24 Hour Results
Sunday, June 24, 2012 at 5:30PM In any creative profession where a project in completed by a single individual, one of the most impactful techniques one can employ is something called the “Morning After Test”. Whenever you work on a project for a long stretch of time, two things will inevitably happen. First, while painting you’ll be so focused on individual trees that it becomes very difficult to even notice the incoherent forest you’ve created. Secondly, fatigue over painting all those trees will cause you to lose perspective and objectivity. You might like your brush strokes, but your overall composition might be less than ideal.
In my personal experience, I’m always surprised by my own reaction to the Morning After Test. Usually; I find that whatever it is I’m feeling the night before the opposite is true the next day. For example, the standard edition of Horizons for the Vista Series, here’s what can happen in 24 hours…
As you can see a lot can happen in day. The original version was way too on-the-noise with the incorporation of blue horizontal lines. Additionally, there was no distinguishing from those lines and the light beams. The sky was still too dark from the memorial edition. And the there were some really weird effects with the pink horizon and the white starburst emanating from the pavilion. Hopefully, you can tell the difference with the final image.
Still, even after the improvements I was still very apprehensive about the final image. But the next morning I couldn’t have been happier about the results.
In sharp contrast is my current project. Just last weekend I completed Disc One for The Land FWSS release. After completion I was very impressed by the work. However, after listening to the full album the next day there was a lot I liked but a lot more that I didn’t like too. The Kitchen Kabaret sounds great (including some special surprises), as does the new music-centric Symbiosis and great concepts are at work in BGMs and Listen to the Land. The big problem is stitching it all together in the time allotted. In general I’ve discovered that musically, The Land is massive collection of contradictions. New Age versions of folk songs, Traditional Country, and Jazz, what a weird combination of musical forms and one that I have to create a musical flow for. No easy task!
Nevertheless, I have some pretty unconventional ideas I’m trying for and I hope you’ll like the results when it’s released later this season.
Now Back to the Mixing Board!
Reader Comments (3)
Really looking forward to the Land! Love your site! Thanks for all the hard work!
Finally a new post! The long hours you put through each night to make these things really makes me love your work even more. Can't wait for The Land!
Thanks for this post! I'm a mere amateur when it comes to graphics but nevertheless I like working on them myself from time to time. I liked the Horizons motive a lot and had it on my desktop for quite a time. Your post is a good lesson on how to work on details and how they influence the overall impression.
Guess what I have on my desktop these days... your Summer 2012 motive on The Land! Can't wait to see and listen to your great work again! Thanks a lot for your continuous high quality work on this project. E82 is one of my absolute favourites on the internet.