Wednesday (yesterday) was a fairly typical day for me. After a couple cups of coffee and a banana, I grabbed a camera and two c-stands and headed over to Our Lady of the Lake University on the westside. I met up with Amber and her dancers. She was presenting a piece from her dance company, SpareWorks.dance, later that night at W-I-P Crème (this is the season’s best works from the Works in Progress series). Amber needed the c-stands because the piece, “Taken In Arms,” involves a translucent plastic sheet to be hung in the center of the stage. And she needed me, because I would be providing the video projection.

“Taken In Arms” was previously performed for a SpareWorks.dance fundraiser a few weeks ago. In that iteration, Amber was one of the dancers because of scheduling conflicts. So, one of the things they were working on for the Wednesday rehearsal was to get Jenny Been Franckowiak up to speed on the piece. The other dancers were Laura Beth Rodriguez, Charles Perez, and Eric Flores. This isn’t a particularly good photograph, but it’s indicative of these wedge-shaped tableaus (tableaux?) Amber creates out of bodies. These assemblages look incredibly striking with theatrical lighting.

The next stop was to drive home and load up some equipment to video tape a performance over on the southside. Among URBAN-15’s various outreach programs is the teaching of drumming and dancing to kids, mainly elementary and middle school children. I was asked to video document a final performance at New Frontiers, a charter school on S. Presa. I met up with George, Catherine, and Jonathan at the URBAN-15 studio, and we carpooled about a mile or two south to the school.

There was an assembly room with a stage area at the far end on the second floor. Beautiful. Hardwood floors, large windows along one wall, high ceilings. I set up my camera on a tripod and tried to guess the audio levels. George warned me that the acoustics were horrible. And as the kids began filling up the space, I realized what he meant. The kids were typically unruly, but the stamped-tin ceiling and the wooden floor were making the chatter a mushy wash of high decibels. Here are a couple of kids mugging for my still camera.

It was to be a short performance. I’d been told in advance that we’d start off with the young drummers. Next, the drummers would be joined with the kids from the dance class. And the final piece would be drumming with the dancers (lead by Catherine) moving into the audience and getting the kids and teachers to join them. I was curious how this final bit would go. I wasn’t sure if the teachers knew it was going to happen. They seemed overwhelmed as it was, trying their best to utilize some strange social engineering sign language to get the kids to shut up — a sort of countdown with three fingers, two fingers, one finger, and a fist. There were words shouted as well, but I couldn’t make them out over the general din. For the most part, the kids were quiet by the time the fist appeared. (Maybe it was supposed to be a zero instead of a fist….) Whether or not the teachers received the memo that fifty hyperactive kids would be given permission to join a chaotic conga line, I don’t know, but it was exhilarating to watch when they knew they were expected to join in. The photo below just doesn’t do justice to that sweet moment when the whole sea of kids collectively lost their shit.

Next I drove home and swapped out equipment. I loaded up an old standard definition camcorder, my laptop, a tripod, a computer monitor, and a shitload of various cables. I drove over to Say Sí for W-I-P Crème.

There were seven acts, I believe. And we only had about an hour to rehearse and tech in the space. I needed to set up my computer and monitor in the wings. I put the camera on the tripod, and hooked it into my computer with the longest firewire cable I have. I snaked a 70 foot s-vga cable along a side corridor to hook it up with Say Sí’s projector. I was having an issue with the output image which eventually resolved itself. (I hate when electronics “fix themselves” and you never know what the problem was and when it might happen again.)

Here’s a picture I took just before showtime out the window of Say Sí. The “Art Is” is part of a longer quote stenciled on the glass. Some generic art-positive bromide, which seems not so precious and patronizing when it’s floating in the clouds.

We were up first. The plastic sheet was set up. (This was to define the space for the performers, not to project upon.) A large white plastic cube was placed behind the plastic sheet. It had LED lights inside which slowly morphed different colors. And the projection was hitting a screen on the back wall. My camera was perpendicular to the back wall, allowing a side view of the action behind the screen. I used a VJ program to shift the imagery between video scenes of the dancers shot on previous occasions as well as the live camera feed.

The performance went off fairly well, I assume. I wasn’t in a good spot to see what the dancers were doing or even how the projections looked. All in all, it was a great line-up. I loved Fabiola Torralba’s piece, which I had missed at the last W-I-P. Amazing! And it was great to see Zombie Bazaar perform “Polly” again. He’s an out-of-focus Instagram. That’s talcum power in the air.

Here are some of the Zombie’s near the snack table during the post show reception. That’s Martha, Hunter Moon, and Michi.

I packed up all my crap, stopped by Taqueria Guadalajara for something to eat, and headed home.

I may well have transitioned into an unprecedented phase in my life, where I am supporting myself strictly through freelance creative work. The problem is, I have been too busy these last few months to really look at my finances and make a clear assessment.

We’re coming up on June, and I really haven’t had much of a respite for the 2014 year so far.

I helped move Jump-Start Performance Co., a local theater company, from an 8,000 square foot space to a 2,000 square foot space. That was a protracted and inordinately frustrating ordeal. We had the final event in the space in early January — the annual performance party.

I was also in the midst of putting together Tales of Lost Southtown, a full-length play. There was about 40 minutes of video vignettes which I produced for the show. The live action portions all had me playing the narrator (a slightly modified version of myself), which involved memorizing quite a few lines. Because Jump-Start was between spaces, we had to turn the URBAN-15 studio into a 150 seat venue suitable for presenting a play with a heavy load of multimedia elements. Add to this, we had a different guest artist each night, and it’s no wonder that things became a bit complicated, logistically.

There was also a preview reading of Tales of Lost Southtown presented at Gemini Ink, San Antonio’s preeminent literary organization. I was joined by my director and cast.

My short film, Feeding You, screened twice to packed houses at Say Sí. This was part of the Poet Laureate Short Film Project. I was chosen along with six other local filmmakers to craft a short film in response to one of Carmen Tafolla’s poems.

I was contracted by the King William Association to run a free workshop for artists and arts organizations to use the tools of digital media to better present their work and programming to their audiences and potential funders.

I am attached to two Artist Foundation grants. The one involving lead artist Amber Ortega-Perez (dancer and choreographer) is well underway. We already have two shoots in the can, and we have presented elements of the eventual piece as works-in-progress at the MAP event; a SpareWorks.dance fundraiser at Our Lady of the Lake University; and W-I-P Crème (which will be staged this coming Wednesday).

I’ve been shooting various scenes around town for two multimedia projects a friend who is a public artists is trying to get funding for.

There is a show for Australian TV which I’ve worked on the other week, where I provided the video interview of a well-regarded San Antonio artist. I believe the contract I signed mentioned something about non-disclosure, so I’ll leave it at that.

Coming up I have an eight minute performance art piece which will be presented every Friday and Saturday in June. This is for Jump-Start’s June variety show, Café du Jump: 8 x 8 (8 eight-minute pieces presented on an 8 foot by 8 foot stage for eight nights in June). My piece, which I should be writing right now, will be titled “A Freezer Full of Atrocities.” I have the title. Now I need a concept. But, really, no worries. It’s just eight minutes.

For August I, along with four other authors, will each present a 15 minute (give or take) presentation — poetry or prose — in reaction to one of Matisse’s illustrated books. This will be produced by Gemini Ink for the San Antonio Museum of Art. We will present the pieces at SAMA as part of their upcoming Matisse exhibition.

Also, in August, I will present a multimedia evening installation / performance at Confluence Park. This will be dance and video projection. I will be collaborating with Fabiola Torralba. I’m pretty sure she said yes…. This will be a Jump-Start-At-Large event, free and open to the public, with the generous assistance of the San Antonio River Foundation, who have been kind enough to offer us this beautiful space on the southside.

There will also be Oscuridad: A Night of Fairy Tales For Grownups. This will be the first “main-stage” show at the new Jump-Start. It will be written and designed by the ensemble. I hope to write at least one of the stories. And help on the video and tabletop puppet designs.

There will also be my fourth year collaborating with Seme Jatib for her November show for her dance students at St. Mary’s Hall. I’ll be doing some sort of video something.

And who knows what else I agreed to do. I’m very lucky that many of these projects are paying me. A couple, fairly well. This is important, because my part-time paid job shifted into a part-time volunteer job. So, what once was a gig which subsidized my creative work, has become the volunteer work which is being meagerly subsidized by the creative work. I’m not yet sure how I feel about this.

Well, I’ve certainly been remiss lately as to the upkeep of this blog. I could use the excuse that I’ve been too busy, but that’s not really the case. True, I’ve initiated and collaborated on over a dozen creative projects this year. But, as per usual, I tend to find myself with mountains of free time. This comes from not having a day job; however, I do spend an inordinate amount of time stressing over how to pay my bills one week to the next.

This most recent project actually ate up quite a bit of my time. Jump-Start Performance Company and the Classic Theatre of San Antonio (who operate out of the same space in the Blue Star Arts Complex) decided to collaborate on a staging of a play by Shakespeare. For reasons never divulged to me, Hamlet was decided upon. (A problematic decision, in my opinion, in that there are only two female characters in the play). As a Jump-Start company member — and a new one at that — I felt it incumbent upon me to attend all open meetings and “play dates” concerning this collaboration. There had been talk about video projections. Perhaps with the ghost. Whatever the case, I made it known I was available to do whatever might be needed. That that “whatever” would be acting was certainly an uneasy possibility sitting in the back of my mind. But when I learned I had been cast as King Claudius, I did my best to let it be known I have no real acting experience. The production has two directors. ST Shimi, representing Jump-Start, and Diane Malone, of Classic. They didn’t seem terribly troubled with my lack of experience.

Laurie Dietrich did the cutting of the text. She took it down to the bare essentials of the characters of the court, removing the larger political drama. But I still found myself with 221 lines to memorize. And when I cautioned all involved that I’ve had my cell phone for over a decade and I still don’t know my own number, I guess they just thought it playful self-deprecation.

It was hell getting all those lines down. I spent at least five hours each day drilling. But, somehow, after an ugly and turgid (for me) week of tech rehearsals, I managed to do a serviceable job on stage for the first three performances. I still have another three shows this coming weekend, but I’m fairly confident I’ll survive.

It’s a mixed blessing to be surrounded by so many talented people. On the one hand, they’re always there to help out and give guidance; but, also, they bring to their performances a polish and competence that I really can’t match.

What I’ve learned is that while I don’t particularly like acting, it can be rather fun. When I was whining to fellow company member Chuck Squires about how I was drowning, he said I should trust the process. What the fuck? But, he was right. There’s this point when the lines are internalized and you walk out on stage and they just spool out, automatically. Yes, I have dropped a line or stumbled a few times, but when it’s all going according to the “process” it’s exhilarating, like all those things that move fast and don’t need conscious decision-making, such as driving, riding a bike, making music, etc. Just stand out of the way, and let it happen.

Here I am in costume backstage between scenes.

It seems ludicrous that one’s first acting gig should be a major character in fucking Shakespeare. And I’m getting paid for the job, and quite well. The fact is, it took me a long time to get to this point. I’ve spent much of my life avoiding bringing attention to myself. I don’t doubt that in my youth I suffered from social anxiety disorder. And even in college it took a great deal of inner resolve (and the occasional black-market pharmaceuticals) to manage to read aloud my own short stories in creative writing classes — and that was to an audience of fifteen people, tops. But, in the last seven years or so, I’ve been pushed on stage to introduce people, hauled in front of cameras in TV studios to talk about events, asked to participate on a few occasions in staged performance art pieces, and so on, until I really don’t think twice about getting up in front of a few hundred people. There’s no way I could have even thought of doing this a decade ago. For this production my biggest fear wasn’t so much a room full of slack-jawed gawkers staring me down, but the fear I’d fuck up and let down the rest of the cast. Ultimately I’m encouraged by the fact that even at my advancing age, I can still overcome some of my pesky and debilitating neuroses.

This has certainly been one of those opportunities where I’ve been forced to work outside of my comfort zone. And I highly recommend it.

Hetaerae is coming along well. This is the upcoming Jump-Start performance written by Laurie Dietrich, and co-directed by Sandy Dunn and myself. Laurie will star as the narrator. There will be three other women in the cast. Yesterday, we received commitment from our final cast member, one of my favorite people and an amazing performer. Next week Sandy and I will meet with our cast in an informal gathering. Then we all jump into the work of character-building, rehearsals, and whatever else one does when putting on a play. I’m glad I’m surrounded by seasoned professionals.

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I haven’t been biking much lately, so when the temperature got up into the 80s back on Tuesday, I had no excuse. I hoped on my bike and headed south to Mission Espada. The wind was coming in strong from the south, so I had to fight it all the way. At least it meant that the return trip would be fun and fast with a strong tail wind.

The construction on the river redevelopment is still plodding along throughout that section between Military and Mission Espada. Construction crews are completely chewing up the area around Mission San Juan. The old, abandoned bridge over the canal is being dismantled. Sad. I shot a couple of films on it. It was handy because if you set up the shots right, you could give the illusion of shooting on a two-lane blacktop bridge without having to deal with traffic.

On the return trip, I fell afoul to a blustering northern cold front. I hate when the wind changes, creating head winds both coming and going. These were some feisty gusts, and I found myself constantly down-shifting, even on level ground. I noticed a fellow cyclist pull over. I’m not sure if he was exhausted fighting the wind, or just wanted to use his phone to photograph the whitecaps the wind was raising on the river.

I took a break under a pavilion near the Roosevelt Street bridge, to watch the clouds and see if the wind would die down. As I was trying to post this picture to Instagram —

— I got a call from Gustavo. He needed to shoot some more on the Wappo vs. the World film. CineFestival wants their sponsors mentioned in the film. We’d already done a few, but needed to included more. Would I be able to help out Wednesday afternoon. I said sure, hung up, and fought the winds all the way home.

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Wednesday I met up with Gustavo, Jim, Robb, and Yvonne. We headed over to la Casa del Alebrije, at 1601 Guadalupe. It’s an old house on the westside which, in March, will open as a place providing snacks, art shows, backyard performances, and so on. Gustavo put on his mask and, in character of Wappo, did a short commercial for the business which will be placed at the end of one of the Wappo webisodes which will begin to air online next week.

Next, we drove out to Lisa’s Mexican Restaurant, way out on Bandera Road. They treated us very cordially. We shot a Wappo spot for Indo beer in the bar. And then we shifted over to the restaurant side to do the plug for Lisa’s. Finally, we broke for a late lunch.

Not a bad day’s work. I just need to figure out how to get paid for this sort of stuff (with something other than enchilada plates).

Here’s Wappo with some Indio Beer.

And here we have Yvonne Montoya (Program Director at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center) and Jim Rodriguez (DP on this project), they’re standing beside the cool metal beaded curtain separating the bar from the restaurant at Lisa’s.

Well, last night we wrapped on a short project, Wappo vs. the World.

Gustavo Stebner contacted me a couple weeks back to help out on a project. He was coming to town to put together a short film to be used as promotional material for CineFestival (the nation’s oldest and longest running Latino film festival). The piece will be broken up into a few webisodes, building up to the opening night of the film festival, which runs February 23 – March 2, 2013. Gustavo wrote, directed, and is currently busy editing the episodes. The story involves a masked wrestler, Wappo, as he transitions from a career as an underground wrestling sensation, to greater fame. Along the way he battles vampires, zombies, and the wrath of a spurned woman.

Some of our actors remarked on what a calm set we were all working on. I found myself pointing out, on no few occasions, that when you spend eight days to shoot fourteen pages, you can maintain a certain relaxed atmosphere. True, it also helped that we all like one another.

I keep finding myself on these pro bono gigs. But I did realize the other day that I am getting better at being selective — if the project isn’t financially rewarding, it is always fun. Here are some random pictures of the shoot.

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Years ago, back when my friend Pete and I were working on our digital feature (Vaya Con Dios, Asshole) I was playing around with Garage Band. I built up an industrial drum and bass sort of tune and laid down some dialogue from the film. Specifically some semi-ad lib rants from Marc Daratt, in the guise of a televangelist. I quite liked the outcome. (I have no idea if it still exists on a hard drive somewhere….) I had this idea that I would do a playful musical collage for every project. Sadly, this never happened.

However, I began playing around with the program Ableton Live recently. I built up some dubstep-esque track and began layering some of Martha Prentiss’ monologue from my recent short film with her (“Celebrating the Solstice”). The rough edit is parked on Soundcloud. “What’s the Soundtrack to Your Apocalypse?”)

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/75268253″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

I put it on my iPhone and it’s in my playlist I listen to while running. Twice. Surrounded by the likes of the Flaming Lips, Cafe Tacuba, the London Apartments, and the rest of my workout miscellany. It amuses me in that, if I take the River Walk route downtown to HemisFair Park and back, I inevitably hear my Martha song whilst running past a location we shot at in the film.

Wednesday

It got down to 28 degrees last night, if I can believe my iPhone. At least there’s sunlight out this morning. Yesterday was cold and dark and miserable. I don’t think I even bothered to leave the house. Probably I should find a better way to heat this place than my kitchen stove. Also, it wouldn’t hurt me to get my water heater finally fixed. I know I’m not looking forward to forcing myself to take a shower before my noon meeting. I suppose if I had something resembling a real job I might be able to address some of these issues more easily; but, damn, it’s been so long since I’ve pulled a regular paycheck that I’m not really sure how one goes about getting a job. On occasion I might look for employment opportunities online. Always I give up once I come to the qualification portion. I’m not really qualified to do anything. And, really, I’m much too old to get in at an entry level position (particularly in fields I really don’t care about). I’m slightly heartened that though this meeting I have at noon isn’t for a job, as such, it probably will result in a moderate stipend.

The meeting is at Jump-Start. I’ve been asked to co-direct their next show. Laurie Dietrich invited me to team up with Sandy Dunn to direct her upcoming play, Hetaerae. I’m looking forward to working with the both of them. There will be a portion of the piece presented a week from today at the W-I-P, so it will be nice for us to hear feedback from that night’s audience.

Here’s a picture of Laurie, to promote the next W-I-P. I believe Dino Foxx took the picture, and as such, we’ll just assume he digitally inserted the stigmata.

I’ve never directed for the stage before. Probably I have more experience than I think, though. The three full-length pieces I’ve worked on, allowed me to observe the process from pretty much the beginning of working with actors through to the striking of the set. Each production had different directors, so I’ve seen how various people manage similar tasks differently. Ultimately it’s a spare production, with only four performers, and most likely a minimalist set design. Laurie, who wrote the piece, will be the central performer. She’ll be of great help, as she’s one of the city’s most accomplished directors for the stage. And Sandy’s been working in theater for, I assume, over thirty years. They are also kind and polite (more or less) and won’t make too much fun of me when I do or say something stupid.

My first effort tinkering around with Ableton Live. The vocals are of Martha Prentiss from a short film we worked on in the beginning of January 2013 (“Celebrating the Solstice”). This was a return to a desire I had some years back of creating a music / spoken word collage of each film project, using the recorded dialog of the film to make a “song.”

Tuesday

I’m hunkered at an old battered table in this little breakfast nook off my kitchen, with the oven door open and the setting on broil. I have all rangetop burners going at full. I’ve closed off the bedroom to concentrate this heat. It’s cold out, no doubt about that. But the overcast morning is adding a huge psychological component to my dark, piteous state. This cup of strong, sweet coffee is helping a bit.

The plan for the day is to continue the self-caffeination process until I have the needed reserves to move into the other room, to my standing desk, and plug this laptop into a larger monitor, soundboard, USB keyboard, and maybe even my video projector, and dive into a lengthy series of tutorials for Ableton Live, a music composition and performing program.

This had been my Monday plan, but the day was sidetracked when Dragonfly (AKA Robin) called to ask my help on converting some video files for a project she was working on.

We had lunch first at La Barca. I ask her to tell me about her trip to Burning Man back in August. It’s usually during the holidays when I see Dragonfly. She comes back home from New York to visit her family. Up in NYC she has, for several years, been a member of the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, an activist performance group fronted by Reverend Billy. It was with Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping that Dragonfly attended Burning Man. It sounded like she and the choir had a very positive experience out on the playa. I’d like to go some day.

Here’s a link to the choir’s profiles, with Dragonfly at the top.

Stop Shopping Gospel Choir.

We then headed to G2E. After a lengthy bout of fiddly work, we managed to convert her pesky WMV files into something my copy of FinalCut Pro can work with. As she did some editing, I read the script to a new project by Gustavo Stebner. It’s a lucha-theme short, Wappo vs. the World. I believe I’m doing some camera and or sound work for a shoot Sunday. It should be fun.

Saturday

Yesterday was my second run in two days. I might have to take today off. The sore muscles don’t bother me. But my toes are all messed up. Maybe I need new shoes, or maybe I just need to work on regrowing my calluses.

It’s always a kick running in and near my neighborhood. I usually take either the River Walk south, down towards the Missions, or north, into downtown. This often takes me through the streets of Southtown, or meandering through HemisFair Park. And rare is the run I don’t see a colleague from the arts or film world. True, these aren’t folks much known for public displays of physical exertion, and for each super-fit badass (like Kimberly Aubuchon) there are a dozen others who I nod to in passing as they eat tacos on a restaurant patio, water the lawn, or walk their dogs. (It’s nice to live in a neighborhood where so many cool people live, work, and play.) Sometimes I find myself running through a film production. Yesterday it was a small crew on the downtown River Walk shooting a scene on the picturesque foot bridge near the Arneson Theatre. I stopped and removed my headphones just long enough to say hello to Janet, the Location Coordinator for the San Antonio Film Commission. I gave her a rather sweaty (and wholly unsolicited) hug, and then made good my hasty escape by taking the stairs of the Arneson’s terraced seating up to street level in a very Stallonesque Rocky manner.

I’m happy to see people making movies here in town (even if it’s, as I suspect, some turgid and over-written narrative I’ll never willingly subject myself to).

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Today I had two meetings about upcoming Luminaria projects. The first was with Shimi over lunch at Tito’s. When the food arrived we both pulled out our iPhones to update Instagram with food photos. Here’s Shimi framing up her two tacos on the far side of my enchiladas plate, which looms with calorific majesty in the foreground.

We still haven’t decided on the site where our multi-channel dance / film installation will be situated. We narrowed it down to two possibilities. And now we see how our modified budget (very few people got what they asked for from Luminaria) might still enable us to bring in some other folks to make the piece as grand as possible.

Next, I met up with Seme and her husband Kevin at HemisFair Park. Seme’s Luminaria proposal, an interactive dance installation, also has yet to have a home. We walked around the park, and she indicated two possible locations.

Seme also told me that an online virtual choreographic project she’s been working on which uses some of my video is up and running. Danza Digital. Click HERE or on the image of her below. When you get to the page, choose v2.0 to see some of my video work. Also, check out Seme Jatib’s website for more of her awesomeness.

Friday

Sparks Lab came out of Jump-Start Performance Company’s Summer Sparks New Works Festival, a two day event which premiered in June, 2012. The idea was to have an opportunity for the various creative people involved in the dozen theater, dance, and media pieces presented at the festival to meet monthly and exchange ideas and do group work, and see what might come from this. Past gatherings have had something of a structure, with participants taking turns as facilitators. This month was a bit different. We basically gathered to take stock in where each of us wanted to go with our individual work, as well as how we might help one another. I’m glad to see that there is still enthusiasm in this group. I hope we are able to expand it some. We especially need people with a music background to round things out.

Last night twelve of us gathered (if I’m remembering correctly). Andrew led us in some basic warm up exercises. Laurie then guided us in a sort of visioning meditation where we were asked, each of us, to imagine that it was January of 2014, and for us to think of how our year had gone as far as our creative life was concerned. Some people spoke about fully envisioned projects. Others hinted at some less formed ideas. And a couple just made up some amusing shit on the spot. I’m looking forward to the work these people will be doing in 2013.

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I just got an email from video artist Tim Walsh reminding me that I have some video files I’m supposed to get to him. Whoops! Damn holidays throwing everything out of whack. Actually, the videos look pretty damn good.

Back in December Tim was working with George and Catherine Cisneros at URBAN-15 for their annual holiday laser show, a very popular event. Much of the work is geared towards children, and over the years they’ve entertained tens of thousands of local kids in an outreach to schools. But there are also shows open to the general public which have not just the kiddy material, but also more experimental work. Those are my favorite pieces. Tim is not only a laser artist, but he’s also a musician, having worked in the past with groups such as Brave Combo. Over the years, I’ve seen some strong work where Tim and or George Cisneros have performed music, accompanied by the lasers, which at times are set up to be triggered by the music.

Back in December, after the run of the holiday laser show, Tim asked if I could video tape some of his laser work while his equipment was still set up at the URBAN-15 studio. It was a bit of a challenge. This is like trying to shoot TV sets or computer monitors. The problem is, cameras don’t see laser animation the way the human eyes sees it. The laser light is, I believe, scanning back and forth, not unlike a cathode tube on an old TV. Or perhaps it’s like the refresh rate of a CRT. Something like that. Anyway, I had to monkey around with my shutter speed and frame rate.

The best bit was when Tim unpacked his bagpipes (!) to play as the lasers pulsed and stabbed in the background. It looked like this. Just livelier.

I lowered the camera as far as my tripod would allow and went as wide as possible to get all of Tim in frame as he sat in a chair beside a standing lamp — he played there in a cozy pool of light as the lasers played behind him. Very cool stuff.