Since 1987 I’ve been designing and programming bespoke tools that allow me to create cinema. These include Living Cinema (1987-1989) (programmed in C, MS-DOS computer); “Sand, or How Computers Dream of Truth in Cinema” (1990, Amiga III, Amigavision, MIDI guitar); and Living Cinema (2006 – present, Macintosh, MAX/MSP/Jitter, MIDI guitar and pedals).
Between 2017 and 2022 I made a number of digital tools for and with Robert Polidori. These we put under the general category of “Digital Optical Printers”. They were designed to allow precise duplication of both visual frames and audio samples, along with reframing and resequencing capabilities. I programmed these using the MAX/MSP/Jitter authoring environment. The tools were similar to my Simultaneous Opposites engine, but differed in that they were not real time, and were sample-accurate.
Below are several demos of these tools, in various stages of development.
Below, also find a demo and explanation of my Simultaneous Opposites Engine, 2006 – Present.
Demo of “Flickerer” tool (2022) MAX/MSP/Jitter
Video and audio synch single frame duplication engine by Robert Edgar This is a demo for Robert Polidori
DIGITAL PLAYBACK ANALYZER AND ZOOM RECORDER. (2021). DPA demo with aspect ratio reset and cropping capability
Polidori had film and video shot over several years, in a wide variety of formats and fps. I created this to allow him to move all of his sources to a common format and frame speed, so he could test them in a variety of formats, and then export them for editing together.
DIGITAL OPTICAL PRINTER SINGLE FRAMER DEMO (2018) (SILENT) Allows creation of video file by adding single frames or multiple frames from one or two source video files, or a color frame generator.
A list-based single frame pattern editing tool I created for Robert Polidori in 2018. MAX/MSP/Jitter authoring environment. A second tool design for copying a sequence pattern of frames from a source video file into a target video file. Once the pattern was set, it would snake through the source video, continuing making the copies of the frames until it reached the end of the source file.
DIGITAL OPTICAL PRINTER PATTERN COMPOSER DEMO (2018) (SILENT). Provides for defining a pattern of up to twelve frames and copies them into a new file. First design for the DOP.
SIMULTANEOUS OPPOSITES ENGINE (2008 – PRESENT) (MAX/MSP/Jitter, MIDI, MIDI Guitar) A tool I’ve programmed, used, and continually updated since 2006. This is a demo and explanation of the engine as it was in 2012. I’ve used it for real-time cinema creation. I’ve built variations with various real-time controllers, including mouse, keyboard, MIDI pedals, and MIDI guitars. It remains a contemporary tool in progress.