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SOUND DESIGN
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.
THE FINISHED PRODUCT
An ArtRage forum member sent me a message asking me how she could get into doing visual facilitation for a living. I figure my answer to her might be worth sharing. And maybe we can have some dialogue about my thoughts that might open it up and make it a bigger topic for us all.1. Are you well-read, well-versed in non-fiction, specifically business stuff, psychology, marketing? You'll need to pump up your knowledge in these fields.Regarding the actual 'How' of your question, I recommend just sitting in on some event or other, and pushing yourself into doing a live visual facilitation without screening your work or standing out from the crowd in any way. Just draw what you hear. Get a feeling for how much work you need to do to be on top of things. Do more of these.
2. Are you able to concentrate fiercely well for long stretches, listening ardently to new information, synthesising patterns from it, picking out fascinating details pertinent to the greater whole?
3. Can you multi-task? REALLY multi-task? When you're doing a visual facilitation, you're doing lots of things at once. I've described it to someone as 'flying a helicopter while holding two simultaneous, in-depth conversations'. I think I might revise that description and add a second helicopter to the mix.
4. How do you prefer to work -- traditional media or digital? This is a far-reaching fundamental choice. Sounds from your skill-set that you're digitally comfortable.
You haven't mentioned whether you use a tablet pc (or Wacom Cintiq), or if you're using a Wacom tablet?
Tablet PC is my preferred route. There are currently three machines in South Africa that I can recommend... Toshiba Portege M700, Asus R1E, Fujitsu T5010.
Portability of your setup is of paramount importance. Heading out to some remote conference centre should not induce muscle strain or back pain.
Working on traditional media limits what you can offer to your client. Most of the visual facilitators around the world use traditional media. I so so so don't recommend it. No edge. No instant distribution. However, if you MUST do it that way, go for it.
5. Are you willing to expose yourself to a roomful of people by making art live, before their very eyes?
I assure you, you are totally naked when your stuff is appearing live, in real time, on a huge screen next to the speaker's screen. They're watching your every move.
If you have ANY fear of public humiliation, you're going to find visual facilitation pretty hardcore.
If you're comfortable to do some really nice work on the odd occasion, with mostly clodhopper ATTEMPTS at brilliance most of the time, with people watching you frown as you hit the eraser button on ArtRage, then you'll thrive. It helps if you're an exhibitionistic showoff with immense amounts of self-confidence.
6. Are you happy to spend a lot of time doing free gigs for high profile audiences in order to establish a name for yourself? Do you have the chutzpah to inveigle yourself into events as 'the visual facilitator', even though you weren't invited, they've never heard of you, and you don't wanna pay the entrance fee? Do you have the ability to earn an income elsewhere to allow you to take a year to build this up into a business? Are you willing to learn and adapt what you're offering based on the gigs you do?
7. Do you have a winning, magnetic, persuasive personality?
8. Do you have the ability to look someone in the eye and say without shame or embarrassment or hesitation, 'I charge R12 500 per day for what I do.'? If you're blushing at the thought, convert that blush into a warm, fuzzy, delicious feeling of anticipated joy and liberation.
9. Are you comfortable with technology as a means of disseminating information about yourself? I use Twitter as my main communication tool in the world. I've been a blogger for about 6 years. I've had a website since the internet came to South Africa. I use Flickr as my primary portfolio tool. And so on.
The entire process took less than five minutes. And the little 30 second vid below is just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more I can do with the software.
Suffice to say that I'll be finding a way to incorporate this into my visual facilitation practice.
The little speech bubble containing the link to my visual facilitation portfolio online is something new to YouTube -- video annotations. You can place them wherever you want in a video. Also amazing. Very useful. Makes YouTube a very good teaching tool.
Welcome to Roy Blumenthal's visual facilitation pictures made during the NSASA Convention 2008, at the Sibaya Convention Centre near Durban.
After observing and being on the receiving end of Roy in action during the conference, Joe Sherren, President of the International Federation for Professional Speakers, sent this email to Roy:
Roy sat in the room with his trusty tablet pc attached to a video projector. Each session, he paid serious attention to what was being said, and painted his interpretation of the ideas being delivered.
Something else suggests that his efforts were appreciated. 'I brought about a thousand business cards with me, and I've got fewer than half left.'
When he came off the stage, he was beaming. He went over to Roy and said, 'I'm a convert. I'm really glad you were doing that behind me, Roy. Thank you.'
Kristin, who traditionally doesn't use Powerpoint in her presentations, said afterwards, 'I've never worked with a visual facilitator live. Roy provides a way to seamlessly integrate visuals with a presentation.' She said, 'While I'm describing or explaining something, Roy is reinforcing my message.'
Ben Zander, speaker, co-author of THE ART OF POSSIBILITY, and conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, has used Roy's graphics on his website.
All of the paintings in this group are made live, on the fly, in the room, while the speaker is delivering his or her address. I currently use a Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc, running ArtRage 2.5 painting software.
I am available for international gigs. Please email me on royblumenthal@gmail.com or call me on my mobile: +27 74 104 6386 to book me.
Having recently come across the field of 'visual facilitation', I'm striding headlong into this as a way of earning my living.
This is a quick read for people to get a sense of what it is I do. It's little more than a skim overview. But hopefully it arouses some curiosity.
From the top, the interventions I've used are:
o John Tschohl (www.johntschohl.com).
o Benjamin Zander (www.benjaminzander.com). He wrote to me and said...
I've been so busy [...] that i haven't written to acknowledge
your beautiful drawing/painting. It captured the spirit (and quite a
lot of the content) of the event and I will treasure it. In fact, it
is on my website.
Thanks so much for pouring your heart (and hand) into The Art of
Possibility. What a blast we had that day!
Warmest greetings
'till the next time we meet in SA
Ben
I was at a long and fruitful client presentation this morning. Left my place at around 6:10am.
The meeting went really well. But there was a section of the meeting that had very little to do with me. There was a bit of a tussle between the client and one of the other service providers.
So I decided to bite my tongue. I've contracted to Blue Moon on this one, and we're there to supply content, and I'm doing the creative direction on it, as well as writing it.
This means that it's not appropriate for me to stick my nose in when the bickering starts.
Which left me to play with my tablet pc. I was taking notes in Microsoft OneNote, and I had doodled Geoff, the client, in black lineart. While the tussle was happening, I decided to export the pic from OneNote into ArtRage, via CorelDraw, so that I could do some colour work on it.
This is the result.
When we finally broke for lunch, I popped it onto a memory stick for Geoff, and handed it to him.
'Oh, no!' he said. 'No! I don't like it at all!'
Graham (from Blue Moon) said, 'Better not show that to your wife, Geoff. She'll fall in love with you all over again.'
Shekha also started off as a doodle in the same client presentation. She was also distinctly unflattered by the lineart version.
I enjoyed the process I followed in making the Geoff pic. So I thought I'd give it a shot on this one.
Really had fun with it.
This painting was made on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc. The lineart was doodled in MS OneNote. I copied and pasted it into CorelDraw. Then exported the image as a jpeg. Finally, I pulled it into ArtRage, and started colouring.
Roy, Hanlie, Liesel, Katlego, Rosie, Carmen, and Ukpong are all doing various components of their Digital Arts Masters at Wits. All of us are classmates in the 'Critical Debates' module of the course.Date:This image has NOT been sanctioned or vetted by my classmates. I just hacked it together cos I wanted a poster for my blog. It's a remix of a pic I made some time ago. I simply added lettering, using ArtRage 2.2 on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc. I was at Graham's desk at Blue Moon at the time. Getting in his way. And having people ogle my pc.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Time:
9:00am - 1:00pm
Location:
Wits University Digital Arts Department, The Convent, opposite Wits Theatre, next to the Nunnery.
Corner Jorissen and Station Streets,
Braamfontein, Johannesburg.
Ah! I'm an excited fellow! That's because my shopfront on the Prickie.com website is now alive and kicking.
And as a buddy of mine said when I showed him the designs, 'Roy, you have a VERY busy mind. And it's VERY dark in there.' I don't know WHAT he could have meant. Do you know?
If it's not clear to you by now, or if this is the first post of mine you've ever seen, you'll know that I'm a pretty perverted leftwinger. I'm also a commited feminist. One who plays BDSM-BDSM every now and again with willing participants. One who is exploring polyamory as a lifestyle of choice.
Which means it should come as no surprise to you that many of my badges will be overtly political, outrageous, even sick. (And possibly even totally inexplicable.)
You'll also notice the feminist badges. 'My other breast is also a Porsche' is basically meant to be worn on the breast by women who are sick of men not being able to meet their eyes cos they're glued to the cleavage.
See what I mean? We're fucked, aren't we?
It's not JUST a political response. Condoms actually DO make me horny. Hehehehe.
ewildered, and moved onto the next designs.
And for some reason, 'Button Pushers of the World Unite' one is getting belly laughs.
One of the pairs I've come up with, which I'm busy designing now, has ALREADY caused outrage in a few of the people I've shared the concept with.
For instance, there's a follow up to 'Hide Erect Nipples'. It's this: 'And Osama'.
I'm going to issue two warnings to you.
Oh... one last thing... the folks at Prickie.com have made it really easy to buy badges in bulk. You'll notice funny icons on the checkout cart. They say things like, 'Free shipping' if you order a specified number of badges. And 'Double your order' when you hit another point.
