Paradise on Fire

3:07 minutes

Paradise on Fire

Project Description

This video montage is a dream-like story about loneliness and creativity. I have two archetypes or alter egos: the raging black unicorn and a young woman , Ophelia. Childhood trauma represses Ophelia’s expression. She is revived with the help of the powerful unicorn. The young woman is rescued and finds a creative life again. Saving both the unicorn and the woman. The Phoenix rises from the ashes.

PAID COMPONENTS

Voiceover

Voiceover on this video is by Steve Teare, the author of the poem.

Midjourney prompt: ophelia, high resolution, water –ar 9:16

OPEN-SOURCE COMPONENTS

Music Source

All soundtracks are music videos downloaded as MP3 audio files. I used free online YouTube downloader tools. There are many downloaders and they often advertise porn (so watch out!) Sometimes there is a copyright claim. But often when using stems, there is no restriction for monetization. But monetization is not our goal. I use YouTube only for hosting to conserve server resources. And keep our home site http://DizzyPictures.com loading fast. I use a WordPress video lazy-load plugin called Embed Plus Plugin for YouTube Pro ($39). Others are available but this premium one prevents recommendations of competitor video content. We want to keep people on our site and not on YouTube. YouTube has thwarted this feature to a degree with the inset “View on YouTube” non-feature link.

Five pieces of music are used for this video montage:

  • “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles, A major 68bpm vocals [ezstems.com].mp3
  • Voiceover audio “Paradise on Fire” by Steve Teare.mp3
  • “Dirty Diana” by Michael Jackson, G minor-132bpm-MJ1-accompaniment_ no vocals.[ezstems.com]-extraction.mp3
  • A Major-F# Minor – Ambient Pad.mp3
  • 121 BPM 44 – INDIE DRUM LOOP #2 Drum Beat – Backing Track.mp3

Audio Editing and Vocal Stems

I extracted the accompaniment “stem” from Dirty Diana and the Eleanor Rigby vocal stem.

Stems are stereo recording components extracted from many audio tracks. I created the vocal stems using https://ezstems.com/ and https://www.acapella-extractor.com Both free online tools. I cleaned up the downloaded MP3 stems afterward in Audacity. I used: the high pass filter, transformed the stereo into mono, and added audio compression.

Audacity is a free and open-source digital audio editor. It’s available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. We’re using open-source Linux Mint Cinnamon as our computer operating system.

Music Modules
Modular music is the combination and overlapping of different compositions. One over the other. The compositions are also called modules. For me, those modules are covers performed by one or many different artists in different moments. You can add or remove new modules to create new work, a new composition, different from the original one. You can expand and extend a modular composition in time, space and size.

Soundtrack

The video is built around the song “Dirty Diana” released in 1988.

Atmospheric Backing Track

I added a YouTube A-major (F# minor) chord ambient backing track. These are called “pads.” Ambient Pads are atmospheric tones designed to fill out the sound of any music. You layer them under any major or minor chord progression. Pads are ambient, sustained sounds characterized by heavy reverb and delay. They are a staple in audio productions from pop music to film scores. A pad is a sustained chord or tone generated by a synthesizer. It’s often used as background harmony or for atmosphere. Like a string section, it’s used to pad out the sound of an orchestra or film score – or in our case, perhaps a vocal stem.

Music heightens a video’s emotion. It creates an aural mood for each scene, along with sound effects and dialogue. Film scores are custom-made and often performed by orchestras. Today a video score might feature all manner of sounds and instruments. A video soundtrack is already-written popular songs featured in a film or video. In a two-hour movie, there is about an hour of music. My videos are often music videos. And so the music is 3 to 5 minutes long – on occasion, 7 minutes.

Midjourney prompt: realistic, ophelia, petting black unicorn, frank frazetta style, –ar 16:9

Sound Effects

  • explosion_bomb_06_PremiumBeat.mp3 effects
  • Sand_Boots_Running.mp3 effects

Open-source Video

We used a stock video montage of dark images. We also created a montage of AI generated with 35 still images. They were created using Midjourney AI Bot. The prompts were lyrics from the voiceover. The Ken Burns Effect tool used to create the video is open-source PhotoFilmStrip software on Linux Mint. PhotoFilmStrip creates video output of still images in 3 steps. First select your photos, customize the motion path, and render the video.

Midjourney prompt: frank frazetta, Friesian, black, unicorn, horse in water, highly detailed, epic, 8K –ar 9:16

Video Editors

We do video production using Kdenlive open-source video editor version 21.04.3 on Linux. There is a newer version available 22.04.3 as of July 10, 2022.

Titles are made in Kdenlive. The free-for-personal-use font is Big Noodle Titling, a display uppercase movie-poster font ($15 to buy the font family). https://www.dafont.com/bignoodletitling.font

Kdenlive video editor for “Paradise on Fire.”

Tracks

There are 11 tracks. 4 video tracks and 7 audio tracks.

V4: Lyrics rollover, logo and title clips, logo and title clips

V3: Fire.mp4 clip and unicorn logo end

V2: compilation of open source dark video clips, 4.5X original speed

V1: AI Midjourney motion video

A1: 0.00dB, Isolated vocal stem Eleanor Rigby

A2: 13.27dB, voiceover

A3: -6.60dB, explosion effect

A4: -8.34dB, sand boots running effect

A5: -9.08dB, “Dirty Diana” accompaniment stem

A6: -15.61dB, A Major (F# minor) backing track (pad)

A7: -10.64dB, drum track

I used a microphone for voiceover and edited it in Audacity and added reverb. But no camera is used to make this video montage. All components except music sound track are free web assets. The final video is a 60MB MP4 file. Google YouTube found no copyright claims.

PARADISE ON FIRE

Invisible friend
used to play so free
vibrant alive
she a joy to me
drown in the tub
a mystery

Under the water
that’s where she’d stay
Dead while alive
never more to play

I wondered so long
why she never came out
speechless mummy child
never more to shout

Then one day I saw
what was plain to see
Poor Ophelia drown
she was part of me

I wept and I wailed
but she’d never arise
lost in the water
in tears that she cried

betrayed by love
for decades gone by
watery grave
no one knew why

And then one day
the unicorn came
black raging power
her soul to reclaim

He nudged her free
she clung to his back
they rode like hell
escaping attack

She was free
Paradise on fire
Invisible friend
Eden on fire

Invisible friend
alive again

STEVE TEARE 2022