This is a bit of an open-ended question, but I’m thinking through how to best organize my clip pages in a way that’s intuitive for busking and live shows, and I’m curious how folks here like to set things up.
How do you organize your clips? Is it by color, static vs dynamic, energy level, or something else? Do you utilize cue groups? Do you rely more on setting effects like colour, movement, and strobe in the clips themselves, or simply use the global effects? Any other tips?
Thanks!
I organised my columns by color using the classical spectrum from red to magenta, with the rainbows clips in the beginning and whites at the end.
Rows are organised by movement, with the top clips having the highest energy.
Effects are stock ones, except for the 4th where I programmed a cross jump moving pattern.
I would love the ability to use a second controller to launch a combination of clips to each beam (and maybe with effects in place, why not).
I do primarily busking. My brain tends to feel into what the moment is calling for based on a few base categories:
-Is this “beam-y” (aka dots), liquid-sky-y (horizontal lines), or something else specific (vertical lines, night-sky with a lot of dots, other specific or complex shapes)
-How much and what type of energy does the moment call for (smooth vs jumpy movement, a lot vs a little)
-How much symmetry/cohesion? (do I want a simple movement that is the same across 3-5 projectors, or do I want offsets aka are the projectors all doing the same thing or out of sync relative to each other)
-Finally, color (single color, dual, multiple, and do I want the native clip color or am I forcing another color with effects)
Based on those things I have my clips divided in 4 basic blocks: Special branded (DJ names, other text & such), dots, bars, complex geometry (triangles, squares, polygons etc). These are separated by a row of empty clip placeholders (slots with no clip in them).
Within each of those blocks (mostly the last 3), I have them organized generally from simple on the left to complex on the right (so starting on left with single dot effects, then 2-4 dots, then effects with a couple dozen dots/planetarium type effects on right),
and with the energy/movement running from static on top to most movement/energy/most dis-symmetry on bottom.
So this way I get a feel for the energy I want to bring on the next clip, and I know roughly where in the clip deck that level of energy & basic look type will be.
Color is really secondary for me because I can just force whatever color I need via effects so that doesn’t play into my organizational scheme.
Hope this helps!
Since all of my clips also contain DMX scenes, I like to keep everything organized by color. So I will take my animations and duplicate them over 8 clips, each with its own color. This was partially why I was interested in the option to be able to change each clips LED color on the APC, this way I could use it as a quick identifier.
If you were tasked with making a new busking layout that were shipped with Liberation, showcasing its feature set and ease of playback and it was due this Friday 12pm Zulu time, what would you submit?
Rather than suggest a layout, I’m going to mention the EXPORT SELECTED CLIPS option that was silently introduced in v.072. This is a pretty self explanatory feature. For those of you with full, multi-page clip decks, with lightly sorted clips, that would be better served with another layer of sorting, this is the way. Setup a clip export folder with the attributes you want to organize it by. This is a good way to make your default clips accessible on any page.
I’m going to suggest start a new project and make 10 cohesive clips and then export that clip deck. If you made all red clips, make a red color folder. If all beams were cones, export to cone folder. This bite-size, modular approach allows to custom organize with ease when you want two color groups side by side, for example. Also, you’re backing your work up, which is never a bad thing.
I should update my last comment on this thread to mention the “organize clips by timeline”. Just tried it for the first time. So much easier if you have a massive collection lightly sorted in one project. Just + clips to timeline and then have them all grouped at the end of the clips collection for an easy grouping & export when you “organize clips by timeline.” HUUUGE!
My clip organizing sucks. I’ve gotta clean up my folders and need to settle on pertinent grouping titles. I’d rather not work with folders for clip management, as much as possible. I’ve been wondering what a clip tagging system would look like in Liberation. I think this is a possible way to do it. Click your timeline selection , click your clip, click +, repeat. Select your timeline selection grouping - then organize clips by timeline. No folder diving required.
