Michael Forrest

What I'm working on at the moment...

2009-10-13T23:46:12Z

...when I'm not in Canonical Towers.

I've been busy day and night recently. I feel I should catalogue my various half-finished projects.

1) I'm building an OS X Cocoa version of Animata along with a Quartz Composer plugin and the elements of a suite of live performance software based around all the work I did at the start of the year but unified into a neater package, to make it more fun to use and to improve performance (and so that undo works!)

2) I'm writing a semi-autobiographical graphic novel that I will be publishing in the App Store (as a follow up to my first one)

3) I'm writing an iPhone version of Mood Tracker

4) I'm recording a bit of dubstep here and there

5) I am working on a music-oriented internet dating website with my sister

6) I am working on André Durand's new website

7) I am maintaining the Facebook Mood Tracker app

8) I am polishing and documenting my ActionScript framework and planning to do some proper screencasts about it soon

9) I also have some music-based iPhone apps underway. I'm planning on starting some Ubuntu audio hacking soon to discover some nice open source ways of producing interesting sound from these apps (I have the graphics working already)

10) I am worrying that I am doing too much code and not enough art.

Letter to Michael Bay

2009-06-24T23:13:53Z

Dear Michael Bay

Thank you for that two and a half hour epic of indistinct muttering and non-existent characterisation saturated in testicle jokes and ludicrously contrived situations designed around showcasing Megan Fox's cleavage.

Honestly, why would I mind you riding roughshod over my childhood memories. You know what's best for me. Sure, no - why should the characters in your films bear any relation to the characters from the 80s comic books or cartoons? Why should they look similar? You just go ahead and chuck it all in the bin and make up your own thing. I'm sure nobody will notice.

I NOTICED, MICHAEL. I NOTICED.

Here is what Ratchet looks like:

So who the fuck is this guy?

And why the fuck does he look exactly like this guy?

And why, in the first film, wasn't Jazz, like, a white sports car with a stripe? You couldn't have painted a big blue stripe down the middle of a modern sports car?

I have a few notes for you Michael.

Ironhide is RED. Optimus Prime is RED. 'Red doesn't work on film' you say? What? Um. I'm pretty sure I've seen red in films. All sorts of films. Three Colours Red. The Hunt for Red October. Films like that. They wouldn't put 'red' in the title if they couldn't put red in the film would they? NO MICHAEL THEY WOULDN'T.

Also: Starscream is WHITE with RED BITS. So you can tell him apart from the other two otherwise identical Decepticon planes Thundercracker and Skywarp. I remember, because I had the toy of Starscream. When I got him for Christmas, my first Transformer toy, when I was six years old, I was overjoyed. Overjoyed. He was my dream come true. I couldn't believe my luck. Little did I know that you were WAITING FOR ME MICHAEL. WAITING TO TAKE HIM AWAY FROM ME. WAITING TO MAKE HIM LOOK LIKE SOME SORT OF INDISTINCT STUMPY TRIANGLE-LOOKING THING THAT LOOKS ALL WRONG BECAUSE YOU THOUGHT IT WOULD BE "COOL" TO TRY AND MAKE HIM LOOK LIKE THE DECEPTICON INSIGNIA MICHAEL. YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD DO BETTER. WELL YOU DIDN'T. YOU DID WORSE. HE LOOKS SHIT NOW MICHAEL. HE LOOKS THE SAME AS ALL THE OTHER SHIT LOOKING ROBOTS IN THE SHIT FILMS WITH WHICH YOU'RE RAPING MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES.

Also, Bumblebee was a VW Beetle. It was the 80s. They were in the 80s. That's what cars they had then.

The only thing you seem to have brought in from the 80s is some backwardly racist 'jive talking' characters.

I will refrain from spoilers because if anybody else reading this letter is anything like me then they'll want to see your film regardless of any bad reviews because they hold Transformers so dear that they're willing to embrace any live action realisation because they've been waiting for it since they were little children. And they probably think 'how could Giant Robots Fighting go wrong'? And then they'll go and see it and they'll realise that Giant Robots Fighting can indeed go wrong. It just takes enough hubris and a big enough budget and enough of a contemptuous disregard for the history of the phenomenon. It can go very wrong. Very wrong indeed.

I read the UK Comics in the 80s. I loved them. Every Saturday morning I would sit in the front room waiting to the paper delivery to hit the mat. From, like, 5:30am or something. Until 9:30 or whenever it was. I would read the stories with glee, read them again, then read them again, until the pages turned to rags.

Reading some of them again as a grown-up, I realised that the beauty of having SO many distinct characters meant that there was a healthy churn - a lot of danger, a lot of death, new characters constantly emerging, fostering a writing style that didn't need to be super-protective of a central set of characters because there were always new, more exciting characters around the corner. And in the comics, thanks to Simon Furman et al, the robots were characters. Some were likeable, some were heroic, some were annoying, some were super-cool, some were treacherous, some were incompetent, some were psychotically evil and hell-bent on destroying the Earth, and it worked.

In your second film I did not at ANY POINT feel concerned for the safety of ANY of the characters. With all the buzz-saws and shrapnell and barbed metal and pointy hooks it was pretty unbelievable when any of the human characters lasted more than ten seconds in the situations in which they were placed. Even the robots didn't seem to be in much danger. It was all dust and masonry and near-misses and as a result it was boring and irritating and it made me MAD.

I wish I could see a Transformers film with a Furman screenplay, set in the 80s, with much simpler robots, with Soundwave with a robot voice and Megatron that transforms into a small gun. That would be so much better than this shit you have been putting out, Michael Bay.

Thank you for your time Michael. We shan't speak again.

Regards

Michael Forrest

Mood Tracker Developments

2009-03-28T19:32:57Z

I've been tinkering with Mood Tracker again (my Facebook app - try it here http://www.new.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=25355222452 )

I've made it so you can edit your reports and added in some new charts. Personally, I'm finding it rather instructive. It's nice to have some hard scientific data to hand when making decisions about how to change your life. You should try it. Prioritising, of course, the activation of the IM bot 'Auntie' who will make sure you keep your data fresh!

Music Videos

2009-03-18T12:42:09Z

I recorded a new song on Sunday and had in mind to produce a video for it. However, I've realised I find music videos rather boring. I was hoping I could produce something in a couple of days but it seems that ludicrous quantities of footage are required, and my animation style feels sorta ropey at best. The lip synch is off, and the movement isn't particularly accurate.

Perhaps I need to bite the bullet and get friends involved. I played a good DJ set on Friday night and in a conversation afterwards somebody pointed out that I can't do everything by myself. As much as I would like to avoid relying on other human beings, it's basically impossible, so I should let people in more.

Trouble is, my artistic concepts tend to be rather complicated and the motivation is not always clear to collaborators. For example, I'm often motivated as much by the pragmatic necessity to finish work within my limited attention span (generally about 2 days per thing) as I am by any particular desire to achieve a certain vision (although ironically if I was producing something for a client I'd spend a lot longer due to the simple fact that I was sure somebody cared and was paying attention!)

I do my best work when I don't care too much about it. Unfortunately now I've spent over 2 days on something that still isn't showing signs of taking shape. It's only a 'first run' (my first go at making a 'proper' music video) so I suppose this struggle was to be expected. I am hoping iMovie '09 makes my life easier (it's installing as I type this post). I am too impatient to work with software that doesn't work in real time!

What was my point? Um.. something like "AMAZING NEW MUSIC VIDEO FOR MY ELECTRO POP FUNK JUNGLE SONG". "COMING SOON". "YEAH YOU KNOW DAT TRUE BLOOD!". Etc... "It's gonna be HARD CORE!" Etc... etc... etc.. yawn...

Rest

2009-02-08T12:29:43Z

Rest
Originally uploaded by michaelforrest

Next steps

2009-01-25T00:21:33Z

I'm gonna put the screencasts on hold for a bit while I concentrate more on narrative elements that I don't want to reveal just yet.

I'm biting the bullet and jumping into some iPhone development next - hopefully will be able to release some of the stuff I'm doing as fun iPhone toys...

Gig in Montague Arms / Friday 23rd January / Peckham / New Cross

2009-01-17T12:23:25Z

I will be playing some live music with the software I've been building recently next Friday in the Montague Arms (a nice gig venue in Saarf Laandon). The gig has been organised by my good friend Bruce, and is to support the Campaigning Alliance for Lifelong Learning (callcampaign.org.uk).

It would be amazing if you could attend!

More Comics

2009-01-04T23:11:25Z

I've uploaded a few more comics from my little pad. I was going to release these over time but it seems I'm now on a completely new mission so I might as well put these up in one go.

They're all fairly personal, but hopefully that means there's a chance I'll connect with something in you that nobody else was specific about before.

Chess / Cousin
I Ching
Worlds / Another Saturday Night

Homebrew Adventures

2008-12-31T20:43:17Z

Scroll to the end to see the two videos (I got onto a little bit of a ramble with my explanations) :-)

I have a lot of admiration for Raymond Scott. He created his own instruments and he played them well.

Raymond Scott lived in times of hardware. We live in times of software. Software is where I see the most potential for innovation and creativity. Ada Lovelace got it right in 1852 when she "acknowledged some possibilities of the machine which [Charles] Babbage never published, such as speculating that "the Engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent."

For years I have worked to gain mastery over the world of music software. I started with the Amiga on MED (getting an Amiga was the sole purpose I had with getting a job as young as I possibly could - paper rounds before and after school almost every day from when I was 13 years old). A few years later and Iwas using PCs and Cubase. I sold my hardware synth (to get a cello) when software synths started becoming viable. I started using Ableton Live from the moment I heard about it - initially sucked in by the realtime time-stretching and kept on it since being able to work with video the same way I've always worked with audio (see my Watchmen Trailer Remix for the most insane project I've tried recently). And let's not forget Propellerhead Reason, and the glory of Rewire. Having had training in classical instruments, I am a great believer in learning how to play my instruments. Ironically enough, the better I get with software, the less good I have to be with classical instruments... (my trumpet teacher would be so un-proud).

Sometimes the software you can buy isn't enough. I spent a few years playing in bands and always wanted to use samples to bring some more life into the sound. But it always felt so disembodied and strange to have sounds coming from nowhere when it was obvious what was coming from the guitars or drums. So I conceived this idea of a 'virtual band'. This would give form to the weird and wonderful sounds possible through audio synthesis and processing, and could inject a lot of interest into live performances. Over the years I have tried to realise this vision in many different ways. I've created models with Poser and 3DS Max, I've written MIDI responsive software in Director, I've made sample players in Flash, but there was always too much latency, or 3D modelling, or rendering or... well ... non-realtime problems, and I always ended up putting the idea on the back burner. Then, a couple of weeks ago, Create Digital Motion blogged about Animata. An open source animation tool with a really simple concept at its core, and the ability to do exactly what I've wanted to do all these years, with a fast workflow, flexibly, and in realtime. So I got to work.

I'd already used Max/MSP for a project but found it incredibly unwieldy when arrays were necessary. I've attempted to use Processing for a complex commercial project and learned that doing everything within Processing can lead to a lot of problems. I've used the Processing libraries in pure Java but found this was too much of a sacrifice in terms of sharing code and exporting applications. So this time I decided to make libraries for Processing with a bit of scripting to bind little projects together within the Processing IDE. So I built a library for the Korg MicroKontrol (and have some others underway), I got the source code for Animata to compile so I could make changes, I did some drawings, I pulled out some of the ideas I'd had earlier in the year for visuals, and I slapped it all together to make what you see in the videos below.

Turns out something that seemed quite simple in my head is gargantuan in terms of implementation complexity, but - well - here it is. Working.

VIDEO 1: Software Tour - overview of the sort of stuff I've been doing. It's kinda blurry but I think that's better than 'kinda takes forever to load' like the first version I uploaded (here, if you're very patient and have a massive screen)

Homebrew Adventures from Michael Forrest on Vimeo.

VIDEO 2: Demo:

Homebrew Adventures - demo from Michael Forrest on Vimeo.

Yeah. So my 'tribute' to my heroes comes across somewhat creepy doesn't it... But hey. It was just a quick job to wire everything out so next week I'll try something else :) Hope you got something from that anyway.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Episode 1: Cousin

2008-11-28T16:05:04Z

I'm still not sure if I'll be able to produce these regularly - visual metaphors are necessary to make these comics work, and I don't have ideas that often.

If I end up with three or four more I may be able to justify the purchase of a scanner...

Programming Love: ActionScript

2008-11-28T10:14:05Z

Yesterday I rediscovered a doc I wrote for LBi and placed on our open source page. You know, I'm rather proud of it :)

If you're remotely interested in Flash development then please go and have a read: LBi ActionScript Project Structure.pdf. I think you will be both inspired and entertained.

Grimaceworks.com on iPod Touch / iPhone

2008-11-18T18:56:10Z

Just thought I'd mention that my new website has been tested on my iPod Touch. I wanted to point out that all the media works - you can listen to any mp3s and watch any videos thanks to the way I've done the Flash fallback content. So if you want to check my stuff out then you don't necessarily have to be at your computer!

Boomshine

2008-11-12T16:25:39Z

Ric Moore of bedroomlab.com just put up this game to play online. I gave him the music and sound effects.

If you get stuck on the higher levels just make your window smaller and reload. Then it will be easier :)

Play it!

Days 1..300

2008-11-11T14:59:50Z

Clicking through old posts via my 'random posts' widget I saw my entry "Day 1", dated 25th February 2008. This was Day One of my attempt to start carving some success as a musician or artist of some sort. This site shows how far I am with that.

I thought I'd find out how many days I am into my project now. Date.today - "25 Feb 2008".to_date Today is Day 260. A round number. Not as round as, say, one hundred though.


>> day1 = "25 Feb 2008".to_date
=> Mon, 25 Feb 2008
>> day1 + 100
=> Wed, 04 Jun 2008

4th June 2008: my 30th birthday. I got a surprise party! Just like I always wanted! And this:

Day 101 involved me losing my best friend, most promising musical collaboration and the path I'd decided to take towards achieving musical success without having to be lonely. A laptop was destroyed in the process. I'm still somewhat less-than-chuffed about that whole development.

Let's fast-forward to Day 200. Friday 12th September. No - let's go to Day 210 - that's when I decided I wasn't capable of being in the foreground, artistically, and started pursuing the more pragmatic and realistic aim of focusing on production. More geeky, less fraught. Along I go.

Day three hundred will be the 21st December. I thought I was going to have a million pounds by about day three hundred. That would have been three thousand three hundred and thirty three pounds a day. I suppose that's something of a high expectation to have of myself. Suffice to say I'm a long way off. And, well, now I need to get twenty five thousand pounds a day to meet by goal by day three hundred.

Anyway, if it wasn't obvious, I spend too much of my time looking inwards. I think I shall step out of my comfort zone and make a phone call.

Not 'art': experiments.

2008-11-11T03:34:26Z

It dawned on me that the word 'art' in the primary navigation of my new website was a word put in my mouth by other people. It hasn't been sitting right with me at all, beyond being a conveniently short catch-all word for my creative pursuits.

'Experiments' is a term that captures much more precisely the nature of the work I have placed here. Everything you will find is experimental on some level - be it an attempt to push my own boundaries, or the boundaries of music in general. Less obvious are the experiments where I have developed a process - usually geared around creating work extremely rapidly. I get bored if any remotely subjective project takes me longer than a day or two to create. So, while you may have seen the sort of fast cutting and micro-manipulation that is present in a few of my YouTube videos done before by others, I have replaced their painstaking approach with a loose, fast, easy approach of my own, allowing me to throw stuff together very quickly. Where possible I will use the edge features of new software, but to be sure, I often prefer to program my own tools.

While a lot of what I have done might perhaps be considered 'art' by others (I'd like to hope so anyway), as far as I'm concerned, these are technical experiments or creative attempts to achieve certain emotinal effects, created quickly by delegating as much monkey-work to the computer as possible.

New Website

2008-11-10T20:07:48Z

I have revamped my website! It's less of a blog and more of a fully-formed showcase site now.

There's a feedback widget to the left you can use to control where I focus my efforts from now on.. Hope you like it!

Uh, yeah, thanks Last.fm

2008-11-01T11:31:22Z

I'll be retiring on these royalties then.

Production page

2008-10-20T23:04:44Z

Okay, here's a showcase of some of my best stuff in an attempt to bring it all together in a place a busy person can check it out...

grimaceworks.com/mf/production

Who do I need to talk to?!

2008-10-20T20:36:00Z

I'm trying not to divide my efforts and stay focused on one goal.

My one goal is to make music for a living.

After a few months of exploration I have settled on the goal of producing records for other artists. I am already recording stuff with several people.

But I'm at a total loss as to who I should be talking to. I need to have a meeting with someone from a major label. Which label, I don't know. What position that person would be holding, I don't know. Does anybody have any ideas?

Mood Tracker again

2008-10-10T16:29:39Z

Seems my Facebook app has been quietly gaining users.

From people all over the place. The last mark is zero because the data doesn't get changed until midnight. I couldn't work out how to narrow the range - the flash kept freezing!
I'm staying with my family today, and somebody reminded me I know celebrity psychologist Paul Britton, and that perhaps I should be talking to him and other people about this application. And perhaps I could somehow monetise it.
I have no idea how I would monetise it.

Radiohead Reckoner Remix

2008-10-07T20:00:06Z

So I spent this afternoon surrounded by a circle of gear, recording this remix, after Dave kindly donated the 'stems' (they must always be referred to as 'stems', with the quote marks).

I didn't want to go too electronic on it - I decided I wanted to do something that wouldn't be too out of place on a Radiohead record. It was nice sitting inside a circle formed by my drum kit, rack units, microphone assembly, moog prodigy, cello, trumpet, clarinet, controller keyboard and laptop. The only bad thing is it meant I was listening to my speakers at the wrong angle, meaning I was mixing it slightly wrong as I was going along - hopefully it's not TOO bad, now that I've tweaked it.

There was a lot of music spilling into the vocal track, so I ended up incorporating this into a fill, bringing in the 'big' music. Oh anyway. Have a listen.

Listen here and vote for it: http://www.radioheadremix.com/remix/?id=868

What Art Is, To Me

2008-10-06T00:44:45Z

This is my first ever comic. I think it explains a few things anyway.

What Art Is, To Me

L1NA Listeners

2008-09-29T11:32:54Z

I've been tracking the number of listeners reported by Last.fm (see last.fm/music/L1NA). Here's how it's been looking.

MF is Michael Forrest on Last.fm.

(L1NA is the project I was doing with Halina that we sadly had to abandon)

I suspect hope subsequent collaborations will perform similarly. Well - should be better really - this, I think, is just bubbling viral spreading without any marketing.

Mischief

2008-09-25T00:55:17Z

Sad but inevitable realisation

2008-09-22T10:04:53Z

I'm not going to make it as an artist. I have the talent but not the demeanour, nurture or training. My work is all about pushing technical boundaries but as music it is too ungrounded - too unlimited. I am stylistically fickle and I'm not prepared to live on the bread line in the service of my art because what constitutes art to me develops on a daily basis.

By letting go of my pursuit of high art I have the potential to be happy. I can enjoy listening to music without bitterness or disappointment. I can be gentle and subtly expressive in my work instead of constantly trying to tap into a higher plane of sonic originality. I can breathe again.

I am still in the early stages of mourning this loss. I am intensely sad, but I'm not miserable - I am optimistic, I know this is for the best.

My place is to produce work like this. My real talent is in lifting artists' work to new places, taking things like this to this.

update
Just to clarify - I'm not stopping making music, no damn way!!! I'm just saying I'm focusing on being a producer rather than trying to be the artist from now on. Quincy Jones instead of Michael Jackson.