In terms of practitioners, I see VDJ's such as DJ Yoda, Sander Kleinenberg, and Charles Kriel as sources of inspiration. The massive interaction between Yoda and his crowd is achieved through the abundance of chopped up vocal samples that are dropped into his sets, which usually appear visually as the person speaking, and are obviously heard through the speakers. This works well with the music that he plays; as a Hip-Hop DJ tracks are usually cut rather than mixed, and the vibe is usually bouncy, light-hearted, almost humorous. Kleinenberg and Kriel have a more refined style, and their sets are slightly more darker and atmospheric; a reflection of the moody techno and progressive house they are associated with. Two different styles, one mad-effective result.
So where next? I didn't want to jump in too soon with this before I fully knew what I was doing and how the process worked, so research was pretty important. I bought a god-sent book, 'How to DVJ', exactly as it says on the tin... It covers literally everything, from setting up equipment to getting gigs, and I'm currently rifling through it to get my head around how it will work 100% good and well. It also came with an instructional CD of making DVD's from scratch to playing them out in a club, which was talked through by DVJ Kriel step by step. This was particularly useful as he explained how the Pioneer DVJ X1 worked. This is the previous model of the version that I'll hopefully be using in a-few weeks, so I'll be ahead of schedule providing it all goes ok.
The next and most crucial step is to start knocking out some footage that I can edit onto tracks, and this is where the collaboration with Tom will be useful. It'll be good to bounce ideas off each other, share footage, and give opinions on how each respective project is going. We've decided on a track that he'll be using for his music video and I'll be using as a part of my set – Stanton Warriors' “Who Are The Warriors”. It's a breaks track that has no video or visuals, so it'll be cool to see what direction it goes in, working from a 'clean slate' as such. Not too grimy, not too up-tempo or melodic, it's a track that we thought was a good compromise between Tom's initial 'darker/conceptual' vision for a video, and my need for a track that will move a dance-floor. Fingers crossed we'll be on track for the interim crit.
