been used to sustain our very souls and well being, but without the true recompense being poured out those writers and performers…

We can’t of course have our cake and eat it, with all the wonderful automation tools used with the recording, filming and post production process, giving young musicians and videographers accelerated platforms to push ahead their careers. My instincts however pull me back to the pillars of these industries where unique character and personality were the building blocs for original creative content - God forbid that any artificially created intelligence should supplant what has been naturally created, no matter what side of the evolution theory you stand on - nobody does it better than you!

A Musical Note - frequency and perfect pitch - absolute or not?

stuart@scnproductions.com (Stuart Neale) — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 12:06:10 GMT

Not so perfect pitch.

After some decades immersed in the composition and performance of music in various formats, it has come to my attention that not all notes are necessarily ‘musical’.

To assimilate all the known sounds and frequencies of the created living world under the banner of being musical would of course be incongruous with an holistic view of nature, however independent of the sound of man’s created world there are natural ‘frequencies’ being emitted which in many cases can be described as musical and used in such a setting.

Now when it comes to frequencies and vibrations, there has been much learned regarding their physics and science, and, for one having been immersed in the execution of tuning frequencies, (in the form of piano tuning) I still have some unanswered questions…

For example what is ‘perfect pitch’? Or indeed is there really such an absolute frequency and if so, how was it derived and by whom…

Now to delve into this subject we have to understand some historical background as to how we have arrived at the musical framework and frequency standards of today. As a rule of thumb, for piano tuners across the globe, the ‘pitch’ or frequency standard used as the de facto standard is A440hz. This means that the note ‘A’ creates waveforms and the peaks and troughs oscillate at the rate of 440 cycles per second. Now I’m no scientist, but a mere tuner of instruments, so in layman’s terms I take along a tuning fork that when struck emits such a tone frequency at 440 waveforms per second, which sets the fundamental pitch of the instrument.

Well actually I use a different note which is C 523.3, this being the same frequency level as A440 just three notes higher.

For those curious musical types amongst us, have you ever wondered why all orchestras, bands, electric guitar tuners, woodwind, brass, stringed and tuned percussion instruments across the board, are based on this tuning known as ‘Concert Pitch’?

Well circa 1936 the American Standards Association In 1936, the American Standards Association recommended that the A above middle C be tuned to 440 Hz. This standard was taken up by the International Organization for Standardization in 1955 as Recommendation R 16, before being formalised in 1975 as ISO 16.(Wikipedia). Thus ‘Concert Pitch’ was born which is with us to this day.

The history of music, sound and frequency is immensely populated with innovative and creative people across the ages, who have played their part in this beautiful story of sound creation. Mozart, Beethoven and many others did not have the luxury of modern day instrument design and manufacture, however they were involved as key forerunners in todays design. In actual fact, the tuning frequency of an orchestral piece was defined by the solo instrument’s capability such as piano, clavinet, harpsichord etc and so tunings ranging from A335-445hz would be used, this being an example frequency range but not limited exclusively to these of course.

Even future back in history as far as biblical times we discover that the instruments used were certainly not tuned to A440hz, such as the shofar (ram’s or Yudu horn), or 10 and 12 string harp of King David.

So in my experience I have to question the validity of perfect pitch - this being known as an inbuilt absolute tuning frequency that any individual can ‘hear’ without reference to any instrument or sound generation of said frequency.

In my own family I can witness to the claims that certain members possessed this wonderful gift, but whilst musical knowledge and understanding, plus highly trained musical perception can provide heightened levels of ‘relative pitch’, there are reasons to believe that perfect pitch does not exist.

My own musical journey has led me down paths of alternative frequency levels such as the well known A432 and A444 (also known as C528), which both provide a resonance that doesn’t exist with standard tuning (A440). This the question remains how can there there be an absolute tuning when there’s such diversity of frequency and sound existing in these alternatives.

For me, there is an absolute certainty and that is, music and sound creation transcends ‘man’s’ ability to create, but most certainly enhances it.