Carson Sequence

[Guest guest]

ktulu909 wrote:

Let me see if i can explain myself with this one.I downloaded Carsons sequence and since Im still a newbie here,I used it as a learning tool.Basically I used it to learn how to do certain efects such as the spinning on the Mega tree and a few others.It was simply something that I could compare to something I had seen in the tape vs just the view display within LOR.

Now am I going to use the song next year?Yes I am.Am I going to lay out my yard exactly like Carsons?No im not.As a tribute to the video that brought me here and into this hobby,I may incoperate a few seconds of some of his more specific and noticable effects at certain parts,but mine has been for the most part completely redone.I guess an example of that is the C9 outline of the house at the peak of the song.

I dont think that theres anything wrong with it,as long as its not a blatent copy.Sharing ideas and sequences here can lead to great things as long as you put your own touch to it.I guess I can relate it to playing music,my band did a few cover songs,but we did them our way!

Exactly. And to add, there will be other songs in everyones displays, not just the one tune, W.in.W. music/sequence. I can't imagine anyone having the exact same songs with the exact same sequences for the exact same displays.

I'll have some originals for sure :].

Tom

[Guest guest]

I never said sharing is bad. I will give away all of my sequences if asked! But for me too many people that I have talked to are refering to wizards of wonder as being some crazy guy's light show.




--Daniel L

[Guest guest]

There are a number of opinions on this topic, here is mine.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with taking a freely shared sequence and using it verbatim. I even see nothing wrong with copying a persons exact layout so you can use that sequence channel by channel with absolutely no changes required!

To do so would be the utmost complement to the creator of the sequence. Light shows such as this are best seen in person so a show that was created by a person in Ohio could be seen live by people in Canada and Texas! As always, when you copy someone you should give them credit and not act as if it was your own creation.

Another reason to do this is the reduction of risk. If you are going to invest in this technology and want to be sure that you will have something to show for your investment then this approach guarantees success.

Now would I do this? No... I have a display already and I have my own vision of what I want to do with the lights. For two years I have had a number of TSO songs that I have wanted to sequence (Wizards is not one of them). I still have not taken the time to do those new songs (Mary reminds me constantly during the season that we need some new songs!). When I do finaly sequence those TSO songs I hope that they are at least 1/2 as good as they looked in my mind.

We are all different, we all have different expectations of our displays and of ourselves. As computerized lighting grows there will be a number of "standard songs" that will start to be part of many shows. These songs will be "standards" because people just like them, or someone does a fantastic job sequencing the song most likely a combination of both those things. But in any case these songs will be ones that fit comfortably with the application of lights. Wizards is one of them for now, others will follow.

[Guest guest]

Well Said!!!

James

[Guest guest]

Daniel wrote:

What do you mean?



--Daniel L

EAB wrote:

Not a bad idea Daniel. How would you do it?

How would you synchronize TSO Daniel?

Well, I've been putting up a semi-elaborate display for years now, but nothing animated until this year. I will admit that in order to learn how to synchronize music, I downloaded Carson's animation and studied it. Of course, it's not really anything until you put it to music, so I downloaded the song as well from iTunes.

It gave me some good ideas. The way I feel about it is that Carson drew a line in the sand and challenged me to surpass it, figureitively speaking. With that in mind, I already knew how I wanted to re-structure my existing display, 8 stars, 8 snowflakes, a fog machine, laser, two snow machines, 18 mini trees, a 12 channel mega tree and so forth...

Did I borrow ideas from Carson? Not really. He only gave me ideas to what I would like to see in my display. The trouble is if you synch a show using WIW by TSO, you may use some of the same elements even though you're not borrowing them, if you know what I mean? ie: Everyone spins a mega tree, everyone chases mini trees, everyone lights up their roofline. So, is the challenge to come up with something more original than the norm? I'm going to do a WIW synch that's my style, not copied from Carson. JMHO..

[Guest guest]

Personally I see nothing wrong with adapting someone elses sequence that they have made freely available. I put together 3 sequences in 05 that took an average of 8-10 hours a piece. After two weeks of the same three songs in a loop I decided to add a fourht but did not have time to make a new one from scratch.

Enter Carsons sequence....

I was able to adapt carsons sequence to my display in no more then :30 minutes!! compared to the previous 8-10 hours each that was quite an improvment. Would I rely on adapting others work solely? No. I actually enjoy the creative process.

I even swith it up a bit. I alternate songs that make heavy use of color fades with songs that make heavy use of chasing lights. It is quite interesting but I get people how just love one or the other type of sequence.

So in summary I say share and share a like! If it helps bring new people into our hobby then there can be nothing worng with it.

my .02...

Frank

[Guest guest]

Many of you (those that order a set anyway;)) will get chance to see a fair number of different renditions of Wizards in Winter among the 40 displays featured in Holiday Lights 2005 when the set becomes available for sale next week.

As you watch the visual interpretations of music these displays offer, you will appreciate the fact that you can take any given song, and completely change its visual impact by focusing on other than the simple beat of the song, by changing some of the focus of lighting to include the percussion, brass, and vocal segments, to name a few.

I think you will see what I mean.

Greg

[Guest guest]

Tim I set up my mini's in the shape of a diamond this year and since I have no video I am sure it was not me you saw. However, with what I am going to do this year I will need to do a triangle shape. Hope you don't mind? Believe me it is going to be nothing like Carson's or anything else anyone has done before. I did share the idea with marty and would be happy to share with you as I value your opinion.

I did use TSO WIW this year but had it progamed in July so am sure it was not too much of a problem. BTW I will use at some time Carson's idea on the mini's shifting left to right but it is not too hard to figure out as I did something simular with the diamond.

[Guest guest]

Not to be picky or anything. It's "Wizards IN Winter" or "WIW", not "of" :smile:. We have to set an example for the newbies :]. It's just a flesh wound .

Tom

[Guest guest]

Man I seem to have hit a nerve. We all 'copy' each other to a certain degree: I saw Donny Counts big mega-tree a few years back and decided I had to have one. A lot of you saw megatrees from me, Darryl, or someone else and did the same. We all saw Chuck's mini trees (or someone else who copied Chuck) and copied them, too. This is cool, and fine, and a good thing IMHO.

My only point above is that I like to do things a little uniquely in our display. When I did our mega-tree, nobody that I knew of was using 3 differnet colors. I did our mini-trees in rope light spirals because I hadn't seen that done. For music, I try to choose things a little off the beaten path. That's just the way I am...

If someone wants to use sequences from someone else's display, and indeed make a mirror-image display based on someone else's, and the 'copied' person is fine with that -- more power to them. I'll never look down my nose at you, but I wouldn't personally do it that way.

I've had a lot of people email me asking for specs on some of our display elements -- particularly the mega tree. I'm always glad to help people create their own versions of these items. But I haven't shared sequences. Why?

1. 
   
2. First of all, I generally edit the songs down. There's no legal way for me to give you audio to match my sequences, and without the audio, they would be worthless to you.
   
3. My sequences would be very hard to adapt. I generally don't use the tapper wizard -- I divide the grid into tenths of seconds and just click in events as necessary. Unless you have a display that completely matches mine, it would be very hard to change over. There are no "timings" to easilly copy like you could in a tapped grid...
   
4. Most of you don't like to run your displays the way we do. Most of you like lots of "dark moments" and "staging" and big bright flashes of light. I personally like to see lots of lights on at once, and as such, about 1/2 our display is static, and the rest I like to run LOTS of the channels on at once. I do a lot of very fast chase sequences, etc. instead of lots of "blinking to the beat".
   
5. Because I like to keep our display unique, and pour about 15 hours or more into each sequence I do, I do feel a little bit of "selfish connection" to it. Maybe it's because I'm a software geek by day and therefore feel intellectual property is worth something...

As others have said, Darryl is planning on selling some of his sequences, and I've never seen him disparaged for it. Yet I've had some pretty un-friendly emails as well as comments here from people telling me how selfish I am not to share sequences... :{

-Tim

[Guest guest]

tfischer wrote:

As others have said, Darryl is planning on selling some of his sequences, and I've never seen him disparaged for it. Yet I've had some pretty un-friendly emails as well as comments here from people telling me how selfish I am not to share sequences... :{

-Tim

I'm in the same boat... I usually edit my audio, which leaves no legal way to share the file.

I find that most people simply want to see something, anything, programmed. It's hard for some people to visualize things from their mind into a grid. Seeing it on the screen simply helps them get going.

[Guest guest]

tfischer wrote:

Yet I've had some pretty un-friendly emails as well as comments here from people telling me how selfish I am not to share sequences... :{

-Tim

That's a shame Tim and sorry to hear that this is happening to you. There are plenty of sequences out there open to the public. There is no reason for people to get hateful about it. I begged for a few when I first started just to see how they did it and see some examples (thanks to those who did). But I never got hateful.

Tom

[Guest guest]

I wish you guys would quit talking about this. I'm scared that Mark O. or Terry Dyke will read these posts, and try to start charging me royalties for copying parts of their displays. :laughing:

Bill:P

[Guest guest]

OH MY GOSH I HIT THE "O" INSTEAD OF THE "I"!!!:shock:

Could it be that I am using this stupid laptop with a small keyboard instead of my contoured keyboard? Or maybe my fat fingers. Or maybe that I did not proof my writing.

Oh please forgive me everyone?

:laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing:

[Guest guest]

Robin, all you have to say is WIW is WOW! LOL!!!

[Guest guest]

Tim,

Funny thing. If you do something it is yours. If you want to share it that is ok with me. If you don't that is ok too. Honestly, I can not see why anyone will hammer you or Darryl for anything you do. Both of you have done a lot for this site and the members here and I for one am thankful to you both as well as others on this site. So live well young man and do what you want because they are yours afterall.

To those of you who disagree with Tim just keep it to yourself. Oh and Tim, I love chases. And I love to make that tree spin like a top too.

[Guest guest]

Robin wrote:

OH MY GOSH I HIT THE "O" INSTEAD OF THE "I"!!!:shock:

Could it be that I am using this stupid laptop with a small keyboard instead of my contoured keyboard? Or maybe my fat fingers. Or maybe that I did not proof my writing.

Oh please forgive me everyone?

:laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing:

Robin, I wasn't pointing out one person. It's in the this topic like that several times. Again, I'm not being picky.

And EAB, I like that phrase "WIW is WOW" because in fact, it really is :waycool:.

[Guest guest]

Robin wrote:

To those of you who disagree with Tim just keep it to yourself. Oh and Tim, I love chases. And I love to make that tree spin like a top too.

I don't mind people disagreeing -- I just don't like people getting snarky about it... :laughing:

Tks for your support...

-Tim

[Guest guest]

It's funny this topic has come up for me recently. My students are about to start Romeo and Juliet and I had a student ask if Shakespeare stole the ideas for his plays. I told them the idea was out there and Shakespeare took it and made it his own with the way he put the idea into his plays.

I am new at this and love to have ideas from the "masters." Copying is the highest form of flattery, but I would bet that very few, if any, people actually copy other's sequences. Most likely, they adapt them. That is what Shakespeare did.

Yes, I like analogies--it's part of being an English teacher.:happytree:

[Guest guest]

Santas Helper wrote:

And EAB, I like that phrase "WIW is WOW" because in fact, it really is :waycool:.

Oh yeah!! It becons "Synchonize me, synchonize me"!! Just one of those tunes... Kinda like Silver Bells... It too...

Getting back to the copying... I saw a Carson idea that I saw in another thread which showed another angle to the famous synch... And, Carson used the "Hallelujah Chorus" from the Messiah to open his show...

Borrowing that idea, not copying it, I'm going to be using just the beginning of "Duel of the Fates" (Google it for more info on the soundtrack to Star Wars Episode I) to serve the same purpose... I'm not going to be doing exactly what Carson did, but I'm borrowing his idea... So, I'm honoring him...