On our way to Wilson's Warf on the Durban Docks, the road narrows. You look down onto a mossy stretch of sand and water.
We looked down.
And looking back up at us were five or six decapitated sheep's heads, all resting on the sand.
I leapt out of the car with Jennifer's camera, and made my way down to the sand.
I can't even begin to describe the stench. But I had to brave the smell to get a photo or two.
I was okay for the first click or two. But I looked up and saw Jennifer crouching near the car. I thought she was gagging. And that stirred my own gag reflex.
The vomit streamed out of me. I averaged one minor hurl and one major hurl per photo taken. Suffice to say it was a short session. But I think I got at least two decent pics.
But it's a haunting scene for me. What the heck were those heads DOING there? Who threw them out? Why? Why doesn't someone clear them away?
So Jennifer and I decided to live a little. On the wild side. To take some chances in our ever-more-padded and sanitized world.
Our method of splashing out? To head for the South Coast of Durban for a swim, instead of the more affluent North Coast.
Where before, we went to the wealthy shores of Umhlanga Rocks for our beach fun, on Friday we decided to try the less affluent Amanzimtoti Beach.
It's probably more accurate to talk of 'effluence' rather than 'affluence'.
It was only after a good two hours of swimming, once we headed off to find a shower to hose the sea water off us that we spotted the info board.
'Beach cleanliness: A+,' it said.
'E coli: HIGH,' it said.
Jennifer and I looked at each other. Decoded the legend at the bottom. I said, 'If we get it, we get it.'
Jen said, 'Let's get some food.'
That evening, I was the first to succumb. 2.30am, and my stomach was sounding like a sewerage pipe spewing tons of shredded all-bran flakes into the sea. Jennifer's tummy followed the next morning.
Saturday morning.
Saturday morning in Durban.
Taking turns contributing e coli to the sewerage system.
Each flush thrusting swarms of little e coli soldiers right back where they came from... Amanzimtoti.
Thanks very much to Dr DN Naidoo, a Durban-based GP we lucked on by walking into the first non-clinic we could find. Turns out he's not only a patient, kind, caring doctor with an excellent bedside manner... But he's ALSO a doctor to the stars. The underworld stars. The effluent of society... The dudes in prison. He mentioned Shabir Shaik. And unnamed others. And then prescribed Kantrexil.
HOW TO LIVE DANGEROUSLY is Warwick Cairns's second book. It's all about how the arbitrary 'safety' and 'health' laws imposed on us by 'the people who run things' are actually really bad for us. The book details strategies for taking back our power, and living better lives as a result.
This video is a multimedia summary of the book.
THE SCRIPTING PROCESS
I contacted Warwick with the idea. And he wrote a first draft script. I edited that, and sent it back to him for further revision. When he was happy that the script accurately represented the contents of his book, he made several voice recordings of the material.
SOUND DESIGN
I chose the best version, and started my sound design. I believe that the audio component of a movie supplies more than 70% of the power of a piece. As I do the sound design, ideas flow for the visuals. I wanted the soundtrack to be able to stand alone as an adio-only podcast, if Warwick wants to use it as such.
JAMENDO.COM & CREATIVE COMMONS
My starting point was to search http://www.jamendo.com/ for Creative Commons 'Attribution' or 'Attribution, Share-Alike' tracks. I specifically remove any track that specifies 'non-commercial' as one of the preconditions for using it. The two licenses I zone in on allow me to mold the music to my needs. With a hat tip to the musicians. In essence, I take their solid tracks, and sculpt them into what I need for the piece I have in mind.
For this type of work, I always search for heavy metal or hard rock first. I find that these genres offer the most energy and diversity of tracks. They almost always have killer bridges, with amazing musicianship. Really good raw material to work with.
I sourced several tracks from Jamendo. And brought them into Audacity, along with Warwick's vocal track. And I built the audio from there.
SKETCHES
In this piece, I sketched several pictures in my little Moleskine. All of these sketches were done in bed, with a copy of the script to hand. I did them in a sort of order, following the logic that Warwick and I created in the script.
My next task was to scan the pics, and work them in PhotoShop CS3. I coloured and textured the pics, squashed and squished them. And generally made them realllllly vivid. A few of those sketches didn't make it into the final film. But most of them did.
EDITING THE MOVIE
Next up was throwing the pics and sound design onto my timeline in Adobe Premiere Pro on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc.
THE CARICATURE OF WARWICK
While I was messing around in Premiere, editing, I took a break. I opened ArtRage on my Asus R1E tablet pc, started my video capture program, and made my caricature of Warwick in one short sitting. It took about ten minutes for me to get it to my satisfaction.
ANIMATING THE CARICATURE IN CRAZYTALK
I then opened CrazyTalk 5.0 on my Toshiba Tecra M4, popped the caricature in, dropped the voice-only track in, and got Warwick's pic talking nicely. When I was happy with the 'acting' of the avatar, I exported as a high res AV. That turned into a 5 gig file!
I slapped the animation movie into Premiere. And then followed tons of fanatical detail work. I originally intended painting speech bubbles for Warwick. But early on in the sound design, I decided to rather go for illustrative pics.
FLICKR & CREATIVE COMMONS
So I sourced suitable photos, using the Flickr Creative Commons search tool. I use the same criteria for pics as I do for music. The pieces HAVE TO be under 'Attribution', or 'Attribution, Share-Alike' licenses.
I found about twenty or so pics, and when trying them, found that most weren't reallllly what I wanted. Everything looks very different when the audio and video come together.
PICTURE AND MUSIC CREDITS
All of the picture and music credits are listed at the end of the movie, and here in the metadata...
MUSIC CREDITS:
"Drowned Devoured"
by Outselling of Lies (Album: THE BEGINNING)
"Marchand de Bonheur" (nouvelle version)
by Contreband (Album: À CONTRE PIED)
"Comercial de Verdade Verdadeira"
by Jailson Brito Jr (Album: MATA BARATA)
This little vid took me about a week of solid work to crack. Deeply enjoyable for me. Warwick's publishers on both sides of the Atlantic (Britain and the US) are very keen to make use of the vid to promote the book.
CONTACT ME FOR YOUR VERY OWN ANIMATED SUMMARY
If you need any animated summaries made of any of your talks, get in touch with me. I work internationally, and I'm keen to see what I can produce for you. My email address is royblumenthal@gmail.com. My website is at http://snipurl.com/visualfacilitation.
Grant Baker is the chief honchito at Firehouse, a rising superstar ad-agency in Johannesburg.
He was interviewed in the CNBC AFRICA studios about the innovative recruitment advertising campaign his company ran to attract talented staff to the agency.
Not very many agencies in South Africa run any kind of advertising for themselves. So when Firehouse ran this campaign, they were really putting their hoses on the block.
The superb thing about running killer recruitment ads (and if I were still in the agency world, I'd definitely be sending them my cv -- the ads are ULTRA hot) is that they kill many birds with one stone.
1. You attract brilliant staff.
2. You send a message to your competitors that they have to up the game. Complacency in the ad world is what's ruining the business. So anything that shakes the game up gives advertising a few more breaths of life.
3. You send a message to your current clients that they're in great hands. If I were a Firehouse client seeing those ads somewhere, I'd be bragging to all of my friends that these guys did MY work.
4. You send a message to untapped clients. Clients who might be disgruntled with the crap attitudes of their current agencies. Clients who might know a thing or two about quality advertising. And you gain new business.
To my mind, Grant Baker walks his talk. And his ad campaign proves it. This is one of the very few ad agencies in South Africa I would be happy to shelve my advertising cynicism for.
This painting was made live in the CNBC AFRICA studio in Sandton during the interview. I made it using ArtRage 2.5 on my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc. I'm available to do visual facilitation work worldwide, translating ideas into vivid colour during meetings, workshops, seminars, and presentations. Contact me on royblumenthal@gmail.com. And view my online portfolio at http://snipurl.com/visualfacilitation.
He appeared last Saturday on the television show I work on. I'm the inhouse visual facilitator for Kaleidoscope on CNBC AFRICA, making pictures of the ideas liberated by the interview process.
Because Rich...! was in an insert, the picture I made of him went unaired. So I figured I'd turn it into an animation. I smsed him a rough script, and asked him to send me voice files via email.
He tweaked them, and made them his own, and sent them to me. I did a sound design and audio edit, and then made the speech bubbles to fit.
If you need any animated summaries made of any of your talks, get in touch with me. I work internationally, and I'm keen to see what I can produce for you. My email address is royblumenthal@gmail.com. My online gallery is at http://snipurl.com/visualfacilitation.
Painting: ArtRage 2.5 & Photoshop CS3. Animation: CrazyTalk 5.1 Pro. Audio Editing: Audacity. Video Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro
Kyle Lindsay, lead singer of Elusion, leaked the fact that they're about to shoot a music video for the fifth track on their debut cd, the song 'Everything is Good'.
I was busy sketching him at the time, capturing his chiselled face in my Moleskine. I immediately whipped out my Nokia E71, on loan from Virgin Mobile South Africa, and asked him to repeat his news into the microphone.
I zapped home, and flung the pic into ArtRage 2.5, powered some colour into it, then smacked it immediately into CrazyTalk 5.1 Pro. Animated and ready for love, I mashed the clip into Adobe Premiere Pro, where I edited it into shape.
All on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc.
The music in the background is... you guessed right... the last bit of the song in question.
Paul du Toit is one of South Africa's busiest and most hardworking public speakers.
He makes a substantial income from one of his lines of business -- conducting public seminars.
He shared his secrets with the Johannesburg chapter of the Professional Speakers Association of Southern Africa (PSASA) in a one-hour workshop.
I was present, making notes. This animation is my summary of the evening. Paul graciously visited my home to record the voice track. And I did all of the painting and animating. (And editing, and everything else.)
The music is by Derek R Audette, and is used under the terms outlined on his website... http://derekaudette.ottawaarts.com/index2.php
If you're interested in how my brand of visual facilitation can add value to your event, please feel free to contact me via email on royblumenthal@gmail.com. My portfolio is at http://snipurl.com/visualfacilitation.
The seven points covered in this video are:
1. Ask yourself WHY you want to put on a public seminar.
2. Advertise well in advance of the event. Get front page or early right hand page placement.
3. For a general audience, have a topic with broad appeal.
4. An amazing venue, food, and a high-value giveaway are big drawcards.
5. Have systems. Secretarial backup. And easy-to-use internet booking tools.
6. Negotiate supplier prices. For example, venue costs.
7. Get paid 5 working days before the event.
All of the work for this was done on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc. I used ArtRage 2.5 for the painting, CrazyTalk 5.1 Pro for the animation, and Premiere Pro for the editing. The music is an edit of a track titled 'Shunned' by Derek R Audette -- http://derekaudette.ottawaarts.com/index2.php. Thanks for the music, Derek!
Wow! What a cool pic! (I mean the pic on the froth, not the photo of the pic on the froth.) TP, the barrista at Latte Licious in Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton made this piece of shlurpable art. Thanks dude.
I was interviewed on air on Saturday 4 October 2008 about my new role on the Kaleidoscope team.
I'm the show's resident visual facilitator, making pictorial interpretations of the interviews on the show.
We broadcast every Saturday night, 7:30pm to 8:00pm Central African Time (which is +2 hours GMT), on CNBC AFRICA. That's on Channel 410 on South Africa's DStv, and in various free-to-air satellite offerings across Africa.
I work on an Asus R1E tablet pc, sponsored by Rectron South Africa. I use ArtRage software to make my paintings.
I hope you'll check out my visual facilitation portfolio online. It's at http://snipurl.com/visualfacilitation.
Hire me. I work internationally.
Tags: cnbc africa cnbcafrica kaleidoscope mandlakazi mpahlwa roy blumenthal royblumenthal coffeeshopschmuck visualfacilitation
I'm now a weekly co-anchor of CNBC AFRICA's business magazine show, 'Kaleidoscope'. Mandlakazi Mpahlwa draws information out of our guests. And I draw that info live on screen on my Asus R1E tablet pc.
I wrote this promo for the show when Catherine Gargan, my senior producer at CNBC AFRICA, confirmed that we'd be going ahead.
I had already secured a sponsorship deal with Rectron. They agreed to supply an Asus R1E tablet pc for me to use on the show.
However, when our shoot date arrived, there was no stock of the machine in the country. So I had to use my trusty old Toshiba Tecra M4 as the star of the show.
Thanks to Catherine Gargan for producing and directing, Bathabile Modutoane for camera, everyone in studio for getting the feed right, and Andre Oosthuizen for editing.
All paintings I make for the show will be made on my Rectron-sponsored Asus R1E tablet pc, running ArtRage 2.5. The show airs via satellite on Saturday nights, 7:30pm to 8:00pm (Central African TIme, or GMT +2 hours), on CNBC AFRICA. That's channel 410 on DStv.
VISUAL FACILITATION: Know what a 'visual facilitator' is?
It's me. I sit in your boardroom, training room, workshop, with my tablet pc on an artist's easel. And I paint pictures of the ideas floating around the room. And these pictures are projected on the venue walls in real-time.
WRITER/DIRECTOR: My other chief income-generating activities are in corporate and industrial theatre and video, where I freelance as a writer and director. I specialise in Augusto Boal's Forum Theatre.
CREATIVITY: Check out my creativity and coaching list, and book me if you want a creative jolt.
MY ART: My life motto is: "I live my art in prosperity and abundance."
