VJ Holly Daggers: Go-Go Music Videos Go Live

With Holly’s help, you, too, can go go-go. Touring with bands likes the Black Eyed Peas and Fischerspooner, Holly uses her live VJ rig with specialized screens to convert everyone from club kids to tour roadies into hip, hot digital dancers. Anyone is game: At the carnival-like Crobar party for the Peas in New York, Holly’s rig attracted body-painted and costumed characters and the usual tipsy musicgoers, turning them into sexier, more digital versions of themselves.

The first step is to position the dancers in front of Holly’s DV camera, against a reflective screen. The camera feeds a video mixer, compositing the live human against a digital backdrop via a process called chroma-keying, the same color-compositing technique used by your local TV weatherperson. Then Holly really works her magic: She uses a video sampler to loop and repeat samples of video from the camera. She might catch a woman shaking her hips and throwing her head back, for instance: Time that video sample correctly, and she can make the gesture repeat in loops timed to the beat of the music. Masterfully and creatively performed, the effect can be addictive — and can make anyone look like a brilliant dancer. (In a politically poignant moment, a repeated sample of two men kissing brought cheers in Chicago.)

The magic behind the video sampling is the Korg Kaoss Pad Entrancer. As on Korg’s Kaoss Pad audio processor, a simple but expressive X/Y touchpad lets you control the effects. By holding down a button, Holly can sample live incoming video, then play it back looped, either tapping in a tempo or scratching video with the touchpad. The sample time is limited to a few seconds, but it captures high-quality, full-resolution video. (The Entrancer has built-in effects, too, but Holly says scratching and sampling carries the evening most of the time.)

The next trick is to make the compositing look good. You’ve probably seen lousy-looking chroma-keying with noticeable edges; the problem is that traditional blue-screen techniques can produce inconsistent results outside of controlled lighting environments. Instead of a blue screen, Holly uses a slick, silver screen made by Reflecmedia called Chromaflex. It uses the same 3M Scotchlite reflective fibers as found in reflective signs and jackets so that, when coupled with a special light ring around the camera, the lighting being used for chroma-keying can be tightly controlled. By compositing the live video feed with her background using the chroma-key feature of the Edirol V-4, Holly can get slick results in real time.

Could you add video to your own band? Absolutely — and if you want a reason to do it, just ask Holly about the lonely roadie who looked so cool dancing onscreen at a Chicago club that women were literally lining up for his phone number. (“He disappeared with someone,” Holly says.)

Holly has a few tips:

• Go hard, not soft: Even if you’re going to use computer software for processing, having a video mixer like the Edirol V4 is a must for serious VJ work. Hooking a DV camera into a computer introduces latency, and the V4 is incredibly rugged and reliable.
• Flaunt it: Making what she was doing visible was part of the key; the Entrancer lights up when you press it, and the video monitor made it clear that the VJ tricks were all live.
• Silhouette your inhibitions away: Holly discovered that shy dancers got uninhibited when she reduced them to sultry Bond-style silhouettes.
• Think on your feet: Keyboardists run out of hands fast, but both the V4 and Entrancer accept MIDI input, so you can use your keyboard as a trigger or hook up foot pedals.
• Video saved the radio star: Put that VJ rig onstage, and make yourselves the star of your own music video. Even if you’re just hooking up a cheap DV cam to a computer with some effects, act like the sex machine you are!