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Video Remix

May 30, 2008 12:00 PM, By Matt Hurwitz

Addictive TV changes the scene with Live Cinema.

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Because the work of audiovisual remixers is so specialized, development of new software and hardware requires the participation of such artists to ensure the arrival of products that will be truly useful. “A lot of manufacturers are inviting interested parties such as ourselves to provide feedback during development,” says Addictive TV Producer Nick Clarke.

“Others, though, have not,” says Addictive TV Producer and VJ Graham Daniels. “They release audiovisual performance tools without having asked artists what they need and what they think will work, and they just haven't sold at all. It's not that they're not good products. But some manufacturers just didn't reach out to artists and ask, ‘What would you like on this kind of product? When you perform, what tools do you want? What would you need something like this to do?’ You can't just have some marketing guy, who knows nothing about AV performing, making those kinds of decisions. It's a niche market, and you have to find the people who are actually doing it and ask them what they want.”

Addictive TV, in particular, recently worked closely with Pioneer to develop the newly-released SVM-1000 audio/video mixer. “They called us in, originally, to show us the plans and say, ‘Which kind of design do you think would work best?’” Daniels says. “With some areas, they really listened to us, and other of our ideas were maybe a little bit expensive, so they went for the cheaper option. But it's a great tool. It enables you to cut, mix, and effect audio and video at exactly the same time.”

Pioneer had also asked the team to suggest ideas for the types of filters and effects that Addictive TV had developed or made use of. “We gave them some ideas, and it was really great for us to see them come to fruition,” says Addictive TV VJ Tolly.

“One of the visual effects we always like to use is a blur filter — which, when you also heavily filter down the audio at the same time, it kind of looks like what you're hearing,” Daniels says. “Pioneer didn't have a [programmer] inhouse who could create that one, so they had to go outside to find somebody.”

After playing a show in Tokyo in 2007, the Pioneer marketing and engineering teams proudly arrived at the gig to meet the Addictive TV duo. “There were about 30 who came down, which was just so pleasing to see,” Daniels says. “And they introduced us to this girl, who was the actual coder brought in to create that blur filter. When we walked off stage, they all lined up to greet us — like a royal performance, if you know what I mean.”

For many artists, letting trade secrets and working processes out of the bag could mean having to scramble to come up with a new signature style — although that doesn't appear to have been the effect on Addictive TV. “We don't sit there thinking, ‘Oh, my God, everyone's somehow now making stuff like us! Not at all,” Daniels says. “It might make us think of a few different ideas and run faster, but essentially we'll still do what we do.”

“Actually, it's great,” Tolly says. “Because it's helping to bring on the whole AV scene, and that's exactly what we want.” — M.H.

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© 2009 Penton Media, Inc.