My montage was about my musical career and hobbies throughout my years including bands and shows I have played. All of the pictures I used were pictures taken by myself or friends of mine and are from my bands playing at venues across the state. We have played big shows and small shows alike. I ordered the photos according to band. I had three bands portrayed and had five photos for each band. I also had a band logo that signified the start of a new section of the montage and introduced the next band. I also added some special photos that give a visual metaphor of me and my music.
One of those photos is the close up of my bass head stock. It is as if my bass is shooting out of the picture and right into the face of the viewer. That photo signifies my bass playing style. I try to play riffs that grab the listener’s attention and draw them into the music. I try to get into the listeners face and give them riffs and licks that they are repeating hours after hearing them in the song. That is what I try to bring into my music and I feel that the “bass in yo face” picture, as I call it, aptly conveys that ideal.
Another special photo is in the Rumbubber section of the montage and it is the one of the bass and guitar necks. In the photo, it looks as if the two instruments are joined together. I use that as a metaphor for my dynamics as a bass player in a band. I always try to lock grooves with the lead guitar and feed off of it, as well as provide the guitarist something to feed off of in return. It is with this photo that I show I am “musically knit” with my other band mates providing a constant stream of musical energy between everyone.
The last special photo I included was one of me looking off into the distance. I ended the montage with that photo because it symbolizes me looking into the future towards my future musical endeavors, whatever they might be. I added these special photos to help add to my story. As Lotman described in his reading, “Every image on the screen is a sign, that is, it has meaning.” Some of my other photos might have as much meaning as these special ones described, but together, as a whole, they tell more than they could separately, and that is one aspect of the montage style.
Another semiotic aspect that I included in my montage was the music. Each segment has a clip of a song by that band that reflects the sound of the band and what it is about. Tin Pan Alley is a blues band so I included one of our blues songs which features the soulful, wailing voice of our lead singer. Rumbubber is a classic rock band so I added one of our crowd pleasing, straight up rock songs. Under the Lights is a pop-punk band. With bands of the genre, high energy songs and grand amounts of stage presence is a big part of the music. Each of those songs that I included helped to capture the essence of the bands and complemented the photos that accompanied them. This helped to tell the story and give more meaning of the images to the viewer.
One media aspect we talked about in class was motion. I added a little bit of motion to my montage via fade ins and fade outs to signify a new chapter. Rather than have a collection of static images, I added the fades to give some depth and movement to the montage. They make for a more entertaining experience than just seeing static images change before your eyes. Although the movement is not up, down, left, or right, it breaks up the static feeling of the still images. It is an illusion of movement similar to the idea of Zooscopes.
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