Cyclorama

A few years ago when I was doing live gigs, I needed an app that could do simple projections for me and that I could manipulate quickly while on stage. I wrote a very basic application called Cyclorama in C# and Xamarin.Mac that allowed you to have two videos and crossfade between them, and have an optional static image as an overlay. It worked pretty well for what I needed but I felt it could be improved.

When it comes to projections and videos, my style is very much inspired by the experimental film maker and Godspeed You! Black Emperor projectionist, Karl Lemieux, who uses loops of 16mm footage and layers them on top of each other, and uses subtle manipulations and film burns to create striking scenes.

I’ve recreated this style in FCPX and DaVinci Resolve but neither of those are simple to use, or feasible in a live setting so I’ve decided to revisit my earlier application and rewrite it, this time in Swift and recreate this aesthetic rather than just crossfade between videos.

It can create some beautiful images. I’ll write some more in the future about what is happening. Image of 10 film burns projected over 8mm footage of a goat from the 1950's